The English were also unfortunate in Connaught and Munster, and when the Earl of Ormond assumed the government of Ireland, by appointment, after the defeat and death of De Burgh, the English interest had fallen lower in the scale than it had been since the days of Richard II. The earl entered into a two months’ armistice with O’Neill, and negotiations for a permanent peace were begun. O’Neill’s conditions were: perfect freedom of religion not only in Ulster but throughout Ireland; reparation for the spoil and ravage done upon the Irish country by the garrisons of Newry and other places, and, finally, entire and undisturbed control by the Irish chiefs over their own territories and people. (Moryson, McGeoghegan, and Mitchel.) Queen Elizabeth was enraged at these terms, when transmitted to her by Ormond, and sent a list of counter-terms which O’Neill could not possibly entertain. He saw there was nothing for it but the edge of the sword, and grew impatient at the tardiness of King Philip of Spain in not sending him aid while he was prosecuting the war for civil and religious liberty so powerfully. The English Government, in order to discourage the Catholic powers and keep them from coming to the aid of Ireland, concealed or minimized O’Neill’s splendid victories. Lombard, cited by McGeoghegan—a most conscientious historian—avers that an English agent was employed, at Brussels, “to publish pretended submissions, treaties, and pardons, so that the Spanish governor of Flanders might report to his master that the power of the Irish Catholics was broken and their cause completely lost.” (Mitchel.) The same charge has been made against England in our own day—only in a different connection. Germany, France, and Russia have semi-officially declared that English agents at Berlin, Paris, and St. Petersburg have persistently misrepresented the attitude of those countries toward America during the recent Spanish War. Whatever may have been the truth regarding the Brussels agent, it is undeniable that King Philip abandoned Ireland to her fate until it was too late to hinder her ruin; and that, when Spanish troops landed at Kinsale, in 1601, they proved more of a hindrance than a help. O’Neill gave up all hope of assistance from Philip in the fall of 1597 and resolved to stake all on his genius as a commander, and on the tried valor of the glorious clansmen of Tyrone and Tyrconnel. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER VIII Irish Victory of the Yellow Ford, Called the Bannockburn of Ireland