But this he could not demonstrably prove _in foro judicii_, though clear _in foro conscientiae_, and therefore punishment would savour of rigour.
So long as things were in that state his majesty was obliged to suffer adders in his bosom, and give them means to gather strength to his own prejudice, whereas now the whole country which they had possessed would be made of great use both for strength and profit to the king.
What follows should be given in his majesty's own words:-- 'Those poor creatures who knew no kings but those petty lords, under the burden of whose tyranny they have ever groaned, do now with great applause desire to be protected by the immediate power, and to receive correction only from himself, so as if the council of Spain shall conceive that they have now some great advantage over this state, where it shall appear what a party their king may have if he shall like to support it, there may be this answer: that those Irish without the King of Spain are poor worms upon earth; and that when the King of Spain shall think it time to begin with Ireland, the king my master is more like than Queen Elizabeth was, to find a wholesomer place of the King of Spain's, where he would be loath to hear of the English, and to show the Spaniards who shall be sent into Ireland as fair a way as they were taught before.

In which time the more you speak of the base, insulting, discoursing fugitives, the more proper it will be for you.
In the meantime upon their departure, not a man hath moved, neither was there these thirty years more universal obedience than there is now.

Amongst the rest of their barbarous lies I doubt not but they will pretend protection for religion, and breach of promise with them; wherein you may safely protest this, that for any, of all those that are gone, there never was so much as an offer made to search their consciences.' Not content with the labours of his ambassadors at the various continental courts, to damage the cause of the Irish earls, the king issued a proclamation, which was widely dispersed abroad.

His majesty said he thought it better to clear men's judgments concerning the fugitives, 'not in respect of any worth or value in these men's persons, being base and rude in their original,' but to prevent any breach of friendship with other princes.

For this purpose he declared that Tyrone and Tyrconnel had not their creation or possessions in regard of any lineal or lawful descent from ancestors of blood or virtue, but were only conferred by the late queen and himself for some reasons of state.