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On the 30th of March, 1603, Hugh O'Neill and Mountjoy met by appointment at Mellifont Abbey, where the terms of peace were exchanged. O'Neill, having declared his submission, was granted amnesty for the past, restored to his rank, notwithstanding his attainder and outlawry, and reinstated in his dignity of Earl of Tyrone.
"He shall be judged by the bloody laws he has himself made," was the cry of the Council at the moment of his fall, and by a singular retribution the crowning injustice which he sought to introduce even into the practice of attainder, the condemnation of a man without hearing his defence, was only practised on himself.
A third gave utterance to a sentiment which it is difficult to understand how any assembly of civilised and Christian men, even in a moment of strong excitement, should have heard without horror. "They object to tacking; do they? Let them take care that they do not provoke us to tack in earnest. How would they like to have bills of supply with bills of attainder tacked to them?"
They affirmed that John was incapable of succeeding to the crown, by reason of the attainder passed upon him during his brother's reign, though that attainder had been reversed, and Richard had even, by his last will, declared him his successor.
When he presented a petition praying that his counsel might be heard against passing the bill, they made an order that his counsel should be allowed to make his defence at the bar of the house; so that he was surprised into an irregular trial, instead of being indulged with an opportunity of offering objections to their passing the bill of attainder.
The council went themselves to the Tower, and had him brought before them and examined. He demanded to have the charges made out in form, and the witnesses confronted with him, but the council were satisfied of his guilt without these formalities. The Parliament immediately afterward passed a bill of attainder against him, by which he was sentenced to death.
But the Houses ought not to have passed the Bill of Attainder unless they were convinced, not merely that Sir John had committed high treason, but also that he could not, without serious danger to the Commonwealth, be suffered to live. He could not be at once a proper object of such a bill and a proper object of the royal mercy. On the twenty-eighth of January the execution took place.
ANTHONY: But now what if, for the time that were between his attainder and his execution, he were so favourably handled that he were suffered to do what he would, as he did while he was free to have the use of his lands and his goods, and his wife and his children to have license to be with him, and his friends leave at liberty to resort unto him, and his servants not forbidden to abide about him.
So far as I can learn, no Protestant was ever tried and executed there by form of law. 28 Hen. VIII. cap. 1. Irish statutes. Cowley to Cromwell: State Papers, Vol. II. p. 198. Act of Attainder of the Earl of Kildare: 28 Hen. VIII. cap. 1.
The title of Nithisdale, except for the attainder, would have descended upon the next heir, Mr. Maxwell of Carruchan. Secret History of Colonel Hooke's Negotiations, by himself, p. 175. London, 1740. Patten's History of the Rebellion, of 1715, p. 234. Service of the Earl of Eglintoun, as heir male of the Earl of Wintoun. Printed for the family. Extract from "Peerage Law by Riddell," p. 201.
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