eyes, which gleamed from
under it with a gray lustre, frowning, fierce, and cruel. Behind him
followed his gallow-glasses, bareheaded and fair-haired, with shirts of
mail which reached beneath their knees, a wolf's skin flung across their
shoulders, and short, broad battle-axes in their hands." O'Neil made a
formal act of submission to the Queen, and negotiations set in for a
definite and lasting arrangement. Nothing came of it. O'Neil seems to
have understood that he was acting under a promise of safe-conduct, and
was to be confirmed in the ownership of his estates in return for his
submission. But, whatever may have been the misunderstanding, it is
certain that these terms were not carried out according to O'Neil's
expectation. He was detained in London in qualified captivity, and was
informed that he could only be restored to his lands when he had engaged
to make war against his former allies the Scots, had pledged himself not
to make war without the consent of the English government, and to set up
no claim of supremacy over other chiefs in Ireland.

O'Neil seems to have proved himself skilful as a diplomatist, and he
greatly gratified the Queen by paying intense deference to all her
suggestions, and even by modestly requesting that she would choose a wife
for him. He seems to have agreed to what he did not intend to carry out.
Some terms were understood to be arranged at last, and on May 5, 1562,
a royal proclamation was issued declaring that in future he was to be
regarded as a good and loyal subject of the Queen. Shane returned to
Ireland, and made known to his friends that the articles of agreement had
been forced upon him under peril of captivity or death, and that he could
not regard them as binding. He went so far to maintain the terms of the
treaty as to begin a war against the Scots, and sent the Queen a list of
his captives in token of his sincerity. But he still insisted that he had
never made peace with the Queen except by her own seeking; that his
ancestors were kings of Ulster, and that Ulster was his kingdom and
should continue to be his.

He soon after applied to Charles IX, King of France, to send him five
thousand men to assist him in expelling the English from Ireland. Then
war set in again between the English Lord Deputy and Shane O'Neil.
Defeated in many encounters, O'Neil again tried to make terms with the
Queen, and again applied to the King of France for the help of an army to
drive the Engli