on pain of capital punishment. The Irish Gaels of Clandeboye were to be "dispersed into severall Lordshippes and well corrected, yf they breake lawes", those who remained in the area would be reduced to disarmed helots, tiling the land in agricultural labour under English overlordship. The contemporary John Derricke's The Image of Irelande, with a Discoverie of Woodkarne (dedicated to Philip Sidney) further dehumanised the Irish kerns as "noisome worms" and called for Gaels to be "extirped and abolished clean the land." Radical Protestants from the English West Country would be the backbone of this push in both Munster and Ulster. An English official in Belfast during the Clandeboye campaign, Edward Berkeley urged using famine as a weapon of war against the locals, bragging that grain had been taken from them so they had to rely only on milk (which was "easily taken away"), commenting on their starvation he said; "How godly a dede it is to overthrowe so wicked a race the world may judge. For my parte I thinke ther canot be a greter Sacrifyce to god." The most controversial act of Essex's tenure in Clandeboye was the Clandeboye massacre in November 1574, whereby, at a feast in Belfast Castle, hosted by Sir Brian McPhelim O'Neill who was attempting to make peace, Essex ordered his men to indiscrimanently and without warning massacre 200 men, women and children associated with his host. Sir Brian himself, along with his wife and half-brother, were taken away to Dublin to be hanged. Nevetherless, on Essex' campaign, Kiernan states that while "Essex's genocidal massacre of the O'Neill sept foreshadowed more aggressive action", as part of his wider project for the fate of the Irish in Clandeboye, if "total annihilation of the local Irish was not his goal, Essex did want them severely reduced in numbers and subjected to English domination." Kings of Clandeboye Below is a list of the O'Neill sovereign Kings of Clandeboye. The last unified king of Clandeboye was Murtagh Dulenach O'Neill, as the title was subsequently split between Lower Clandeboye and Upper Clandeboye. In 1584, Lower Clandeboye was further split in two, with different bases at Belfast and Edenduffcarrick. Clandeboye itself was later divided between County Antrim, County Down and County Coleraine (later County Londonderry) in the Kingdom of Ireland. Diocese of Down and Connor The religion which predominated at an official level in Clandeboye was Catholic Christianity. The territory