against the government grew with the violence on the borders of west Breifne. In peace talks in 1589, he did accept the terms of a crown tribute that had been agreed upon by his grandfather, but resisted the composition terms of 1585 and refused to allow the formation of a crown administration in the new county Leitrim. Instead, he sought appointment as seneschal under the direct authority of the Dublin government, leaving him independent of Bingham. He also sought safe possession of his lands, safe conduct for life, and a guarantee of freedom from harassment by the president's forces of any merchants entering his territory. In return, the only pledge he was willing to give was his word. A member of the Dublin council, Sir Robert Dillon of the County Meath family, advised him to stay out – intimating that O'Rourke would be taken into custody if he came in and submitted to crown authority – and O'Rourke declined the government's offers. Flight and extradition Under the government of Perrot's successor as Lord Deputy, Sir William Fitzwilliam, pressure was increased on the territories bordering the province of Ulster. Thus, in the spring of 1590, Bingham's forces occupied west Breifne and O'Rourke fled; later that year the adjacent territory of Monaghan was seized by the crown after the execution at law of the resident lord, Hugh Roe MacMahon. O'Rourke fetched up in Scotland in February 1591, with "six fair Irish hobbies and four great dogs to be presented to the king". He was seeking not only asylum but also the opportunity to recruit mercenaries to contest the occupation of his territories. In consultation with the English ambassador Robert Bowes, King James VI denied him an audience, and Queen Elizabeth (relying on the Treaty of Berwick (1586)) made a strong request for the delivery of O'Rourke into her custody. The matter was put to the Scottish privy council, which readily ordered – in the face of some objections – the arrest and delivery to English crown forces of the rebel Irish lord. Elizabeth's councillors had explicitly held out the prospect of clemency for O'Rourke, and certain Scots councillors agreed to the extradition, in the supposed expectation that his life would be spared. The expectation was to be disappointed, an experience the king himself suffered in the years afterwards, when extradition requests for followers of the Earl of Bothwell were denied by the