1560 and the CHAP VII cross current. The M'Connells affected to reciprocate the English good will, but the Earl of Argyle's connexion with the reforming party in Scotland had not touched the dependencies of his clan. The hearts of ninety-nine out of every hundred persons on the north of Shan O'Neil Tweed were fixed on securing the English crown either Irish Scots, for Arran or for Mary Stuart; and James M'Connell was heard in private to say that the Queen of Scots was rightful Queen of England.' Shan O'Neil therefore adroitly availed himself of the occasion to detach from the O'Donnells their formidable northern allies. The misused' wife being got rid of by some process of murder or otherwise, he induced M'Connell to give him his daughter. He married or proposed to marry her-for ties of this kind sat with astonishing lightness on him—and the Callogh was outmanœuvred. Again an interval, and there was another and a bolder change. Either the new lady did not please Shan or his ambition soared to a higher flight. Supposing that the Scots in Ireland would not dare to resent what the Earl of Argyle should approve, and that the clan would welcome his support to Mary Stuart's claims, he had scarcely rid himself of his first wife and married a second, than he wrote to the Earl proposing that his sister the Countess should be transferred from O'Donnell to himself. The M'Connells could be got rid of, and the Scotch colony might pass under the protection of the O'Neils. James M'Connell's daughter might be thought a diffi 1At my kinsman being with him in Kintyre, James M'Connell ministered to him very evil talk against the Queen's Majesty, saying the Queen of England was a bastard, and the Queen of Scotland rightful heir to the crown of England.' 'It was not once nor twice, but divers times; not only by him but by his wife also.'-John Piers to Sir William Fitzwilliam. Irish MSS. Rolls House. culty, but we swear to you our kingly oath,' the auda- CHAP VII cious Shan dared to write, 'that there is no impediment 1560 by reason of any such woman.'1 Unprepared to recognize such swift transmutations, and at that time concerned with the rest of his party in the scheme for the elevation of the Earl of Arran, Argyle contented himself with enclosing Shan's letter to the English Council. He told them briefly that O'Neil was the most dangerous person in Ireland; and he said that unless the Queen was prepared to acknowledge him she had better lose no time in bringing him to reason.2 So matters stood in Ireland in the spring of 1560, when the conspiracy of the Guises and the necessity of defending her throne forced Elizabeth into the Scotch war. The deputy Lord Sussex, was in England; Sir William Fitzwilliam was left in command in Dublin, watching the country with uneasy misgivings; and from the symptoms reported to him from every quarter he anticipated, notwithstanding Philip's coldness, a summer of universal insurrection; the Parliament of the Pale had given the Catholics a rallying cry by endorsing the Act of Uniformity; and big words,' 'prophecies of the expulsion of the English within the year,' and rumours of armies of liberation from France and Spain, filled all the air. The outward quiet was undisturbed, but 'inwardly never such fears since the rebellion of Lord Thomas Fitzgerald.' The country was for the most part a wilderness, but the desolation would be no security. The Irish, Fitzwilliam anxiously reported, could keep the field where the English would starve; 'no men of war ever lived the like, nor others of God's making as touching feeding and 1 Notice and letter sent by the Earl of Argyle.-Irish MSS. Rolls Пlouse. • Ibid. CHAP VII living; they were like beasts and vermin bred from the 1560 earth and the filth thereof; but brute and bestial as by their outward life they showed, there was not under the sun a more craftier vipered undermining generation.'1 Philip refuses to encourage in Ireland. The immediate fear was of the great southern earls. If Kildare and Desmond rose, the whole of Ireland would rise with them, even the Pale itself. They had promised Fitzwilliam to be loyal, but he did not trust them. They had met at Limerick in the winter; they were known to have communicated with Shan, and O'Brien of Inchiquin had gone to Spain and France to solicit assistance. If he brought back a favourable answer, the Geraldines' would take the English part until such time as the push came, and then the English company should be paid home.'" Most fortunately for Elizabeth the success of the Queen of Scots was more formidable to Philip than a rebellion the temporary triumph of heresy. He discouraged all advances to himself; he used his best endeavours to prevent the Irish from looking for assistance in France; and although his advice might have been little attended to had the Guises been at liberty to act, Elizabeth's intrigues with the Huguenots had provided them with sufficient work at home. They could spare no troops for Ireland while they were unable to reinforce their army at Leith. O'Brien however received promises in abundance. Three French ships accompanied him on his return, and Irish imagination added thirty or forty which were said to be on the way. Kildare called his retainers under arms, and held a Parliament of chiefs at Maynooth which 1 Fitzwilliam to Cecil, March and April, 1560.— Irish MSS. Rolls House. 2 Ibid. 1560 was opened with public mass. In speeches of the time- CHAP VII honoured type the patriotic orators dwelt upon the wrongs of Ireland; they swore that they would be 'slaves' no longer; they protested that their kingdom was kept from them by force by such as were aliens in blood;' and Fitzwilliam frightened by the loud words wrote in haste for assistance that the English might fight for their lives before they were all dead.'1 Kil With the death of Henry the Second, the fall of Leith, and the failure of the French to appear, the Irish courage cooled, and the more pressing danger passed off. dare's larger knowledge showed him that the opportunity was gone. His father's death on the scaffold and his own long exile had taught him that without support from abroad a successful insurrection was impossible; and having no personal interests to defend he bought his pardon for the treason which he had meditated by loyally returning to his allegiance. Shan O'Neil was less favourably circumstanced. His rank and his estates were at stake, and he on his part had determined never to submit at all unless he was secured in their possession. But he too thought it prudent to temporize. His father was by this time dead. He was required to appear before Elizabeth in person to explain the grounds on which he challenged his inheritance; and after stipulating for a safe-conduct, and an advance of money for expenses of his journey, he affected a willingness to comply. But he chose to treat with the Government at first hand, and in a characteristic letter to Elizabeth he prepared the way for his reception. He described his father's miscellaneous habits, and 'gentlemanlike' readiness to acknowledge every child Advertisements out of Ireland, May 28, 1560.-Irish MSS Rolls House. с CHAP VII that was assigned to him; he explained his brother's birth and his own election as the O'Neil; he then proceeded thus:-1 1560 Letter of Shan O'Neil to Eliza beth. The deputy has much ill-used me your Majesty; and now that I am going over to see you I hope you will consider that I am but rude and uncivil, and do not know my duty to your Highness nor yet your Majesty's laws, but am one brought up in wildness far from all civility. Yet have I a good will to the commonwealth of my country; and please your Majesty to send over two commissioners that you can trust that will take no bribes nor otherwise be imposed on, to observe what I have done to improve the country and to hear what my accusers have to say; and then let them go into the Pale and hear what the people say of your soldiers with their horses and their dogs and their concubines. Within this year and a half three hundred farmers are come from the English Pale to live in my country where they can be safe. 'Please your Majesty, your Majesty's money here is not so good as your money in England, and will not pass current there. Please your Majesty to send me three thousand pounds of English money to pay my expenses in going over to you, and when I come back I will pay your deputy three thousand pounds Irish, such as you are pleased to have current here. 'Also I will ask your Majesty to marry me to some gentlewoman of noble blood meet for my vocation. I will make Ireland all that your Majesty wishes for you. I am very sorry your Majesty is put to such expense. If 1 The voluminousness of the letter renders some abridgement necessary; but the character, substance, and arrangement are preserved. |