NEGOTIATIONS for peace were again opened. The Queen offered fair and honourable terms to the Catholic clergy and laity. Hostages were given by O'Neill and O'Donnell and other Irishmen that they would agree to fair and honourable terms and not prosecute the rebellion any further. But before peace was concluded or arms laid down Cobos and other ambassadors of Philip II., King of Spain, reached O'Neill and O'Donnell, bidding the Irish in the King's name to be of good heart, that an army would be sent to their assistance by His Catholic Majesty without delay. The result of this embassy was to break off negotiations for peace, and the war was renewed on both sides. O'Hanlon, Magennis, and all Ulster except the Royalist garrison towns and the Anglo-Irish of Louth, joined the Confederation.
O'Neill was so sorely vexed at the holy city of Armagh being contaminated by heretics, that he determined to cut it off from provisions, not daring to assault it while so strongly garrisoned. St. Patrick, however, the Patron and Guardian of Ireland, and who was the first to consecrate this city to God, would not put off the punishment of the crime which impiously defiled the sacred town with heretics. It is believed that he was the Bishop who, clad in pontificals, frequently and plainly appeared to the English at night and threatened them; took away the iron tips of their spears; and extracted the bullets and powder from their guns. Rowley, an English captain, was so terrified by these portents, that he became almost insane; and Baker, an English adjutant, being carried by the Bishop to the pinnacle of the church, swore he would never again profane churches and dreading Divine vengeance, he abandoned the army, was converted to the Catholic faith, and began to do penance. Meditating on this incident, I cannot restrain my tears or refrain from deploring the state of things in these times and the perverse behaviour and madness of not merely the new, but even of many of the ancient Irish who, although they were Catholics, assisted the English heretics who had placed a garrison in the holy city of Armagh and defiled it, laying impious hands on the images of St. Patrick, the Patron of Ireland, and of other saints and expelling God himself as present in the Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, trampling them under foot or hacking with their swords when pursued. Nor do I bewail so much the folly of laymen as the crass stupidity of our parochial guides and masters and other clergy who during this war yielded obedience and afforded assistance to the heretics. Baker, an English heretic soldier, swears to Saint Patrick that he will never again violate churches in Ireland, and, lest he be compelled to break his oath, he gives up the army, his pay, rank and glory, and (O shame!) the Anglo-Irish Catholic priest will not influence Irish Catholics against assisting the English heretics who have desecrated the Church of Saint Patrick and attacked its defenders.