Desmond left Lismore with the first light of a winter's morning, and marched to a place called Bewley, where there is now a bridge over the Finisk, near the highest point to which the tide comes. He sent Lord Power and one of his captains to demand Irish service from Sir Maurice, who rode with them towards Desmond, and offered to abide by the order of the Lord Justice and Council, or by the award of four lawyers, two to be chosen by either side. He professed himself willing to do as his ancestors had done. Desmond insisted that all should be left to the decision of 'his own judge,' probably a Brehon, and in any case a partial person. He prepared to encamp in the neighbourhood, killed sixty head of cattle, and sent to Dungarvan for wine. Sir Maurice rode back, without having met the Earl, and saw three houses on fire, one of them being that in which the invader had rested during the forenoon. Sir Maurice and two of his men then went to watch his progress from a neighbouring hill, whence they espied Ormonde and his men coming down the opposite mountain.
[Sidenote: The fight at Affane. Desmond is taken prisoner.]
The Butlers rested on the hill side. Their horses were scattered about at grass, and a countryman galloped off to Desmond, offering himself as guide, and advising an immediate attack. Desmond inquired eagerly whether my Lord of Ormonde were there himself, and on receiving an incorrect answer in the negative, exclaimed, 'Let us go upon them, for they are but young boys, and rascally, and we shall take them grazing their horses.' Lord Power advised him not to meddle with the Butlers, who were perhaps in superior force, but to retire to his house at Curraghmore, where they could not harm him. Desmond's road to Youghal was also open, but he preferred the middle course of returning to Lismore, where his auxiliaries were, with whose help he might hope clearly to outnumber the Ormondians, who refreshed themselves, and continued the even tenor of their way southwards to the ford at Affane. The Geraldine foot went on in advance, and no collision seems to have been at first intended, for they passed Ormonde's main body at the cross roads; but as soon as their leader saw his hated rival, he put spurs to his horse like Cyrus at Cunaxa, and some of his men discharged their pieces. Ormonde seems to have been still unwilling to fight, for he allowed the hostile foot to recross him. Being actually charged, the Butlers stood on their defence, and soon proved the wisdom of Lord Power's advice, for Sir Edmund Butler broke Desmond's thigh with a pistol shot, and some 300 of his men fell. Desmond afterwards said that many of his people tried to escape by swimming the Blackwater, where they were intercepted by armed boats; and he offered this as a proof that the fight resulted from a plot hatched between Ormonde and Sir Maurice. But this was strenuously denied. The wounded Earl was carried to Clonmel, and thence to Waterford, and his adherents withdrew to their own homes.[91]