’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 in 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 you will trust it to me, I will undertake that in three years you will have a revenue, where now you have continual loss.’

Shane suspected evil designs on the part of the English, and not without reason.  The object of the summons to England was to detain him there with ‘gentle talk’ till Sussex could return to his command with an English army powerful enough to subjugate Ulster.  For this purpose such preparations were made by the English Government in men and money, ‘that rebellion should have no chance; and,’ says Mr. Froude, ’so careful was the secresy which was observed, to prevent Shane from taking alarm, that a detachment of troops sent from Portsmouth sailed with sealed orders, and neither men nor officers knew that Ireland was their destination till they had rounded the Land’s End.’  The English plans were well laid.  Kildare, whom Elizabeth most feared, had accepted her invitation to go to London, and thus prevented any movement in the south, while O’Donel was prepared to join the English army on its advance into Ulster; and the Scots, notwithstanding their predilection for Mary Stuart, were expected to act as Argyle and his sister should direct.  But Shane had a genius for intrigue as well as Elizabeth, and he was far more rapid than her generals in the execution of his plans.  By a master-stroke of policy he disconcerted their arrangements.  He had previously asked the Earl of Argyle to give him his daughter in marriage, in order that he might strengthen his alliance with the Ulster Scots.  It is true that she had been already married to his rival, O’Donel; but that was a small difficulty in his way.  The knot was tied, but he had no hesitation in cutting it with his sword.  ‘The countess’ was well educated for her time.  She was also a Protestant, and the government had hopes that her influence would be favourable to ‘civility and the Reformation’ among the barbarians of the north.  But whatever advantages the presence of the fair Scottish missionary might bring, Shane O’Neill did not see why they should not be all his own, especially as he had managed somehow to produce a favourable impression on her heart.  Accordingly he made a dash into Tyrconnel, and carried off both the lady and her husband to his stronghold, Shane’s Castle, on the banks of Lough Neagh.  Her Scotch guard, though fifteen hundred strong, had offered no resistance.  O’Donel was shut up in a prison, and his wife