'Sir John Perrott,' says Swift, 'was the first man of quality whom I find upon the record to have sworn by _God's wounds_. He lived in the reign of Queen Elizabeth and was supposed to be a natural son of Henry VIII. who might also probably have been his instructor.' According to Naunton, who is not a bad authority on such a point, Perrott was aware of his royal parentage. 'What,' he asked the lieutenant of the Tower, with oaths and fury, 'will the Queen suffer her brother to be offered up a sacrifice to my skipping adversaries?' Naunton shows that circumstances make the fact not improbable, and adds that Perrott's manners, appearance, and voice were like those which the Elizabethan tradition ascribed to Henry. Hatton, the chief of Sir John's skipping adversaries, was now dead; and the Queen was urged by Burghley and others to spare a faithful, though rash, servant. At all events she refused to sign his death-warrant, and when his speech to Hopton was reported to her, she swore by God's death that they were all knaves. It was thought that she intended to pardon him, and she was often heard to applaud a rescript of Honorius, 'that if any person speak ill of the Emperor through a foolish rashness and inadvertency, it is to be despised; if out of madness, it deserves pity; if from malice and aversion, it calls for mercy.' Perrott died in the Tower in the following September; but his chief request was granted, and his son was allowed to inherit. The fact of that son being married to Essex's sister may have had something to do with this.[220] [Sidenote: Tirlogh Luineach O'Neill resigns the chiefry] [Sidenote: in Tyrone's favour, 1593.] The disputes between Tyrone and Tirlogh Luineach were hard to settle, for the several grants were not easily reconcilable with one another. But Coke's opinion was taken, and that great lawyer laid down that, by virtue of an indenture made in 1587, the Earl might be forced to leave Tirlogh and his son in quiet possession of such lands as should be awarded to them by inquisition. This had been practically a condition of reviving the earldom in Hugh's person, and the older grant of all Tyrone by Henry VIII. was so far modified by it. As to the lands, Fitzwilliam effected an arrangement nearly in accordance with Coke's opinion; but Tirlogh was now old, and finding himself unable to resist both Tyrone and O'Donnell, he thought it wiser to resign his chiefry in his rival's favour. 'Hugh O'Neill, namely the Earl,' say the Four Masters, 'was then styled the O'Neill, and Tirlogh Luineach, having made peace with O'Neill and O'Donnell, sent away the English whom he had with him. This was done in May 1593. Ulster was then under the peaceable government of these two; and they had hostages of the inhabitants in their power, so that they were subject to them.'[221] [Sidenote: The Four Masters' notions of peace.] [Sidenote: A titular archbishop.]