For this task, Fr. Meehan had unusual qualifications and advantages. He had long lived in Rome, where the last years of the illustrious chiefs were passed, and where, in the Church of S. Pietro Montorio, their bones lie buried under a simple inscription. More than thirty years ago, the sight of this inscription (D.O.M. Hic quiescunt Ugonis Principis O'Neill ossa—"Here rest the bones of Hugh the Prince O'Neill") excited within his mind an ardent curiosity to explore the mystery which has so long surrounded that sad flight of the "earls," and their short, feverish life afterward. Since that day the author never lost sight of his object. Though devoted to his sacred duties, and occasionally occupied in illustrating some other page of the history of his country, as in his excellent narrative of the "Confederation of Kilkenny," (see Library of Ireland,) yet he was always adding to his store of materials for the illumination of this one dark passage in the fortunes of those most illustrious of Irish exiles. At length we have the result; and it leaves nothing to be desired. Yet we feel inclined at the outset to reproach the learned author for entitling his heroes Earl of Tyrone and Earl of Tyrconnel. Why has he done this when O'Neill's own epitaph has no allusion to such a title, which, indeed, was, in his eyes, a mark of disgrace and a badge of servitude? He had, it is true, submitted to sink for a short time formally from a high chief into an earl when he was in England, and had an object to gain by pleasing and flattering Queen Elizabeth; but in his own Ulster his name and title was The O'Neill; "in comparison of which," says Camden, "the very title of Caesar is contemptible in Ireland." [Footnote 14]
[Footnote 14: Camden: Queen Elizabeth.]
Moreover, it was not until his long and desperate resistance was at length subdued, not till most of his warriors lay dead amidst the smoking ruins of Ulster, and he had made his submission to Mountjoy at Mellifont Abbey, that he consented to wear with shame the coronet of an earl before his own clansmen and kinsmen. It was a condition of the queen's "pardon" that he should so abase himself. When he quitted Ireland, however, he flung down his coronet and golden chain, and never called himself Earl of Tyrone again. Fr. Meehan himself tells us (p. 161) while describing the honors paid to the chiefs upon the continent:
"Wherever there was an Irish seminary or conventual establishment, alumni and superiors vied with each other in congratulating the illustrious princes, for such was the designation by which they were recognized in Belgium, Italy, and all over the continent."
But on this subject it may be remarked that the policy of the British government in thus forcing the coronets of feudal nobility upon the unwilling brows of Celtic chieftains, whether in Scotland or in Ireland, has never yet been sufficiently understood. It was an essential part of the invariable British system of forcing its own form of social polity upon every part of the three kingdoms, as each part fell successively under English dominion. It was necessary, as Sir John Davies, Attorney-General for Ireland under James the First, declares, to abolish what he calls the "scambling possession" which Irish chiefs and clansmen had in their lands, and compel them to hold those lands by "English tenure;" in other words, that the chiefs should become landlords or proprietors of those districts which had formed the tribe-lands of their clans, and that their clansmen should become tenants subject to rent, which, in the seventeenth century, had grown to be a commutation for all feudal services. In short, the problem to be solved was to force in the already corrupt and oppressive feudal polity (which had long lost its true uses and significance) upon the free system of clanship, the ancient and natural social arrangement of the Irish and Scottish Gaël. Neither did that plan, of obliging chiefs to become noblemen—and therefore both vassals and landlords—originate with Elizabeth and James, nor with Sir John Davies. King Henry the Eighth, a century earlier, offered to Con O'Neill, the chief of that day, the dignity of earl, which Con accepted as a delicate attention from a foreign monarch, but took care to be a chief in Tyrone—no vassals, no tenants, no "English tenure" there. The O'Brien of Thomond, however, upon that earlier occasion, did lay down at King Henry's feet his dignity of Chief Dalcais, and arose Earl of Thomond; his son was made Baron of Inchiquin; and the MacGilla Phadruig consented to become "Fitzpatrick" and Baron of Upper Ossory. For their compliance, they were rewarded with the spoils of the suppressed monasteries of their respective countries—places which their own fathers had founded and endowed for pious uses.
