Sir Henry Radclyffe, the Lord-Lieutenant’s brother, thought Shane had money enough if he would be contented with reasonable expenses, but that he had sought counsel of those who were against the journey, and was chiefly anxious to gain time. He daily muddled his ‘unstable head’ with wine, and every boon companion could affect his judgment. That drunken brain was nevertheless clear enough to baffle Elizabeth for a long time. Perhaps Shane really expected help from Philip. Radclyffe thought him hopeless, and quoted Ovid as to the desirability of cutting out incurable sores before they had time to poison the blood. These opinions prevailed, and warlike preparations were swiftly and silently made. Six hundred additional men were sent to Ireland, and a general hosting was ordered. O’Reilly was encouraged to hope for the Earldom of Brefny, and robes and coronets for him and for O’Donnell were actually sent. O’Madden and O’Shaughnessy in Connaught, were thanked for former services, and exhorted to deserve thanks in the future. Shane, wrote the Queen, was the common disturber. He had offered to go to Court and then drew back, though she had with her own hands given the required safe-conduct to his messenger. Conciliation had been tried in vain; and she was now obliged to resort to force. They were directed in all things to be guided by Sussex, whom her Majesty quite exonerated from Shane’s slanders.[23]
Fitzwilliam and Kildare.
While his official superior was at Court, Fitzwilliam had no easy time in Dublin. He disliked and distrusted Kildare, who declined all responsibility for his bastard kinsfolk, the old scourges of the marches living at free quarters and disdaining honest industry. The MacCoghlans surprised one of the Earl’s innumerable castles, in which they were assisted by Ferdinando O’Daly, an Irishman in Fitzwilliam’s service. Kildare made a prisoner of O’Daly, and the Lord Justice thought his position as the Queen’s representative required his liberation. They were ‘tickle times, and many evil and rude men depend upon his Lordship, who with one wink might stir mischief.’ The Lord Justice offered to make good any harm that O’Daly might have done, but insisted on his enlargement, because it did not stand with the credit of his office that any servant of his should lie in gyves. Kildare at first refused to give the man up, and on the Lord Justice persisting, said he was in the custody of his captor, who had been promised a ransom of forty marks. O’Daly was ultimately released, and probably Fitzwilliam paid the forty marks. In the meantime Shane had been acting while his opponents talked.[24]
Shane seizes O’Donnell and his wife.
The O’Donnells, under a son of the chief, besieged an island in Lough Veagh, occupied by one of those pretenders who were never wanting in any Irish country. The chief himself lay at a Franciscan friary, eleven miles from his son, and with only ‘a few soldiers, besides women and poets.’ Among the women was his wife, by birth a Maclean, widow of an Earl of Argyle, noted for her wisdom and sobriety, a good French scholar with a knowledge of Latin, and a smattering of Italian, but at heart a rake who had been dazzled by Shane’s successful career. She contrived to let the object of her admiration know her husband’s defenceless condition, and he was only too ready to take the hint. A meeting of the two chiefs was arranged for May 15. O’Neill was not far off, and on the night of the 14th he appeared in force at the monastery gates. Had they been shut defence might have been possible, for O’Donnell had 1,500 Scots mercenaries within five miles; but they had been left open, probably on purpose, and O’Donnell and his wife were carried off into Tyrone. The night attack of four years before was thus amply avenged. Calvagh was kept in close and cruel confinement, and as Shane’s mistress the wise countess soon had reason to deplore her folly and perfidy.[25]
Shane is supreme in Ulster.
A messenger whom O’Neill had sent to Fitzwilliam used very insolent language, such as he had no doubt been accustomed to hear from his chief’s mouth. The Lord Justice complained, and Shane, whose cue was not to offend the Queen or her representative, said that his envoy was a scamp who had exceeded his instructions, and that he had tortured him and slit his ear. But the Government thought Shane incorrigible, and in this at least they were supported by Kildare. O’Neill was proclaimed a rebel and traitor. Either on this or some later occasion an Irish jester remarked that, except traitor was a more honourable title than O’Neill, he would never consent to Shane’s assumption of it, a joke which gained point from the feebleness of the proceedings against him. In the eyes of the Lord Justice he was the bully of the North; in the eyes of the Irish he was King of Ulster from Drogheda to the Erne, with power very little diminished by the opposition of the English.[26]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Sir John Alen to Cecil, Dec. 16, 1558; Staples to same, Dec. 16; T. Alen to same, December 18. Harris’s Dublin, chap. ii.