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That “Insolent Liberty“: Honor, Rites of Power, and Persuasion in Sixteenth-Century Ireland
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2018
Extract
On 30 March 1603 at the end of the Nine Years’ War Hugh O'Neill, the vanquished earl of Tyrone, appeared before Sir Charles Bount, Lord Mountjoy, at Mellifont Abbey to surrender. The moment of Tyrone's capitulation was recorded with interest by several English observers. After nearly a decade in dubious battle, an exhausted and subdued Tyrone astonished his conquerers by prostrating himself and grovelling before Mountjoy, who was so shocked by the abjectness of Tyrone's action that he nearly forgot the task of surrender. One observer remarked that “it was one of the deplorablest sights I ever saw: and to look upon such a person, the author of so much trouble, and so formerly glorious, so dejected, would have wrought many changes in the stoughtest heart, and did, no doubt at this instant raise a certain commiseration in his greatest adversary.”
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- Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1993
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