Fitzwilliam emphatically denied all charges of corruption against himself, and said he had always treated Tyrone with the consideration due to a useful instrument. Appearances were now very much against him, and the Chief Justice had shown scandalous partiality in separating from his fellow-commissioners and remaining for two or three days quite alone with the Earl. Captain Thomas Lee too, who was a needy man and suspiciously intimate with Tyrone, had stolen away to him and was not likely to exercise a good influence. Lee, who was afterwards hanged at Tyburn for his share in the Essex conspiracy, distinguished himself in the Wicklow district, and he has left a curious paper in which he cautioned the Queen against the probable cost and trouble of an Ulster war. According to him the North could only be governed with Tyrone's help. The chief authority there should be in his hands, and, that being granted, there would be no difficulty in getting him to accept a sheriff and to have regular assizes at Dungannon. 'Being often his bedfellow,' says Lee, 'he hath divers times bemoaned himself, with tears in his eyes, saying if he knew any way in the world to behave himself (otherwise than he hath done) to procure your Majesty's assured good opinion of him, he would not spare (if it pleased you to command him) to offer himself to serve your highness in any part of the world against your enemies, though he were sure to lose his life... which tears have neither proceeded from dissimulation, or of a childish disposition, (for all who know him will acquit him thereof) but of mere zeal unto your highness, &c.' Of a childish disposition, indeed, he may well be acquitted; but dissimulation was his strong point. And Lee's proposed system of government involved arrangements with other chiefs also; yet he averred O'Donnell, Maguire, Brian Oge MacMahon, and Brian Oge O'Rourke to be traitors and villains and obstinate against the Queen. O'Donnell was married to one of Tyrone's daughters, and Maguire was soon to wed another. Again he says, 'all the friends to your highness in those countries are but two, O'Hanlon and Magennis.... O'Hanlon is married to the Earl of Tyrone's sister, and merely enriched by the Earl; Magennis's eldest son is to marry the Earl's daughter. And if this affinity were [not], the manner of the Irish is always to the part they see strongest; and when your Majesty (as there is no doubt) shall prevail, they will then seek favour and make offer of much service, but seldom or never perform any; whereof myself have been too often a witness.' This testimony is remarkable because it exactly coincides with that of Bagenal, who said his neighbours, O'Hanlon and Magennis, were combined with Tyrone, not because they liked him, but because he seemed, for the moment, to be the strongest. In Tyrone's interest Lee stigmatises Bagenal as a slanderer and a coward, but he agrees with him where his hero's interests are not specially concerned,