l, has been celebrated in many
a popular ballad. The head of the house to which he belonged had
acknowledged allegiance to Henry VIII and received the title of Earl of
Tyrone. The English title carried with it, according to English law, the
principle of hereditary succession; but when the first earl died, the
clan of O'Neil refused to adopt the English practice, and, according to
the Irish principle of tanistry, chose as his successor the member of the
house for whom they had the highest regard.

This was Shane O'Neil, who was a younger and not even a legitimate son
of the Earl of Tyrone, but whose energy, courage, and strong national
sentiments had already made him the hero of his sept. Shane O'Neil at
once proclaimed himself the champion of Irish national independence.
Queen Elizabeth, amid all her troubles with foreign states, had to pour
large numbers of troops into Ireland, and these troops, as all historians
admit, overran the country in the most reckless and merciless manner.
Shane O'Neil, however, held his own, and began to prove himself a
formidable opponent of English power.

The evidence of history leaves little or no doubt that Elizabeth connived
at a plot for the removal of O'Neil by assassination. This project did
not come to anything, and the Queen tried another policy. She was a woman
not merely of high intellect but also of artistic feeling, and it would
seem as if the picturesque figure of Shane O'Neil had aroused some
interest in her. She proposed to enter into terms with the new "Lord
of Ulster," as he now declared himself, and invited him to visit her
court in England. O'Neil seems to have accepted with great good-will
this opportunity of seeing a life hitherto unknown to him, and he soon
appeared at court. We read that O'Neil and his retainers presented
themselves in their saffron-colored shirts and shaggy mantles, bearing
battle-axes as their weapons, amid the stately gentlemen, the
contemporaries of Essex and Raleigh, who thronged the court of the
great Queen. A meeting took place on January 6, 1562.

Froude tells us the effect produced upon the court by the appearance
of O'Neil and his followers: "The council, the peers, the foreign
ambassadors, bishops, aldermen, dignitaries of all kinds, were present in
state, as if at the exhibition of some wild animal of the desert. O'Neil
stalked in, his saffron mantle sweeping round and round him, his hair
curling on his back and clipped short below the