lordship's extreme piety caused him the
loss of 300 horses, which he naively confesses thus: 'Being Easter
time, and he having travelled the week before, and Easter day till
night, thought fit to give Easter Monday to prayer, and in this time
certain churls stole off with the horses.' To this Mr. Froude adds the
pertinent remark: 'The piety which could neglect practical duty for
the outward service of devotion, yet at the same time could make
overtures to Neil Greg to assassinate his master, requires no very
lenient consideration.'

In connexion with the Irish Church Disestablishment Bill Lord Elcho
proposed Solomon's plan of settling the dispute of the two mother
Churches about Ireland. He would cut the country in two, establishing
Protestantism in the north and Catholicism in the south. When an
experienced member of the House of Commons makes such a proposition
in this age, we should not be surprised that Sir Thomas Cusack in the
year 1563 proposed to Queen Elizabeth that Ireland should be divided
into four provinces, each with a separate president, either elected by
the people or chosen in compliance with their wishes. O'Neill was to
have the north, the Clanrickards the west, the O'Briens or Desmonds
the south, and thus the English might be allowed the undisturbed
enjoyment of the Pale. This notable scheme for settling the Irish
question was actually adopted by the Queen, and she wrote to Sussex,
stating that, as his expedition to the north had resulted only in
giving fresh strength to the enemy, she 'had decided to come to an end
of the war of Ulster by agreement rather than by force.' To Shane she
was all compliance. He had but to prove himself a good subject, and
he might have any pre-eminence which her Majesty could grant without
doing any other person wrong. 'If he desired to have a council
established at Armagh, he should himself be the president of that
council; if he wished to drive the Scots out of Antrim, her own troops
would assist in the expulsion; if he was offended with the garrison in
the cathedral, she would gladly see peace maintained in a manner less
expensive to herself. To the primacy he might name the person most
agreeable to himself, and with the primacy, as a matter of course,
even the form of maintaining the Protestant Church would be abandoned
also. In return for these concessions the Queen demanded only that
Shane, to save her honour, should sue for them as a favour instead
of demanding the