![]() ![]() Although it has received little attention in David Starkey’s numerous historical documentaries on the Tudors, the Nine Years’ War cost the parsimonious Elizabeth nearly £2,000,000-eight times more than any previous war, and as much as had been spent on all Continental wars waged during her reign. Assailed on all sides by land and sea, he accepted the queen’s generous terms and signed the Treaty of Mellifont three days after the death of the last Tudor monarch. Decisively defeated in a pitched battle at Kinsale by Lord Deputy Mountjoy, he retraced his steps to Dungannon and waited in vain for additional Spanish support. ![]() ![]() After a number of stunning successes against the cream of Elizabeth’s forces, an untimely Spanish descent on Kinsale forced O’Neill to march the length of the country to their aid from his impregnable fastnesses in Ulster in the depths of winter. ![]() He took advantage of royal favour, exploited crown assaults on vulnerable Gaelic neighbours and forged strategic political and marital alliances with the O’Donnells, O’Cahans and O’Reillys to construct a powerful confederacy in Ireland that would prove an enormous political and financial threat to the Tudor dynasty. By the end of the sixteenth century Hugh O’Neill, second earl of Tyrone, had emerged as the greatest single threat to English rule in Ireland. ![]()
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