The Queen wrote to Lady Desmond to complain of the Earl's inordinate conduct, and to state her conviction that a little gentle imprisonment would do him good. Unheard-of favour had been ill requited; nevertheless, the royal patience was inexhaustible. No harm was intended to Desmond, and his wife was charged to keep order until his return. Between her son and her husband, the position of the countess was not pleasant. Fitzwilliam thought she did her best to hold the balance, and keep the peace between them; but her husband's friends accused her of unduly favouring Ormonde, an imputation which she indignantly denied. 'I always,' she declared with a certain pathos, 'wished them to be perfect friends, as two whom I love as myself.'[52] [Sidenote: Projects of Sussex.] Sussex followed Shane O'Neill back to Ireland, taking with him his sister, Lady Frances, the dainty bait at which it was supposed that wary fish might rise. During his stay at Court he had taught the Queen to see Ireland partly with his eyes. About the desirability of abolishing illegal exactions there could of course be no difference of opinion; and Elizabeth was now further inclined to divide the country into presidencies, to persuade the principal chiefs to take estates of their lands and accept titles of honour, to hold a Parliament, and to establish a Star Chamber. On other points she was at issue with her Lord-Lieutenant. Thus Sussex wished to expel Shane O'Neill absolutely from Ulster, to divide Tyrone into three districts, to encourage and flatter the Scots as long as their help was wanted, and then, with a refined duplicity, to drive them out in their turn. Elizabeth was for making the best of Shane, alluring him, if possible, to keep his promises. The Presidency Courts when established were to administer both law and equity. Sussex wished to acknowledge what was good of the Brehon law, and by systematising it gradually to accustom Irishmen to written and settled forms. The Brehons he proposed to admit, not as arbitrators, but as counsel entitled to receive fees; and by empanelling juries to find the facts, he hoped in time to fuse the two systems together. It is much to be regretted that this really statesmanlike idea was not allowed to bear fruit. The difficulty of getting juries to find verdicts against the members of powerful factions was great in Elizabeth's time, as it is now. Sussex proposed to meet it by freely changing the venue from one county to another, an obvious expedient which has only very lately and by a subterfuge been partially introduced. The constitutional pedantry of lawyers often stands in the way of justice, for the furtherance of which they are themselves supposed to exist.[53] [Sidenote: The Queen sends Commissioners to report on the Pale.]