recommended "to his special care to preserve the true exercise of
religion among her loving subjects." As O'Neill was still in the field
with a large army, she prudently pointed out, however, that the time
"did not permit that he should intermeddle by any severity or violence
in matters of religion until her power was better established there
to countenance his action." That the character of their adversary was
faithfully appreciated by contemporary Irish opinion stands plain in
a letter written by James Fitzthomas, nephew of the great Earl Gerald
of Desmond, to Philip II. "The government of the English is such as
Pharaoh himself never used the like; for they content not themselves
with all temporal prosperity, but by cruelty desire our blood and
perpetual destruction to blot out the whole remembrance of our
posterity--for that Nero, in his time, was far inferior to that Queen
in cruelty."

The Irish chiefs well sustained their part in meeting this combination
of power and perfidy, and merited, on the highest grounds of policy
the help so often promised by the King of Spain. They showed him not
only by their valour on the field but by their sagacious council how
great a part was reserved for Ireland in the affairs of Europe if he
would but profit from it and do his part.

In this the Spanish King failed. Philip II had died in 1598, too
immersed in religious trials to see that the centre of his griefs was
pivoted on the possession of Ireland by the female Nero. With his son
and successor communication was maintained and in a letter of Philip
III to O'Neill, dated from Madrid, Dec. 24th, 1599, we read: "Noble
and well beloved I have already written a joint letter to you and your
relative O'Donnell, in which I replied to a letter of both of you. By
this, which I now write to you personally I wish to let you know my
good will towards you, and I mean to prove it, not only by word, but
by deed." That promise was not fulfilled, or so inadequately fulfilled
that the help, when it came, was insufficient to meet the needs of the
case.

History tells us what the sad consequences were to the cause of
civilisation in Ireland, from the failure of the Spanish King to
realize the greatness of his responsibilities. But the evil struck
deeper than to Ireland alone. Europe lost more than her historians
have yet realised from the weakness of purpose that let Ireland go
down transfixed by the sword of Elizabeth.

Had the fate of Europ