History suggests that he was Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone (1550-1616). O'Neill was the chief of the O'Neill clan in Tyrone at the time of Elizabeth I. He lived at the cusp of change between the old Celtic clan system and the aristocratic overlordship of the English system. He and Rory O'Donnell (The Earl of Tyrcommel), together with their families and retainers, finally fled from Ireland in 1607 in what became known as The Flight of the Earls.