Essex has dubbed fifty-nine knights during the…
July 1599 CE
Essex has dubbed fifty-nine knights during the campaign—in a willful abuse of his powers—and the queen announces that, "it is doubted that if he continues this course he will shortly bring in tag and rag, cut and long-tail, and so bring the order into contempt."
But she is unable to curtail her commander and rages impotently at the dispatches from Ireland: "She walks much in her privy chamber and stamps with her feet at ill news, and thrusts her rusty sword at times into the arras in great rage."
She can take no more and on July 30 orders an immediate assault on O'Neill.