O'NE
Leinster swarmed in the English Pale, while the English lay in their garrisons, so far from assailing the rebels, as they rather lived in continuall feare to be sur- prised by them. . . And now they raised James FitzThomas, a Geraldine, to be Earle of Desmond [See Desmond, James, SuGAN Earl] . . with condition that, forsooth, he should be vassal to O'Neill. The Mounster rebelUon brake out like lightning. . . May you hold laughter, or will you think that Carthage ever bred such a dissembling foedifragous wretch as Tyrone, when you shall reade that even in the middest of all these garboyles, and whilest in his letters to the King of Spaine he magnified his victories, beseeching him not to believe that he would seeke or take any conditions of peace, and vowing con- stantly to keepe his faith plighted to that King, yet most impudently he ceased not to entertain the Lord Lieutenant by letters and messages, with offers of submission." Complete as was the victory of the Yellow Ford, O'XeiU had neither the resources nor the ability to follow it up. Mr. Eichey says : " At this date the whole force of the rebels throughout Ireland was estimated by the Council at no more than 18,368 foot and 2,346 horse, scattered over the whole face of the island, without any line which could be taken up by them for de- fensive purposes — without unity of action ; without commissariat, magazines, or sup- plies of any kind, except stray cargoes of munitions from Spain ; without the most ordinary requisites for carrying on a cam- paign in a civilized manner. Most of the insuigent force must have been utterly vmdisciplined, and, for a prolonged cam- paign, practically useless. Crallowglass and kerne sound formidable, and may have looked so ; but as soon as the war in Ire- land was carried on, as it was by Lord Mount joy, such irregular levies merely in- sured the defeat of their party. . . His [O'Neill's] only hope of ultimate success was the arrival of support from Spain; and his constant object was to avoid com- mitting his forces to any decisive engage- ment, and thus to keep them together as long as possible." The Earl of Essex landed in April 1599, with an army of 20,000 foot and 2,000 horse, sufiicient, as Queen Elizabeth and her advisers be- lieved, to crush O'Neill. Essex's forces were wasted in his southern campaign, and his expedition against O'Neill resulted only in a personal interview at Aclint on the Lagan, on 7th August. They met half way in the river (the water reaching to their saddle-girihs), and held a private conference of nearly an hour, at which it
O'XE
is supposed that O'Neill, who possessed profound insight into character, made an impression on his adversary by no means to the advantage of English interests. O'Neill is believed to have demanded the free exercise of the Catholic religion ; that the principal officers of state and the judges should be natives of Ireland ; that half the army should be Irish ; and that he, O'Donnell, the Earl of Desmond, Ma- guire, and his associates should freely en- joy the lands pertaining to their respective tribes. On the 8th September, a truce until the ist of May following was agreed upon, terminable by a fortnight's notice on either side. Elizabeth was indignant at such an inglorious termination of the ex- pedition. In January 1600 Hugh O'NeLU, with a force of nearly 3,000 men, made a foray into iMunster, ravaged the territo- ries of his countrymen in alliance with the English, and strengthened his posi- tion by fresh alliances. He turned aside to visit Holy Cross Abbey, upon which he bestowed many gifts. At Cashel he was joined by the Sugan Earl of Des- mond, and at Inishcarra, near Cork, re- ceived the homage of the MacCarthys, O'Donoghoes, O'Donovans, O'Suliivans, and O'Mahonys. The prestige thus gained was dearly purchased by the death, in a skirmish, of Hugh Maguire, one of his ablest lieutenants. The appointment of Sir George Carew as President of Munster, and the arrival of Lord Mount joy with reinforcements, induced O'Neill to retire to Lester. In May Matthew de Oviedo, who had been named Archbishop of Dublin, arrived as envoy to O'Neill, bringing from Clement VIII. indulgences to all those who had fought for the Catholic faith in Ireland, and to O'Neill himself a crown of peacock's feathers, probably similar to that sent by a former Pontiff to John on his being nominated King of Ireland. Lord Mount joy and Sir George Carew now vigorously set about the reduction of the south, whilst Sir Henry Docwra es- tablished himself at Culmore on Lough Foyle, and opened up commimications with Art O'Neill, Niall Garv O'Donnell, O'Dogherty of Inishowen, and other chief- tains who repudiated O'Neill's authority. No stronger evidence of the inherent weakness of the northern chieftains can be adduced than the fact that a force of 1,938 English and 702 Irish auxiliaries (whereof 388 were unarmed and 315 were left sick at Dundalk) was considered suf- ficient in September 1 600 to make a host- ing into T}Tone.=^' Early in 1601 Tyrone was wasted by Mount joy, who offered .£1,000 for O'Neill's head, and plotted un-
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