the final defeat of the English
parliamentary forces, they dreaded to see this defeat brought about by
Owen Roe O'Neill, in whom they saw the representative of the old tribal
ownership of Gaelic times, a return to which would mean their own
extinction.

Matters went so far that the Supreme Council, representing chiefly these
Norman lords, had practically betrayed its trust to the Royalist party
in England, and would have completed that betrayal had not the
beheading of King Charles signalized the triumph of the
Parliamentarians. Even then the Norman lords hoped for the Restoration,
and strove in every way to undermine the authority of their own general,
Owen Roe O'Neill, who was almost forced to enter into an alliance with
the Puritans by the treachery of the Norman lords. It is of the greatest
interest to find Monroe writing thus to Owen Roe in August, 1649: "By my
own extraction, I have an interest in the Irish nation. I know how your
lands have been taken, and your people made hewers of wood and drawers
of water. If an Irishman can be a scourge to his own nation, the English
will give him fair words but keep him from all trust, that they may
destroy him when they have served themselves by him."

On November 6, 1649, this great general died after a brief illness,
having for seven years led his armies to constant victory, while the
Norman lords, who were in name his allies, were secretly plotting
against him for their own profit. Yet so strong and dominant was his
genius that he overcame not only the forces of his foes but the
treacheries of his friends, and his last days saw him at one with the
Normans, while the forces of the Parliamentarians in Ireland were
calling on him for help.

We sea, therefore, that for full eight years, from the beginning of 1642
to the close of 1649, Ireland had an independent national government,
with a regularly elected Representative Assembly, and a central
authority, the Supreme Council, appointed by that Assembly, with judges
going circuit and holding their courts regularly, while the Supreme
Council held a state of almost regal magnificence, and kept several
armies continuously in the field. While Owen Roe O'Neill lived, that
part of the army under his command was able not only to secure an
unbroken series of victories for itself, but also to retrieve the
defeats suffered by less competent commanders, so that at his death he
was at the summit of power and fame. If regret were ever