s but those petty lords, under
the burden of whose tyranny they have ever groaned, do now with great
applause desire to be protected by the immediate power, and to receive
correction only from himself, so as if the council of Spain shall
conceive that they have now some great advantage over this state,
where it shall appear what a party their king may have if he shall
like to support it, there may be this answer: that those Irish without
the King of Spain are poor worms upon earth; and that when the King of
Spain shall think it time to begin with Ireland, the king my master is
more like than Queen Elizabeth was, to find a wholesomer place of the
King of Spain's, where he would be loath to hear of the English, and
to show the Spaniards who shall be sent into Ireland as fair a way as
they were taught before. In which time the more you speak of the base,
insulting, discoursing fugitives, the more proper it will be for you.
In the meantime upon their departure, not a man hath moved, neither
was there these thirty years more universal obedience than there is
now. Amongst the rest of their barbarous lies I doubt not but they
will pretend protection for religion, and breach of promise with them;
wherein you may safely protest this, that for any, of all those that
are gone, there never was so much as an offer made to search their
consciences.'

Not content with the labours of his ambassadors at the various
continental courts, to damage the cause of the Irish earls, the king
issued a proclamation, which was widely dispersed abroad. His majesty
said he thought it better to clear men's judgments concerning the
fugitives, 'not in respect of any worth or value in these men's
persons, being base and rude in their original,' but to prevent any
breach of friendship with other princes. For this purpose he declared
that Tyrone and Tyrconnel had not their creation or possessions in
regard of any lineal or lawful descent from ancestors of blood or
virtue, but were only conferred by the late queen and himself for some
reasons of state. Therefore, he judged it needless to seek for
many arguments 'to confirm whatsoever should be said of these men's
corruption and falsehood, whose heinous offences remained so fresh in
memory since they declared themselves so very monsters in nature, as
they did not only withdraw themselves from their personal obedience to
their sovereign, but were content to sell over their native country,
to those who stood