[Sidenote: Shane O'Neill at Court, 1562.]
No sooner was Shane gone than Sussex obtained leave to follow him. The Government was left to Fitzwilliam, whose expenses were to be borne out of the pay and allowances of the absent Lord-Lieutenant, and who was directed to give all possible help to Brian O'Neill. It was perhaps thought profound policy to support the boy's claim to the Earldom of Tyrone while the real chief of Ulster was out of the way. Sussex rightly observed that if the Queen wished to support the young Earl she could best do so by treating Shane coldly at first, and by keeping him at arm's length till he himself arrived. This advice, which was not only sound in itself but calculated to restore the credit of Sussex in Ireland, came too late to be of much use; for Kildare had already presented Shane to the Queen. The bare rough heads of his gallowglasses, who did not lay aside their axes, their long curls, their wide-sleeved saffron shirts, their short tunics, and their shaggy cloaks of fur or frieze, which in Ireland covered a multitude of sins, made Englishmen stare; not less, says Camden, than they now stare at Chinamen or American Indians. The Ambassadors of Sweden and Savoy were present, and doubtless shared in the general astonishment created by her Majesty's distinguished subject. Shane prostrated himself before the Queen, and then on his knees 'confessed his rebellion with howling,' and made his submission in Irish, which few or none could understand. The language was perhaps less humble than the posture. But Cecil was not to be put off thus; the supposed meaning of the speech was engrossed in English, and two days afterwards was signed and sealed by Shane. 'For lack of education and civility,' he is made to say, 'I have offended.' He thanked the Queen for his pardon, promised to deserve well for the future, begged her favour for the gentlemen of his company, his kinsmen and friends, and admitted in writing that he had done homage on his knees to Elizabeth as Queen of England, France, and Ireland. Shane's pretensions were so extraordinary that the courtiers exercised their wit in inventing a style for him, and they dubbed him 'O'Neill the great, cousin to St. Patrick, friend to the Queen of England, enemy to all the world besides.'[39]