Rumors of O’Neill’s disaffection had again reached the queen, and again he journeyed to London and reassured her of his “loyalty.” He even made great show of accepting the English title of Earl of Tyrone, and returned to Dungannon encumbered with the gold chain symbolical of his new “rank.” This did not please his clansmen, who could not see into his dissembling schemes, so he was obliged to placate them by consenting to be installed as The O’Neill—a title he very much preferred to his English one of Earl—at the rath of Tulloghoge (Hill of the Youths), in his native Tyrone. Thomas Davis, the poet of Young Ireland—a party of Irish literary men and high-souled patriots who flourished from 1842 until 1848—in his fine ballad of the “True Irish King,” gives a vivid picture of the scene in the following lines: “Unsandaled he stands on the foot-dinted rock; Like a pillar-stone fixed against every shock. Round, round as the rath, on a far-seeing hill, Like his blemishless honor and vigilant will. The graybeards are telling how chiefs by the score Had been crowned on the rath of the kings heretofore: While crowded, yet ordered, within its green ring, Are the dynasts and priests round the True Irish King. “The chronicler read him the laws of the clan, And pledged him to bide by their blessing and ban. His skian and his sword are unbuckled to show That they only were meant for a foreigner foe; A white willow wand has been put in his hand— A type of pure, upright, and gentle command, While hierarchs are blessing, the slipper they fling And O’Cahan proclaims him a True Irish King. “Thrice looked he to heaven with thanks and with prayer, Thrice looked to his borders with sentinel stare— To the waves of Lough Neagh, to the heights of Strabane; And thrice to his allies, and thrice to his clan— One clash on their bucklers—one more—they are still— What means the deep pause on the crest of the hill? Why gaze they above him? A war eagle’s wing! ‘’Tis an omen—hurrah for the True Irish King!’” Those who may condemn the apparently tortuous policy of O’Neill must bear in mind that he was only practicing against the enemies of his country the double-dealing and subtle acts they had themselves taught him, in order to make him a more facile instrument in their hands for that country’s subjugation. The dark and crooked policy inculcated by Machiavelli was then in vogue at all the European courts, and at none was it practiced more thoroughly than at that of Elizabeth of England. It must be admitted that the English found in Hugh O’Neill a very apt pupil—a true case of “diamond cut diamond.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER VI