Page:Roger Casement - The crime against Ireland and how the war may right it.djvu/69

Rh destroy and ruin the country." The Irish princes were no fools. "To all this they reply most honorably that they will hold out so long as they have one soldier or there remains a cow to eat."

Hugh O'Neill saw clearly that all compromise between Ireland and England was futile, and that the way of escape was by complete separation and lay only through Europe. He again and again begged the Spanish King to sever Ireland and erect it into an allied State. He offered the crown of Ireland to a Spanish prince, just as three centuries earlier in 1315 another and a great O'Neill offered the crown of Ireland to Edward Bruce.

The coming of the Bruce saved Gaelic Ireland for three centuries. Had Phillip of Spain sent his son as King to Ireland, her fate had been settled then instead of remaining three centuries later to still confront European statesmanship with an unsolved problem. In many letters addressed by the Irish leaders to Phillip II and Phillip III we find the constantly recurring note of warning that to leave England in possession of Ireland meant the downfall of Spain. The Irish princes knew that in fighting England they were in truth fighting the battle of European civilization.

Writing to Phillip II from Lifford. on May 16$th$, 1596, O'Neill and O'Donnel drew the King's attention to the cause of Ireland as the cause of Europe, and in the name of Ireland offered the crown to a Spanish Prince. "But inasmuch as we have felt, to our great and indescribable harm the evildoings and crimes of those whom the Queen of England is in the habit of sending amongst us, we beg and beseech Your Majesty to send someone well known to you and perfectly fit to be the King of this island, for his own welfare, ours. and that of the Christian State"' (Christendom).