Flight of The Earls - Change in Spanish Policy

Change in Spanish Policy

In the Papal Bull Ilius of 1555, the Pope had conferred the title King of Ireland on King Philip II of Spain when he was married to Queen Mary. Philip II made no claim to the kingship of Ireland after Mary's death in 1558. He engaged in a lengthy war from 1585 with her sister Elizabeth I, and he and his successor Philip III supported the Irish Catholic rebels up to the siege of Kinsale in 1601 at great expense but without success. He had been offered the kingship in 1595 by O'Neill and his allies, but turned it down. Given this lengthy support it was reasonable for Tyrconnell and Tyrone to try to solicit help from Philip III, but Spanish policy was to maintain its recent (1604) peace with England, and its European fleet had anyway been destroyed by the Dutch over four months earlier. There are two possibilities at the time of the Flight:

  • either the earls did not know that Spain was unable and unwilling to help, or
  • they did know, and deceived their followers into thinking that a Spanish invasion would arrive within months.

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