To approach Ireland at all since the first English Sovereign laid hands upon it was "quite immoral." When Frederick of Hohenstaufen (so long ago as that!) sent his secretary (an Irishman) to Ireland we read that Henry III of England declared "it hurt him terribly," and ordered all the goings out and comings in of the returned Irish-German statesman to be closely watched.
The dire offence of Hugh O'Neill to Elizabeth was far less his rebellion than his "practises" with Spain.

At every cessation of arms during the Nine Years War he waged with England, she sought to obtain from him an abjuration of "foreign aid," chiefly "that of the Spaniard." "Nothing will become the traitor (O'Neill) more than his public confession of any Spanish practices, and his abjuration of any manner of harkening or combining with any foreigners." Could O'Neill be brought to publicly repudiate help from abroad it would have, the Queen thought, the effect that "in Spain...

the hopes of such attempts might be extinguished." As long as the sea was open to Spain there was grave danger.

If Spaniard and Irishman came close together O'Neill's offence was indeed "fit to be made vulgar"-- all men would see the strength of combination, the weakness of isolation.
"Send me all the news you receive from Spain for Tyrone doth fill all these parts with strange lies, although some part be true, that there came some munition." It was because O'Neill was a statesman and knew the imperative need to Ireland of keeping in touch with Europe that for Elizabeth he became "the chief traitor of Ireland--a reprobate from God, reserved for the sword." Spain was to Elizabethan Englishmen what Germany is to-day.
"I would venture to say one word here to my Irish fellow countrymen of all political persuasions.

If they imagine they can stand politically or economically while Britain falls they are woefully mistaken.