Upon Sussex’s return from England they broke out again.  Shane, however, had by this time considerably strengthened his position.  Not only had he firmly established himself in the allegiance of his own tribe, but had found allies and assistants outside it.  There had of late been a steady migration of Scotch islanders into the North of Ireland, “Redshanks” as they were familiarly called, and a body of these, got together by Shane and kept as a body-guard, enabled him to act with unusual rapidity and decision.  Upon Sussex attempting to detach two chieftains, O’Reilly of Brefny and O’Donnell of Tyrconnel, who owed him allegiance, Shane flew into Brefny and Tyrconnel, completely overawed the two waverers, and carried off Calvagh O’Donnell with his wife, who was a sister-in-law of the Earl of Argyle.  The following summer he encountered Sussex himself and defeated him, sending his army flying terror-stricken back upon Armagh.  This feat established him as the hero of the North.  No army which Sussex could again gather together could be induced to risk the fate of its predecessor.  The deputy was a poor soldier, feeble and vacillating in the field.  He was no match for his fiery assailant; and after an attempt to get over the difficulty by suborning one Neil Grey to make away with the too successful Shane, he was reduced to the necessity of coming to terms.  An agreement was entered into with the assistance of the Earl of Kildare, by which Shane agreed to present himself at the English Court, and there, if he could, to make good his claims in person before the queen.

Few scenes are more picturesque, or stand out more vividly before our imagination than this visit of the turbulent Ulster chieftain to the capital of his unknown sovereign.  As he came striding down the London streets on his way to the Palace, the citizens ran to their doors to stare at the redoubtable Irish rebel with his train of galloglasses at his heels—­huge bareheaded fellows clad in saffron shirts, their huge naked axes swung over their shoulders, their long hair streaming behind them, their great hairy mantles dangling nearly to their heels.  So attended, and in such order, Shane presented himself before the queen, amid a buzz, as may be imagined, of courtly astonishment.  Elizabeth seems to have been equal to the situation.  She motioned Shane, who had prostrated himself, clansman fashion upon the floor, to rise, “check’d with a glance the circle’s smile,” eyeing as she did so, not without characteristic appreciation, the redoubtable thews and sinews of this the most formidable of her vassals.

Her appreciation, equally characteristically, did not hinder her from taking advantage of a flaw in his safe-conduct to keep Shane fuming at her Court until he had agreed to her own terms.  When at last he was allowed to return home it was with a sort of compromise of his claim.  He was not to call himself Earl of Tyrone—­a distinction to which, in truth, he seems to have attached little importance—­but he was allowed to be still the O’Neill, with the additional title of “Captain of Tyrone.”  To which the wits of the Court added—­