Page:The Gaelic State in the Past & Future.djvu/54

 monarchy. He had worked long to link all parts of the country together under his leadership; and, knowing the power against which he was opposed, he had entered into treaty with the Spanish Crown to assist him. Feeling that these Spanish promises were not sincerely given, so often had they been made and as often broken, he thought to save what he could from the wreckage.

When in 1598 the Earl of Essex was sent against him he met him in parley and made him an offer to bear to Elizabeth. Whether that offer was sincerely made, or only put out to save time, does not matter here; but it contained one article that is very significant. It runs thus: "That all nations in Ireland shall enjoy their living as they did two hundred years ago." Now it is clear that he uses the word "nations " in some special sense—that he is, in fact, rendering some word from Irish. Nor is it difficult to discover what that word is. He can only be referring to the tuatha, or stateships, on which the State was based that was now threatened with extinction; and his demand was that they should remain intact and unmolested as they had been "two hundred years ago," when England was busy with civil war. The demand was rejected. He could hardly have expected anything else. And when he was finally defeated five years afterwards, those "nations," or stateships, were doomed to a final and terrible ruin.