o the Earl
of Sussex as 'rather to welcome the news than regret the English
loss!' It would be difficult to find 'intriguing factiousness' baser
than this even in barbarous Ireland. The success of O'Neill, however,
had raised him high in the opinion of the Queen, who proposed,
through the Earl of Kildare, to leave him in possession of all his
territories, and let him govern the Irish 'according to Irish ideas'
if he would only become her vassal. Sussex had returned to Dublin with
the remnant of his army, while Fitzwilliam was dispatched to London
to explain the disaster, bearing with him a petition from the Irish
Council, that the troops who had been living in free quarters on the
tenants of the Pale should be recalled or disbanded. 'Useless in the
field and tyrannical to the farmer, they were a burden on the English
exchequer, and answered no purpose but to make the English name
detested.'

To O'Neill the Queen sent a pardon, with a safe conduct to England, if
he could be prevailed on to go. In the meantime Shane sent a message
to the lord deputy, demanding the removal of the garrison from Armagh.
One of his messengers, Neill Grey communicated secretly with Lord
Sussex, affecting to dislike rebellion, and intimating that he might
help the English to get rid of his master. The lord deputy, without
the least scruple or apparent consciousness of the criminality or
disgrace of the proceeding, actually proposed to this man that he
should murder O'Neill. This villanous purpose he avows in his letter
to the Queen. 'In fine,' said he, 'I breake with him to kill Shane;
and bound myself by my oath to see him have a hundred marcs of land by
the year to him, and to his heirs, for his reward. He seemed desirous
to serve your Highness, and to have the land; but fearful to do it,
doubting his own escape after with safety, which he confessed and
promised to do by any means he might, escaping with his life. What he
will do I know not, but I assure your Highness he may do it without
danger if he will. And if he will not do that he may in your service,
there will be done _to him_ what others may. God send your Highness a
good end.'

This English nobleman was, it seems, pious as well as honourable,
and could mingle prayers with his plots for assassination. Mr. Froude
suggests extenuating circumstances: 'Lord Sussex, it appears, regarded
Shane as a kind of wolf, whom having failed to capture in fair chase
he might destroy by the first e