presentations of the English ambassador, were obliged to pass on to Rome, where they arrived in May 1608. They were welcomed by Pope Paul Y., and " amply provided with every requirement befitting people of their condition." The King of Spain settled pensions upon them. The Earl of Tirconnell died in a few weeks ; and within two years O'Neill was almost the last of the little band of exiles. He made more than one ineffectual appeal to be permitted to return to Ireland and occupy a portion of his old estates. He became blind; and dying on 20th July 1616, at the age of 76, was buried in the church of San Pietro di Montorio, beside the Earl of Tirconnell and others of his fellow exiles. His tombstone bore the inscription : " D . o . M . hic . quiescunt
IJGONIS . PRINCIPIS . O'NEILL . OSSA." To his
sister Nuala, weeping over his grave, his bard MacWard addressed that noble " La- ment," which, translated by Mangan, is known to all Irish readers. The epitaph is no longer to be seen, the stone having probably been reversed in repairing the pavement of the church ; but the grave is marked by the tombs of the Tirconnells and of the Baron of Dungannon, beside which his is supposed to have been. The inscriptions upon these last are given in Meehan's Fate and Fortunes of Tyrone and Tyrconnell. Mr. Richey thus sums up Hugh O'Neill's character : " In his course of conduct he was essentially not a Celt. He possessed none of the enthusiasm or in- stability of his nation ; he did not exhibit the reckless audacity, self-confidence, vani- ty, and uncivilized craft of Shane ; his composed and polite manners, when treat- ing with the English commissioners, were noticed in contradistinction to the violent and excited expressions of his chiefs. He never committed himself by any hasty or ill-considered step, yet he was able, when the occasic^ required it — as in his attempt to relieve Kinsale — to put his whole for- tune at hazard. He was led astray by neither patriotism nor enthusiasm, as his conduct proved repeatedly ; he perfectly knew the measure of his power ; and — patient, cool, and conciliatory — was ad- mirably adapted to play a losing game ; and when he had lost his stake, he exhibit- ed the very un-Irish quality of appreciating existing facts, and having failed in his attempt to make himself not merely The O'Neill, but the ruler of Ireland, acquiesced in his position, and was willing to make the best of circumstances, by sinking back into the position of an English nobleman. He was not a great (but almost a great) man ; a most able adventurer, whose repu- 416
tation has been dwarfed by the small theatre in which he played his part ; yet, after every allowance, he was undoubtedly the ablest man whom the Celtic race, since the arrival of the English, has produced." Of O'Neill's widowed Countess, Catherine Magennis, his fourth wife, little is known ; she probably died in the Netherlands. His son Con, left behind in Ireland, was educated at Eton as a Protestant, and died in the Tower some time after 1622 ; Ber- nard was left at Louvain to be educated by the Franciscans, and either was mur- dered or committed suicide, 16th August 1617; Henry commanded a regiment in the Spanish service, and died some time before 1626, when the earldom devolved upon John, who also served Spain, and survived until about 1641. By his death Hugh O'Neill's line became extinct. Hugh's daughter Alice, born in 1583, married Sir Randal MacDonnell (ist Earl of Antrim). She is described as " of good cheerful aspect, freckled, not tall, but strong, well set, and acquainted with the English tongue." At a parliament held in Dublin in 161 3, the Earls of Tyrone and Tirconnell and their companions in flight were attainted, and their vast estates, some 5 1 1 ,465 acres, escheated ; 209,800 were made over to the London Companies and to "servitors and natives," and the rest was variously appropriated. An inter- esting disquisition on the results of the treatment of O'Neill and the Ulster chiefs generally, and the policy of the Govern- ment, will be found in the tenth of Mr. Richey's Lectures on Irish History, 2nd Series. The Rev. C. P. Meehan's Fate and Fortunes of the Earls of Tyrone and Tyr- connell contains minute particulars of the lives of Hugh O'Neill, his family, and friends, from his submission at Mellifont to his death. '34 170. 174 n? =69
O'Neill, Sir Felim, one of the most prominent actors in the inception of the War of 1 64 1 -'5 2, fourth in descent from a younger brother of Con Bacagh O'Neill, was born in 1604. Carte gives the follow- ing account of him : " Sir Phelim O'Neile of Kinard, in the County of Tyrone, had a very good estate in that and the adjoin- ing county of Ardmagh, and was the most considerable person of his name in Ireland. His grandfather, Sir Henry O'Neile, had deserved well of the Crown ; and by a patent under the Great Seal of Ireland, dated 12th June 1605, had a grant made him of the whole and entire territory called Henry Gage's country. Sir Henry was slain in the King's service on June 20th 1608, in an action against Sir Cahir O'Dogharty, who had risen in rebellion in