The process in Scotland was nearly analogous, after the accession of James to the throne of England. The Mac Callum More (Campbell) was created Duke of Argyll, and invited to consider himself proprietor of all Argyllshire—by English tenure—and landlord of all the Campbells. Mac Kenzie was dubbed Earl of Cromarty on the same terms; and so with the rest: but at home those Highland nobles were never regarded as anything but chiefs; and it was only by very slow degrees, and not perfectly until after 1745, that the old clan spirit and usages disappeared. Thus, in forcing conformity with English land-laws, and gradually bringing the soil of the two islands into immediate dependence upon the English sovereign, every step in advance is marked by some chief submitting to be made earl or baron, and reducing his free kinsmen to serfdom. Those peerages, accordingly, are monuments of subjugation and badges of dishonor. Hugh O'Neill certainly did not value his title, flung it from him with impatience, quitted earldom and country to get rid of it, and protested against it on his tombstone. For these reasons, many readers of Fr. Meehan's book will wish that the author had given to his heroes the titles by which they themselves desired to be remembered.
Having thus vented our only censure, upon a matter rather technical and formal, the more agreeable task remains, of making our readers acquainted with all the merits and perfections of this charming book. Fr. Meehan does not undertake to narrate the earlier life and long and bloody wars against the best generals of England, but takes up the story where the chief was desperately maintaining himself, and still keeping his Red Hand aloft in the woody fastness of Glanconkeine, on the side of Slieve Gallen, and by the banks of Moyola water, awaiting the return from Spain of his brother-chief, Hugh Roe O'Donnell, with the promised succors from King Philip. But in those very same days, that famous Hugh Roe had lain down to die in Spain, and succor came none to the sorely pressed Prince of Ulster. His great enemy, Elizabeth, too, was on her death-bed, almost ready to breathe her last curse. But in her agonies she by no means forgot O'Neill. Father Meehan says:
"It is a curious and perhaps suggestive fact, that Queen Elizabeth, while gasping on her cushions at Richmond, and tortured by remembrances of her latest victim, Essex, often directed her thoughts to that Ulster fastness, where her great rebel, Tyrone, was still defying her, and disputing her title to supremacy on Irish soil. But of this, however, there can be no doubt; for in February, while she was gazing on the haggard features of death, and vainly striving to penetrate the opaque void of the future, she commanded Secretary Cecil to charge Mountjoy to entrap Tyrone into a submission on diminished title, such as Baron of Dungannon, and with lessened territory, or, if possible, to have his head before engaging the royal word. It was to accomplish any of these objects that Mountjoy marched to the frontier of the north; but finding it impossible to procure the assassination of 'the sacred person of O'Neill, who had so many eyes of jealousy about him,' he wrote to Cecil, from Drogheda, that nothing prevented Tyrone from making his submission but mistrust of his personal safety, and guarantee for maintenance commensurate to his princely rank. The granting of these conditions, Mountjoy concluded, would bring about the pacification of Ireland, and Tyrone, being converted into a good subject, would rid her majesty of the apprehension of another Spanish landing on the Irish shore. It is possible that this proposed solution of the Irish difficulty may have reached Richmond at a moment when Elizabeth was more intent on the talisman sent her by the old Welsh woman, or the arcane virtues of the card fastened to the seat of her chair, than on matters of statecraft; but be that as it may, the lords of her privy council empowered Mountjoy to treat with Tyrone, and bring about his submission with the least possible delay."
The author next carries us through the imposing scene of the chief's submission and surrender at Mellifont Abbey, and gives a vivid account of that illustrious religious house, and the lovely vale of the Mattock in which it stands; of his gloomy resignation to his hated earldom; of the organization of Ulster into shires or counties, (never before heard of in those parts;) of the new "earl's" journey to London, along with Rory O'Donnell, the other "earl," and Lord Mountjoy, with a guard of horse:
"Nor was this precaution unnecessary; for whenever the latter was recognized, in city or hamlet, the populace, notwithstanding their respect for Mountjoy, the hero of the hour, could not be restrained from stoning Tyrone, and flinging bitter insults at him. Indeed, throughout the whole journey, the Welsh and English women were unsparing of their invectives against the Irish chief. Nor are we to wonder at this; for there was not one among them but could name some friend or kinsman whose bones lay buried far away in some wild pass or glen of Ulster, where the object of their maledictions was more often victor than vanquished."