PAGE 3 

Hugh O’Neill’s nine year war, waged in defence of his hereditary rights, was at a critical point.  O’Neill asked Lombard to act as the representative of the Confederate princes to the Vatican and Lombard’s career as a politician was started.  In 1595, O’Neill found himself as the last great hope of Gaelic Ireland.  With the increasing anglicisation of the towns in Munster, Leinster and Connaught and the spread of English law and customs, O’Neill realised that Gaelic Ulster, his fiefdom, was seriously threatened.  He allied himself with the other Ulster chiefs and prepared for war, a war that ended in 1603 with O’Neill’s submission to Elizabeth’s deputy, Mountjoy (Elizabeth had died six days earlier).  It was Lombard’s great reputation that caused O’Neill to petition Lombard to act as his agent.  Certainly their ancestries were totally different.  O’Neill, despite his upbringing at the royal court, was the foremost Gaelic chieftain in Ireland while Lombard was representative of the Old English.  This term came into use in the early seventeenth century to distinguish the descendants of the medieval settlers (overwhelmingly Catholic in religion though giving obedience to the king in politics, from more recent arrivals who were exclusively Protestant.  In the areas under Irish control, i.e. the rest of the country, the people were, for the most part, native Irish[28].  There was little or no sympathy between the Gaelic Irish and the Old English – the only commonality was religion.  The latter defined themselves and their religion within the context of the political constitution, while the Gaelic Irish defined themselves as a race.[29]  Despite the apparent difference in politics, Lombard served O’Neill’s interests until such time as the latter’s failure caused Lombard to return to his own side.[30]  All this, however, was in the future.  In 1600 Peter Lombard wrote his famous “Commentarius.”  It was written for the purpose of enlisting the sympathy and aid of the Pope and the Catholic European powers for the confederate princes. 

Lombard had never seen O’Neill.  He first met the old chieftain in 1608 when O’Neill reached Rome on his final journey - he himself had left Ireland in 1572.  It is easy to see, therefore, from where Lombard received his sources for the Commentarius.  This work, a treatise on the kingdom of Ireland, was written in the interests of O’Neill.  The last three chapters concentrated on the previous efforts of the Irish people to obtain their liberty, on the successes of O’Neill and the princes and on how to build on those successes to secure, finally, the goal of a Catholic Ireland free from Protestant government.   In the work Lombard gives his estimate of O’Neill’s character and - of great importance to the Pope - of his attitude towards the Catholic faith.

“If one looks to his education…it was of such kind that he is most thoroughly versed in the politics and affairs not only of Ireland but also of England, in all matters relating to peace and war.  If one considers his age, it was ripe for command, for though he had past his fiftieth year, yet he was as fresh and active as if he had not as yet attained forty.  If one observes his qualities of mind and body , he is brave, spirited, ready, temperate, wary, patient, prudent, generous, affable, and has his feelings under control that if it were necessary for the matter in hand to appear serious or joyful, pleased or angry, he can most readily and in the most natural manner exhibit these emotions.  Indeed he quite captivates the feelings of men by the mobility of his looks and countenance, and wins the affections of his soldiers or strikes terror into them.  Above all …he is eminently pious and devout towards God, and therefore respects and cherishes ecclesiastics and such like persons.  Finally if his good fortune in this present war be considered, one must greatly wonder at his success against the most powerful and insolent heretics of all Europe…”[31] 

And, again,

 “Amongst his subjects, besides the example of their Chief which, especially because of their great affection for him, they were quick to follow, his great prudence and  diligence succeeded in putting down the crimes of stealing, pillaging, robbery drunkenness, concubinage, so that, in the whole of Ulster, law was much better administered and enforced than ever before in the memory of man. Before commencement of this war each one being so secure in his property was proportionately all the more diligent and industrious in cultivating the fields, and turning to profit the pastures, meadows and other advantages of the land.  And so respected were priests and all ecclesiastics and religious that this Chief would never address a priest otherwise than with uncovered head until by him requested to be covered.”[32]

In 1601, Lombard had been raised to the vacant Archdiocese of Armagh, reputedly at the behest of O’Neill.  This was no sinecure.  Indeed, the three previous archbishops had died as martyrs.  Donatus MacTeigue had died after imprisonment and exile; Dr.Richard Creagh died in the Tower of London and Dr. Edmund McGauran had been killed on the battlefield.  Lombard threw himself wholeheartedly into his new task: money and arms were sent to O’Neill through the Spanish nuncio and it was to Spain, the foremost Catholic country in Europe, that O’Neill and Lombard looked, as well as to the Pope.  The latter sent letters to the Irish people, urging them to join O’Neill’s army and granted them the same privileges and indulgences as were granted the Crusaders to the Holy Land. Despite all of these entreaties no “Spanish ale” landed on Ireland’s shore and eventually the war ended with the submission, on his knees, of O’Neill. 

The latter’s playing of the “religious “card has called his commitment to the Catholic cause into question.  In the treaty negotiations the confederate’s most dramatic demand was for liberty of conscience.  However, none of the complaints, which they had made hitherto, related to religious persecution.  The reason why they now chose to make this demand must therefore have been primarily political rather than devotional…the clarion call of religion was intended to strengthen the confederates’ request for Spanish assistance and to widen their appeal at home.[33]  Thus ended Lombard’s flirtation with O’Neill and the Gaelic chiefs.  In 1614 when writing about the Acts for recognition of the king’s title and for the attainder of O’Neill and Tyrconnell, he described the princes as

“certain notorious persons, who had fled from the region a few years before.  Catholics indeed by profession, they were adjudged and sentenced by these their compatriots as guilty of various excesses and crimes against the king and the state.  When these (crimes) had become known to the catholics assembled in parliament, they voted to declare them enemies of the king and of the fatherland, and to confiscate to the crown all the lands that they had once possessed.”[34]    

        Page 4