The proposal for this diabolical treachery, and the arrangements made for carrying it out, were related by Sussex to the Queen.  He writes thus:  “In fine, I brake with him to kill Shane, and bound myself by my oath to see him have a hundred marks of land to him and to his heirs for reward.  He seemed desirous to serve your Highness, and to have the land, but fearful to do it, doubting his own escape after.  I told him the ways he might do it, and how to escape after with safety; which he offered and promised to do.”  The Earl adds a piece of information, which, no doubt, he communicated to the intended murderer, and which, probably, decided him on making the attempt:  “I assure your Highness he may do it without danger if he will; and if he will not do what he may in your service, there will be done to him what others may."[422]

Her Majesty, however, had a character to support; and whatever she may have privately wished and commanded, she was obliged to disavow complicity publicly.  In two despatches from court she expresses her “displeasure at John Smith’s horrible attempt to poison Shane O’Neill in his wine.”  In the following spring John Smith was committed to prison, and “closely examined by Lord Chancellor Cusake.”  What became of John is not recorded, but it is recorded that “Lord Chancellor Cusake persuaded O’Neill to forget the poisoning.”  His clan, however, were not so easily persuaded, and strongly objected to his meeting the Viceroy in person, or affording him an opportunity which he might not live to forget.  About this time O’Neill despatched a document to the Viceroy for his consideration, containing a list of “other evill practices devised to other of the Irish nation within ix or tenn yeares past.”  The first item mentions that Donill O’Breyne and Morghe O’Breyne, his son, “required the benefit of her Majesty’s laws, by which they required to be tried, and thereof was denied;"[423] and that when they came to Limerick under the protection of the Lord Deputy, they were proclaimed traitors, and their lands and possessions taken from them.  Several other violations of protection are then enumerated, and several treacherous murders are recorded, particularly the murder of Art Boy Cavanagh, at Captain Hearn’s house, after he had dined with him, and of Randall Boye’s two sons, who were murdered, one after supper, and the other in the tower, by Brereton, “who escaped without punishment.”

In October, 1562, Shane was invited to England, and was received by Elizabeth with marked courtesy.  His appearance at court is thus described by Camden, A.D. 1562:  “From Ireland came Shane O’Neill, who had promised to come the year before, with a guard of axe-bearing galloglasses, their heads bare, their long curling hair flowing on their shoulders, their linen garments dyed with saffron, with long open sleeves, with short tunics, and furry cloaks, whom the English wondered at as much as they do now at the Chinese or American aborigines.”  Shane’s