I 4 6 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 42. ambush to cut them off. Suspecting treason they kept within their walls, and Shan was compelled to content himself with driving their cattle ; but had they shown outside not a man of them would have been left alive. The next day the Irish came under the gate and taunted them with 'cowardice/ ' telling them the wolves had eaten their cattle, and that the matches they thought they saw were wolves' eyes/ 1 Con O'Donnell, the Callogh's son, wrote piteously to Elizabeth that after carrying off his father and his mother, Shan had now demanded the surrender of his castles ; he had refused out of loyalty to England, and his farms were burnt, his herds were destroyed, and he was a ruined man. 2 A few days later M' Guy re, from the banks of Lough Erne, wrote that Shan had summoned him to submit ; he had answered ' that he would not forsake the English till the English forsook him ; ' ' wherefore/ he said, i 1 know well that within these four days the sayed Shan will come to dystroy me contrey except your Lordshypp will sette some remedy in the matter.' 3 Sussex was powerless. Duly as the unlucky chief foretold, Shan came down into Fermanagh ' with a great 1 Sussex to Elizabeth, October 15 Irish MSS. 2 Con O'Donnell to Elizabeth, September 30: Irish MSS. Holts Souse. Sussex, in forwarding the letter, added ' This Con is valiant, wise, much disposed of himself to civility, true of his word, speaketh and writeth very good English, and hath natural shame-fastness in his face, which few of the wild Irish have, and is as- suredly the likeliest plant that can grow in Ulster to graft a good sub- ject on.' 8 M'Guyre to Sussex, Octobei 9 : WRIGHT'S Elizabeth, vol. i. p. 93.
