A messenger whom O'Neill had sent to Fitzwilliam used very insolent language, such as he had no doubt been accustomed to hear from his chief's mouth. The Lord Justice complained, and Shane, whose cue was not to offend the Queen or her representative, said that his envoy was a scamp who had exceeded his instructions, and that he had tortured him and slit his ear. But the Government thought Shane incorrigible, and in this at least they were supported by Kildare. O'Neill was proclaimed a rebel and traitor. Either on this or some later occasion an Irish jester remarked that, except traitor was a more honourable title than O'Neill, he would never consent to Shane's assumption of it, a joke which gained point from the feebleness of the proceedings against him. In the eyes of the Lord Justice he was the bully of the North; in the eyes of the Irish he was King of Ulster from Drogheda to the Erne, with power very little diminished by the opposition of the English.[26] FOOTNOTES: [1] Sir John Alen to Cecil, Dec. 16, 1558; Staples to same, Dec. 16; T. Alen to same, December 18. Harris's _Dublin_, chap. ii. [2] _Ancient Laws and Institutes of Ireland_, vol. iii.; Preface to _Book of Aicill_, p. cxlviii.; Shane O'Neill to Queen Elizabeth, Feb. 8, 1561; Campion's History; _Four Masters_, 1558. Maine's _Early History of Institutions_, chap. ii. [3] See the arguments in _Carew_, 1560, vol. i. p. 304. [4] There is an account of the interview in _Hooker_. [5] Instructions to Sussex, 1559, in _Carew_, pp. 279 and 284. [6] Mant from Loftus MS.; Ware's _Annals_. [7] Memorial of answers by the Queen, July 16, 1559, and Instructions to Sussex, July 17, both in _Carew_; note of the Earl of Clanricarde's wives and concubines now alive, Feb. 1559 (No. 18). [8] The list of this Parliament is in _Tracts relating to Ireland_, vol. ii., Appendix 2; _Printed Statutes_, 2 Elizabeth; _Collier_, vol. vi. p. 296 (ed. 1846); Ware's _Annals_; _Leland_, book iv. chap. i. [9] Fitzwilliam to Sussex, March 8 and 15, 1560. [10] Fitzwilliam to Cecil, April 11, 1560; Advertisements out of Ireland, May (No. 15), and many other papers about this time. [11] Memorial by the Earl of Sussex for the Queen, May 1560 (No. 21). [12] See the two sets of Instructions in _Carew_, vol. i. May 1560, Nos. 223, 225. [13] Memorial of such charge as the Queen's Majesty has given by her own speech to the Earl of Sussex, &c., May 27, 1560, in _Carew_. [14] Orders taken by the Lord-Lieutenant and Council, Aug. 1, 1560. Award for the Earl of Desmond, Aug. 23. [15] The Queen to Sussex, Aug. 15, 1560, and Aug. 21; list of plain rebels, July 19. Gerrard, A.G., to Cecil, Sept. 5. [16] Sussex to Cecil, Oct. 24 and Nov. 2.