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Extract
from a letter from the earl of Salisbury, English Secretary of State to Sir
Charles Cornwallis, English ambassador to Spain, 27th
October 1607. So
as if the council of Spain shall conceive that they have now some great
advantage over this state, where it shall appear what a party their king may
have if he shall like to support it, there may be this answer: that those Irish,
without the king of Spain, are poor worms upon earth: and that when the king of
Spain shall think a time to begin with Ireland, the king, my master, is more
like than ever queen Elizabeth was to find a wholesomer place of the king of
Spain’s where he would be loath to hear of the English, and to show the
Spaniards that shall be sent to Ireland as fair a way as they were taught
before. In which time, the more you speak of the base, insulting, discoursive
fugitves, the more proper it will be for you. Quoted
in C.P.Meehan, The Fate and Fortunes of Hugh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone, and
Rory O’Donel, Earl of Tyrconnell, their flight from Ireland and their death in
exile, (3rd ed., Dublin, 1886), p.111.
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