30 March  [O.S.] 1603 - The Treaty of Mellifont on this day. Aodh Uí Néill the Earl of Tyrone, submitted to Lord Mountjoy the Lord Deputy of Ireland  thus bringing to an end  almost a decade of constant warfare on the island of Ireland.  

O’Neill had wanted to submit on terms since the previous December but Queen Elizabeth of England was adamant that this ‘viper’ would get nothing for his efforts to subvert her rule in her Realm of Ireland. However certain factors were working in O’Neills favour for him to escape the axeman’s blade if he came in without any terms. The Queen was old and was dying and it was only a matter of time before she went the way of all flesh, but she could not rest easy in her bed with O’Neill still at large in the woods & bogs of Ireland.  

Of more pressing  concern to her and her Ministers was the huge drain on England’s coffers of the continuing War in Ireland & the need of maintaining a very large military force for that time of perhaps circa 20,000 men in the field to suppress any attempt by O’Neill to rouse the Country once again. In effect though her Ministers were deciding what was to be done to bring the War to a close & the Queen’s chief advisor Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury in particular was prepared to bend Royal policy towards a deal.

Also working in O’Neill’s favour was his uncanny ability to move from place to place without being betrayed by any of his People meant that catching him was like chasing a ‘will of the wisp’. Indeed many of local chiefs gave him succour and turned a blind eye to his perambulations as he changed his base almost nightly. The English knew that it would only be by chance rather than design that they could take him alive. But he too was old and tired, his support base had collapsed  and he was a hunted man without a roof to call his own. He knew it was only a matter of time till his enemies cornered him and then it was all over.

Charles Blount Lord Mountjoy got the go ahead from London to settle it by suggesting terms that would see an end of the matter once and for all and bring O’Neill in under the protection of the Crown  - once he was prepared to submit to the Monarch! The agents employed by the Lord Deputy in the negotiations were Sir William Godolphin and Sir Garrett Moore. The latter was a personal friend of O Neill, and found him in early March at his retreat near Lough Neagh. He persuaded him that he should negotiate peace terms, and that he would travel to meet Mountjoy under a safe conduct. Negotiations were then conducted at Mellifont, the site of an old abbey near Drogheda in County Louth. This was Sir Garret's seat, which had been sold to his family following the dissolution of the great Cistercian Abbey there at the time of the Reformation.

On 30 March, Tyrone submitted to the Crown and accepted the terms offered. The pardon and the terms were considered to be very generous at the time especially by those who wanted to see O’Neill executed as a Traitor to the Crown. In return for renouncing the Gaelic title, Uí Néill (in English: The O'Neill), the attainder that had stripped him of the title of Earl of Tyrone was reversed, allowing him a seat in the Irish House of Lords.

He retained his traditional core territory, apart from any Church lands, which were to be held in freehold title under English property law.

The Earl of Tyrone swore to be loyal to the Crown and not to seek further assistance from a foreign power. In return, he received a pardon.

There were restrictions placed on his power and influence over the inhabitants of his own lands that he must have found frustrating:

Brehon law was to be replaced in his lands with English law.

The earls were no longer permitted to support the Gaelic bards.

English would be the official language.

Catholic colleges could not be built on his property.

However these were much better terms than O’Neill believed he would ever get and he did not have much trouble in readily accepting them. He had to make a rather abject submission but he managed to retain his head on his shoulders & regain title to his core lands.  However there was a sting in the tail - he learnt afterwards when he reached Dublin that the English Queen had died in London six days before he submitted [24 March 1603] and King James VI of Scotland was expected to succeed her as the new King of these islands. If O’Neill had held out he might have done better than he did - but that is problematical as James was no friend of the Catholics of Ireland as subsequent events were to prove.

In the event Mountjoy and O’Neill hit it off at a personal level and made their way to London to meet the new King of England, Scotland and Ireland - James I. While Mountjoy was in Power here things remained calm but on the accession of Lord Chichester to the Lord Deputyship a new dispensation came about and the pressure on O’Neill became unbearable. He could feel his Power slipping away... 

Eventually he was summoned to Dublin for examination but rather than risk what would be almost certain incarceration and more than likely the executioners block if he entered Dublin Castle alone he fled Ireland in September 1607 with about 100 of his closest followers, eventually seeking sanctuary in the City of Rome. He never saw Ireland again and died in the Holy City in the year 1616 AD.