Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 42.djvu/324

O'Sullivan was the battlefield. In 679 Egfrid crossed the Mercian border, and a battle took place near the Trent, in which Ostrith's young brother Alfwin, dearly loved in both kingdoms, fell (, Hist. Eccl. iv. 21). Peace was eventually made through the wise counsels of Archbishop Theodore. As one of the conditions, Ostrith and her husband insisted on the immediate banishment from Mercia of Wilfrid, whom in 681, on his expulsion from Northumbria by Egfrid, Ethelred's nephew, the son of Iris brother Wulfere, the sub-king Berhtwald had received into his province, and bestowed land to found a monastic house. Subsequently Ostrith removed the bones of her uncle St. Oswald to the great abbey of Bardney, near Lincoln, which, if not actually founded by her husband, had been largely enriched by him and his queen. The monks, however, who could not forget or forgive the wrongs Lindsey had received from Northumbria, refused to admit the remains of a member of the royal house from which their province had suffered so much. The wain containing Oswald's relics was stopped at the abbey gates. But in the night a bright pillar of light appearing above it testified to the sanctity of the martyred king, and convinced the monks of their error, which they atoned for by the ready admission of the coffin the next morning (ib. iii. 11). The vindictive spirit of the Mercians was more fatally exhibited in 697 in the murder of Ostrith by the nobles of the northern part of the kingdom, on the south bank of the Humber, ' a primatibus Merciorum interempta' (ib. v. 24; sub ann. 696; Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, sub ann. 697;  'crudeliter necaverunt'). Seven years later, in 704, Ethelred abdicated the throne, and retired to Bardney, where he was 'shorn as a monk,' became abbot, and died in 716. The name of one son of Ostrith and Ethelred is recorded, Ceolred, who succeeded his cousin Cenred in 709, and died in 716, the same year with his father.

 O'SULLIVAN or O'SULLIVAN BEARE, DONALL (1560–1618), chief of the sept of his name in the district of Beare, co. Cork, engaged actively in the hostile movements in Ireland against the government of England in the last years of Queen Elizabeth. O'Sullivan in 1601 avowed his devotion to Philip III of Spain, and received a Spanish garrison in his castle at Dunboy. Siege operations against this stronghold, the custody of which was resumed from the Spaniards by O'Sullivan, were carried on with overwhelming force by Sir George Carew, resident of Munster,in June 1602. Carew's historiographer observed that 'so obstinate and resolute a defence had not been seen within this kingdom.' Details of the siege and capture of Dunboy Castle are given in the publication styled 'Pacata Hibernia,' and in the Latin history of Ireland by O'Sullivan's nephew, Philip O'Sullivan [q. v.], now being translated by the author of the present notice. After the demolition of Dunboy in June 1602 O'Sullivan, with his followers and soldiers, made a stand for a time in Glengariff. Thence he proceeded over the river Shannon to Ulster, where, after numerous conflicts, he arrived with only thirty-five survivors of the thousand persons with whom he had set out.

Failing to obtain a government pardon on the accession of James I, O'Sullivan went with his wife and children to Spain. There he was well received by Philip III, who conferred on him the knighthood of the order of St. Iago, a pension, and the title of Earl of Bearehaven. O'Sullivan, described as tall and handsome in person, was killed in 1618, at Madrid, by John Bathe, an Anglo-Irish refugee. A letter addressed by O'Sullivan in February 1601-2 to the governor of Galicia has been reproduced in 'Facsimiles of National Manuscripts of Ireland,' pt. iv. 2, plate xxxiii.

 O'SULLIVAN JOHN (fl. 1747), colonel in the French service, came of the O'Sullivans of Munster, and was born in co. Kerry about 1700. The family being catholics, their estates were in the hands of protestant trustees. At the age of nine O'Sullivan was sent abroad to be educated for the catholic priesthood. He spent six years in Paris, and then went to Rome. On the sudden death of his father, O'Sullivan returned to Ireland; but, disliking the conditions under which Irish catholics were compelled to live by the penal laws, he sold his interest in the family property and emigrated to France. He obtained the post of tutor to the son of Marshal Maillebois. On Maillebois's recommendation he then entered the French army. In 1739 he attended Maillebois as secretary in an expedition to Corsica. During the first four years of the Austrian succession war he took part in the French campaigns in Italy and on the Rhine. In 1745 he was appointed adjutant-general 