The author has taken great pains to ascertain the real nature of those dark intrigues against O'Neill and O'Donnell, which resulted four or five years after in the timely escape of those two "earls" from the toils of their enemies--the only measure that could save them from the fate of Sir William Wallace and of Shane O'Neill. O'Neill found himself embroiled in endless law-suits; with Montgomery, Bishop of Derry; with Usher, Archbishop of Armagh, who each claimed a large slice of his estates; with the traitor O'Cahan, his own former Uriaght, or sub-chief, who entered into the conspiracy against him, seduced by the promises of Montgomery and the Lord-Deputy Chichester. The truth was, that the "undertaking" English of the north coveted his wide domains, and could not comprehend how a rebellious O'Neill could possibly be allowed to possess broad lands in fee, which they wanted for themselves. Fr. Meehan has cast more light upon these wicked machinations than any previous writer had the means and authorities for; and it now appears plain that the chief agent of these base plots was Christopher St. Laurence, the twenty-second baron of Howth, and one of the ancestors of the noble house of that title, now gloriously flourishing amongst the Irish nobility. {15} Fr. Meehan's researches have brought home to this noble caitiff the famous anonymous letter dropped in the Castle-Yard of Dublin, and also a detailed deposition, shamelessly setting forth his own long-continued espionage, and on the faith of conversations with several persons, charging Tyrone, Lord Mountgarrett, Sir Theobald Burke, and others, with a plot to bring in the Spaniards, and to take by surprise the Castle of Dublin. O'Neill knew nothing, at the time, of the conspiracy against him; but had a very shrewd suspicion that the Lord-Deputy Chichester and the northern Anglican bishops were resolved to have his blood, in order to get his estate confiscated. One of the McGuires, who was himself in danger from these machinations, escaped to the continent. The author says: