Sidney could only say that Shane ought to know him better, and that he was quite willing to meet him at Dundalk. But he declined to enter any house or town, desiring the Lord Deputy to meet him at a bog-side where he had 1,000 men with him. Sidney could not bring half as many men, and he did not think such a meeting for the Queen's honour. Shane stickled for the old treaty with Cusack, who was absent, and Kildare, who was present, remembered nothing about it. It had never been on record in Ireland, and the copies produced by O'Neill and by Leicester agreed, 'as well as Luke the Evangelist and Huon of Bordeaux.' Lucifer was never more puffed up with pride and ambition than O'Neill, who was the only strong and rich man in Ireland, able to bring 4,000 foot and 1,000 horse into the field. If he did not come to Sidney, he would come to no Englishman, and since the first conquest there had not been any man in Ireland more likely to bring it under the dominion of a foreign prince. 'In the morning he is subtle, and then will he cause letters to be written either directly otherwise than he will do, or else so doubtfully as he may make what construction he likes, and ofttimes his secretary penneth his letters in more dulled form than he giveth him instruction, but in the afternoon when the wine is in, then unfoldeth he himself, _in vino veritas_, then showeth he himself what he is, and what he is likely to attempt.' [Sidenote: Shane's pretensions to be greater than any earl.] Formerly he had condescended to request that his parliamentary robes might be sent into his own country. 'Now he cares not to be an Earl unless he can be something higher and better. "I am," he said, "in blood and power better than the best of them. I will give place to none but my cousin of Kildare, for that he is of my House. You have made a wise Earl of Macarthy More, I keep as good a man as he. For the Queen, I confess she is my sovereign lady, yet I never made peace with her but by her own seeking. And whom would you have me trust, Mr. Stukeley? I came unto the Earl of Sussex upon the safe-conduct of two Earls and protection under the Great Seal, and the first courtesy that he offered was to put me in a handlock and to send me into England. When I came there upon pardon and safe-conduct, and had done my business and would have departed according the same, the Queen herself told me that indeed safe-conduct I had to come safe and go safe, but she had not told me when, and so there held me till I had agreed to such inconvenience against my honour and profit as I would never perform while I live, and that made me make war. If it were to do again, I would do it, for my ancestors were kings of Ulster, Ulster was theirs, and shall be mine. And for O'Donnell, he shall never come into his country if I can keep him out of it, nor Bagenal into the Newry, nor the Earl of Kildare into Dundrum or Lecale. They are mine; with this sword I won them, with this sword I will keep them.