REIGN OF E LIZ ABE TH. [CH. 46. had her own reasons for disliking over- frequent sessions of Parliament. At the last extremity she would yield usually to what the public service demanded, but she gave with grudging hand and irritated temper ; and while she admitted the truth, she quarrelled with those who brought it home to her. Shan meanwhile was preparing for war. He doubted his ability to overreach Elizabeth any more by words and promises, while the growth of the party of the Queen of Scots, his own connection with her, and the Catholic reaction in England and Scotland, encouraged him to drop even the faint disguise behind which he had affected to shield himself. He mounted brass ' ar- tillery ' in Dundrum Castle, and in LifFord at the head of Lough Foyle. The friendship with Argyle grew closer, and another wonderful marriage scheme was in progress for the alliance between the Houses of M'Cal- lum-More and O'Neil. * The Countess ' was to be sent away, and Shan was to marry the widow of James M'Connell whom he had killed who was another half- sister of Argyle, and whose daughter he had married already and divorced. This business ' was said to be the Earl's practice/ 1 The Irish chiefs, it seemed, three thousand years behind the world, retained the habits and the moralities of the Greek princes in the tale of Troy, when the bride of the slaughtered husband was the willing prize of the conqueror ; and when only a rare Andromache was found to envy the fate of a sister Sidney to the English Council, April 1 5 : Irish MSS. Rolls House.
