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advisers. Day by day he brought the sur- rounding clans more and more under his influence. He was soon involved in diiS- culties with the Lord-Deputy, and with Sir Henry Bagnall regarding the payment of his wife's dowry. The Maguires and O'Donnells were at this time in open rebel- lion. Hugh O'Neill last served the Govern- ment in a skirmish against Maguire, in which he was wounded in the thigh. In August 1594 a new Lord-Deputy, Sir Wil- liam Kussell, arrived. O'Neill, after a long absence from Court, suddenly appeared in Dublin, and, according to Moryson, pro- mised al humble obedience to the Queeue, as well before the state at Dublin, in his own person, as to the Lords in England by his letters ; and making his most humble submission to her Majesty, besought to be restored to her former grace, from which he had fallen by the lying slander of his enemies." Against the advice of Marshal Bagnall, his apology was half -accepted, and he was permitted to return home. Elizabeth was much incensed that a man so strongly suspected should be permitted to escape : " Our commandments to you in private for his stay ought otherwise have guided you." The O'Neill war, which lasted about eight years, until March 1603, may now be said to have commenced. The contest between Protestantism and Catho- licism, which then convulsed the Continent, had doubtless much to do in creating ani- mosity between O'Neill and the Govern- ment ; but the principal causes of the war were the incompatibility of his palatine rights with the settled Anglo-Ii'ish go- vernment, and the desire of the chief- tains to guard themselves against the greed and rapacity of adventurers, eager for land, who then swarmed in Ireland. Mr. Eichey inclines to the opinion that Hugh O'Neill rather drifted into the war than entered upon it with a precon- ceived purpose. When it was once inevit- able, he acted with the greatest prudence towards his neighbours, welding them into a confederacy of those who had suffered wrongs at the hands of the Government. He assumed the leadership rather than asserted the mastery. In the subsequent hostilities Hugh Roe O'Donnell, to whom he had bound himself by the strongest ties of friendship, was his ablest colleague. The entire force the Ulster chief s could put into the field was some 15,000 foot and 2,200 horse — for the most part ii-regular levies which it was all but impossible to keep together for any length of time. The entire English force in Ireland at the commence- ment of the war was 4,040 foot and 657 horse ; but they were quickly reinforced,
and the Lord-Deputy could always count on efficient aid from the Earl of Ormond and other Irish allies. The Desmond war had ended in 1585 ; and Hugh O'Neill was not joined by the Sugan Earl of Desmond until 1598. O'Neill's first move was to storm and demolish the fortress of Portmore on the Blackwater. With the Maguires and MacMahons he besieged Monaghan. O'Donnell invaded Connaught in March and April, plundered the recent English settlements, and destroyed several castles. Sir John and Sir Thomas Norris marched north with a force of some 3,000 men ; but could do little more than strengthen the English gaiTison at Armagh. Their at- tempt to revictual the place was de- feated by O'Neill at Clontibret, a few miles from Monaghan, where the Nor- rises were both wounded, and obliged to retreat to Newry with a loss of 600 men. This check did not prevent their soon after- wards relieving the English garrison in Monaghan. Before one of these engage- ments, in sight of both armies, O'Neill engaged and slew in single combat one Sedgrave, an Anglo-Irish knight, who had come forward to challenge him. O'Neill was now proclaimed a traitor and a bas- tard — "that vile and base traitor raised out of the dust " by the Queen. On Sir Turlough O'Neill's death in 1595, he as- sumed the title of The O'Neill, in addition to that of Earl of Tyrone. In September he wrote to the King of Spain soliciting aid, asserting that the only hope of re- establishing the Catholic religion lay with him, and saying that with 2,000 or 3,000 troops he and his friends hoped to restore the faith of the Church, and secure the Spanish king a new kingdom. " To Don Carolo he wrote that, with the aid of 3,000 soldiers the faith might be estab- lished within one year in Ireland, the heretics would disappear, and no other sovereign would be recognized save the King-Catholic." '^^ Excepting some trifling supplies in arms and money, and a few troops, the assistance promised by Philip did not arrive for five years — too late to efiect anything. In January 1 5 96 an armis- tice was arranged between the Government and O'Neill, who was requested to set forth his offers and demands. If these should be acceptable to her Majesty, the Council assured him of her gracious pardon for his life, lands, and goods, and the same for his confederates. On the 20th Janu- ary Sir Henry Wallop and Sir Robert Gardner met Hugh O'Neill and Hugh Roe O'Donnell "a mile out of Dundalk, neither of either side having any other weapons than their swords. The forces 411
