during the Nine Years War he waged with England, she sought to
obtain from him an abjuration of "foreign aid," chiefly "that of the
Spaniard." "Nothing will become the traitor (O'Neill) more than his
public confession of any Spanish practices, and his abjuration of any
manner of harkening or combining with any foreigners."

Could O'Neill be brought to publicly repudiate help from abroad it
would have, the Queen thought, the effect that "in Spain... the hopes
of such attempts might be extinguished."

As long as the sea was open to Spain there was grave danger. If
Spaniard and Irishman came close together O'Neill's offence was
indeed "fit to be made vulgar"--all men would see the strength of
combination, the weakness of isolation.

"Send me all the news you receive from Spain for Tyrone doth fill all
these parts with strange lies, although some part be true, that there
came some munition." It was because O'Neill was a statesman and knew
the imperative need to Ireland of keeping in touch with Europe that
for Elizabeth he became "the chief traitor of Ireland--a reprobate
from God, reserved for the sword."

Spain was to Elizabethan Englishmen what Germany is to-day.

"I would venture to say one word here to my Irish fellow countrymen of
all political persuasions. If they imagine they can stand politically
or economically while Britain falls they are woefully mistaken. The
British fleet is their one shield. It if be broken Ireland will go
down. They may well throw themselves heartily into the common defence,
for no sword can transfix England without the point reaching behind
her." (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, in the _Fortnightly Review_, Feb.,
1913, "Great Britain and the Next War.")

The voice is a very old one, and the bogey has done duty for a long
time in Ireland. When, to-day, it is from Germany that freedom may
be feared, Ireland is warned against the German. When, three hundred
years ago the beacon of hope shone on the coast of Spain, it was the
Spaniards who were the bad people of history.

Fray Mattheo de Oviedo, who had been sent to Ireland as Archbishop,
wrote to King Philip III from O'Neill's stronghold, Dungannon, on
June 24, 1600. We might be listening to the voice of the _Fortnightly
Review_ of yesterday. "The English are making great efforts to bring
about a peace, offering excellent terms, and for this purpose the
Viceroy sent messengers twice to O'Neill, saying among other things,
that Your Majesty is ma