For this task, Fr. Meehan had unusual qualifications and advantages. He had long lived in Rome, where the last years of the illustrious chiefs were passed, and where, in the Church of S. Pietro Montorio, their bones lie buried under a simple inscription. More than thirty years ago, the sight of this inscription (_D.O.M. Hic quiescunt Ugonis Principis O'Neill ossa--_"Here rest the bones of Hugh the Prince O'Neill") excited within his mind an ardent curiosity to explore the mystery which has so long surrounded that sad flight of the "earls," and their short, feverish life afterward. Since that day the author never lost sight of his object. Though devoted to his sacred duties, and occasionally occupied in illustrating some other page of the history of his country, as in his excellent narrative of the "Confederation of Kilkenny," (_see Library of Ireland,_) yet he was always adding to his store of materials for the illumination of this one dark passage in the fortunes of those most illustrious of Irish exiles. At length we have the result; and it leaves nothing to be desired. Yet we feel inclined at the outset to reproach the learned author for entitling his heroes Earl of Tyrone and Earl of Tyrconnel. Why has he done this when O'Neill's own epitaph has no allusion to such a title, which, indeed, was, in his eyes, a mark of disgrace and a badge of servitude? He had, it is true, submitted to sink for a short time formally from a high chief into an earl when he was in England, and had an object to gain by pleasing and flattering Queen Elizabeth; but in his own Ulster his name and title was The O'Neill; "in comparison of which," says Camden, "the very title of Caesar is contemptible in Ireland." [Footnote 14] [Footnote 14: Camden: Queen Elizabeth.] Moreover, it was not until his long and desperate resistance was at length subdued, not till most of his warriors lay dead amidst the smoking ruins of Ulster, and he had made his submission to Mountjoy at Mellifont Abbey, that he consented to wear with shame the coronet of an earl before his own clansmen and kinsmen. {12} It was a condition of the queen's "pardon" that he should so abase himself. When he quitted Ireland, however, he flung down his coronet and golden chain, and never called himself Earl of Tyrone again. Fr. Meehan himself tells us (p. 161) while describing the honors paid to the chiefs upon the continent: "Wherever there was an Irish seminary or conventual establishment, alumni and superiors vied with each other in congratulating the _illustrious princes_, for such was the designation by which they were recognized in Belgium, Italy, and all over the continent."