314 DECLARATION OF THE TREASONS 



federates, and behaved himself in all things as one that 

 had some new spirit of hope and courage put into him. 

 But on the earl of Essex his part insued immedi 

 ately after this parley a strange motion and project, 

 which though no doubt he had harboured in his 

 breast before ; yet, for any thing yet appeareth, he 

 did not utter and break with any in it, before he 

 had been confirmed and fortified in his purpose, by 

 the combination and correspondence which he found 

 in Tyrone upon their conference. Neither is this a 

 matter gathered out of reports, but confessed di 

 rectly by two of his principal friends and associates, 

 being witnesses upon their, own knowledge, and of 

 that which was spoken to themselves : the substance 

 of which confession is this : That a little before my 

 lord s coming over into England, at the castle of 

 Dublin, where Sir Christopher Blunt lay hurt, hav 

 ing been lately removed thither from Rheban, a 

 castle of Thomas Lee s, and placed in a lodging that 

 had been my lord of Southampton s ; the earl of 

 Essex took the earl of Southampton with him to 

 visit Blunt, and there being none present but they 

 three, my lord of Essex told them, he found it now 

 necessary for him to go into England, and would 

 advise with them of the manner of his going, since 

 to go he was resolved. And thereupon propounded 

 unto them, that he thought it fit to carry with him 

 of the army in Ireland as much as he could conve 

 niently transport, at least the choice of it, to the 

 number of two or three thousand, to secure and 



