to assassinate Queen Elizabeth I. The chosen assassin had been Hugh Cahill, a Tipperary man, who confessed that he was paid to hang about the court at London, on the off chance that the queen might present herself as a target, and then stab her. The confession had been obtained under torture by Richard Topcliffe, and further information came from an agent of Robert Cecil, secretary to the queen. At this time, Archer was also implicated in a plot to torch the French and English ships at Dieppe. The merits of the allegations are impossible to judge, although it seems clear that Archer was acquainted with Cahill. The assassination plot was just one of many against the queen that received credence during the final decade of her reign. One sceptic has pointed out that the evidence only emerged once Father Robert Persons had published his A Conference about the Next Succession to the Crown of England. The book does appear to have alarmed Elizabeth's advisers, and from that date onward the flow of supposed plots against the queen's life became steady. In 1601 Cecil himself was accused of treason at the trial of the Earl of Essex on the basis of his reading of Person's book, but survived this twist and went on to secure the succession of James I upon the queen's death two years later. Ireland In 1596 Archer returned to Ireland, landing in the southeast (at either Waterford or Wexford), with a view to re-establishing the Jesuit mission there and to raise funds for the college at Salamanca. The brief visit became an enforced stay of four years, and it was soon decided at Rome to make him superior of the new mission. His presence came to the attention of the Lord Deputy of Ireland, Sir William Russell, and the government regarded him with such suspicion that a reward was offered for his capture. By August 1598 it seems Archer had fled north to Ulster, where he joined the rebels as the Nine Years war entered its most active phase. It is probable that, following the English defeat at the battle of the Yellow Ford later in that year, he decided to commit himself to the cause of Hugh O'Neill. With this newfound authority, he returned south to more familiar territory. During the rest of the war reports of Archer's exploits were legion, so that an aura