And it is very notable that this desperate mutual repulsion between England and Ireland does not date from the "Reformation," nor does it altogether depend upon religious differences. It is true that the acceptance of the new religion by England and its rejection by the Irish furnished the former with a new pretext and a convenient machinery for oppression and plunder. But two centuries before this, Hugh O'Neill's time--and when the English were as Catholic as the Irish--we find his ancestor, Donal O'Neill, in his famous letter to Pope John XXII., describing the relations of the two races in language which is still appropriate at this day: "All hope of peace between us is completely destroyed; for such is their pride, such is their excessive lust of dominion, such our ardent desire to shake off this insupportable yoke, and recover the inheritance which they have so unjustly usurped, that as there never was, so there never will be, any sincere coalition between them and us; nor is it possible there should in this life; for we entertain a certain natural enmity against each other, flowing from mutual malignity, descending by inheritance from father to son, and spreading from generation to generation." {20} The aged Prince of Ulster never saw his native land again. In the following year, 1616, he became blind and, some weeks after, having received the last rites of the church, he died at the Salviati palace at Rome. His history from first to last is a striking and remarkable one. In the "religious" wars of the period, he was a conspicuous figure; and Henry the Fourth of France called him the third soldier of his age--he, Henry, being the first. But English historians of the past and present century have made it a rule to say nothing of him and of his great battles. They seem to desire that the name of the Yellow Ford should be blotted out of history. But once upon a time O'Neill occupied some attention in England. Spenser and Bacon wrote anxious treatises to suggest the best method of crushing him. Shakespeare delighted his audience at the "Globe" theatre by triumphant anticipations of the return of Lord Essex after destroying the abhorred O'Neill-- "Were now the general of our gracious empress (As, in good time, he may) from Ireland coming, Bringing rebellion broached on his sword. How many would the peaceful city quit. To welcome him?"