exercised only during actual war, and never over his majesty's officers and soldiers. Every effort was made to humour Tyrconnel, but he continued to complain, especially of Sir Niall Garv, to whom he was unwilling to allow a foot of ground (Report to the Privy Council, 30 Sept. 1605). Chichester and his council visited the country, and granted about thirteen thousand acres near Lifford to Sir Niall Garv, reserving the town to the crown. This reservation then became a grievance, though the earl could show no sufficient title. On 30 Aug. 1606 two Glasgow mariners reported that Tyrconnel had been inquiring as to whether their smack could go to Spain or France, but Chichester could not believe that he wanted to run away.
About Christmas 1606 Tyrconnel, who had married the late Earl of Kildare's daughter, was at Maynooth, and in the garden there he divulged to Richard, lord Delvin, and afterwards first earl of Westmeath [q. v.], who had grievances of his own, a plan to seize Dublin Castle, with the lord deputy and council in it. ‘Out of them,’ he said, ‘I shall have my lands and countries as I desire it;’ that is, as they were held by Hugh Roe O'Donnell. Various strong places were to be seized, and Tyrconnel thought Tyrone, Maguire, and many others would join him. So far as Tyrconnel was concerned there can be no doubt that he had been in correspondence with Spain, but it must remain uncertain whether there was any conspiracy. Delvin's confession to Chichester (State Papers, Ireland, 6 Nov. 1607) is quite clear, and it was never shaken. Tyrconnel found out that his rash speeches were known, and perhaps persuaded Tyrone that he would be arrested if he went to London about his dispute with Sir Donnell O'Cahan [q. v.] On 4–14 Sept. they both sailed from Rathmullan, in Lough Swilly, and neither ever saw Ireland again.
‘The Flight of the Earls,’ as it is called, is one of the most picturesque episodes in Irish history. The immediate cause of their sudden departure may be doubtful, but not the real causes. The jurisdiction of an Irish chief was incompatible with the structure of a modern state. In his fatal conversation with Delvin, Tyrconnel said he had heard that the government meant to cut off the chiefs in detail, under pretence of executing the recusancy laws. In his formal statement of grievances sent to the king (State Papers, Ireland, 1607, No. 501) he begins by saying that all priests in his country were persecuted by the royal officers, and that Chichester had told him at his own table that he had better go to church, ‘or else he should be forced to go thereto.’ It was his evident interest to put religion in the foreground, and there was plenty to complain of; but temporal grievances had as much, or more, to do with his flight. Many of these were real, and there were clearly some great rascals in the service of government. Moreover, the earl was over head and ears in debt, and his country deeply mortgaged. Nor can we wonder at this; for the Four Masters, who wrote in Donegal, and fancied they were praising its chief, say he was ‘a generous, bounteous, munificent, and truly hospitable lord, to whom the patrimony of his ancestors did not seem anything for his spending and feasting parties.’ Chichester thought his encumbrances did not leave him more than 300l. a year. Sir John Davies [q. v.] (to Salisbury, 12 Sept. 1607) thought him ‘so vain a person that the Spaniard will scarce give him means to live, if the Earl of Tyrone do not countenance and maintain him.’ Yet many at Rome thought him the more important man of the two, and even Sir Henry Wotton [q. v.] seemed disposed to agree (to Salisbury, 8 Aug. 1608).
About ninety persons sailed with the earls, among whom were Tyrconnel's son Hugh, aged eleven months, his brother Cathbhar, with his wife Rose O'Dogherty and their son Hugh, aged two years and three months, and his sister Nuala, who had deserted her husband, Neill Garv, besides other relations. Chichester failed to intercept them at sea. They were unable to make Corunna, and put into the Seine after three weeks' tossing. The English ambassador demanded their extradition, which Henry IV of course refused; but they were not allowed to stay in France, nor to visit Paris. From Amiens they went by Arras to Douay, where the Irish seminarists greeted them with Latin and Greek odes, and thence to Brussels. At a dinner given by Spinola, Tyrone was placed in the chair, the papal nuncio on his right, and Tyrconnel next (Meehan, Fate and Fortunes of Tyrone, p. 129). In November they went from Brussels to Louvain, and in December drew up their statements of grievances there. Tyrconnel's has been quoted above. It does not appear that these memorials were ever communicated to the Irish government; and about the time they were sent to London, Tyrconnel, who was a loose talker, justified all Chichester's apprehensions of his intended hostile return. In conversation with John Crosse of Tiverton, an old servant of Walsingham's, he detailed his shadowy plans for conveying arms to Ireland, and for raising a rebellion there (State Papers, Ireland, 19 Feb. 1608).
At the end of February 1608 Tyrone and
