The time has now come briefly to sketch the career of the most remarkable man who had appeared in Celtic Ireland since the days of Art McMurrough—Shane O’Neill, son of Conn Bacach, often styled, by reason of his high and independent spirit, SeAgan an “Oiomaif (John the Proud).Shane O’Neill Claims the Succession to the Chieftaincy.—To trace his early life we must return to the days of Henry VIII. We have told (chap, v.) how Conn, his father, received from the English King the title of Earl of Tyrone (1542). According to the general rule of English law, the right of succession to the title and lands would belong to Shane as his eldest legitimate son, but, by a singular exception, there was inserted in his patent of nobility a condition that an illegitimate son, Matthew or Feardorcha, should be the heir. Matthew appears to have been already a grown man in 1542, while Shane was a boy of probably thirteen or fourteen.

As Shane grew up, he felt and expressed the greatest resentment at the injustice with which he had been treated and the favour shown to the illegitimate Matthew, who, he asserted, was not an O’Neill at all, but the son of a Dundalk smith named Kelly. It was not that the youth desired an English title, but he considered that the position of tanist during his father’s lifetime, and the succession after his death, should fall to him. Amongst the O’Neills primogeniture had long been the ordinary rule of succession to the chieftaincy, and there was little doubt that the clan’s choice would fall on him.

The English authorities cannot have been ignorant of the equity of Shane’s claim ; but, whether or not the insertion of Matthew’s name in the patent had been originally made at their suggestion, they inclined to follow the usual policy of supporting the weaker candidate in an Irish succession dispute. In 1550 Shane attacked his father, who had yielded up some fortresses to the English, while at the same time Conn was assailed by his other son, Matthew, generally known by his English title of the Baron of Dungannon, who made various complaints of him to the Deputy.

To Henry succeeded his only son, under the title of Edward VI, but, being yet a child, he was King in name merely. The real power was in the hands of a Council of Regency. The majority of the Council were Reformers of an advanced type, and they desired to introduce in England, and to extend to Ireland, a State Religion, differing, to an extent never contemplated by Henry VIII, from the faith of the Roman Church—and, in fact, denying some of her most fundamental doctrines.

These innovations found no genuine supporters in Ireland. Many, even of those who had been content to accept the Royal Supremacy, declined to go further, and obstinately insisted on celebrating or attending Mass, and rejecting the new Prayer Books. The bishops who owed their promotion to the royal favour showed, as a rule, but little zeal, except in the violence and vehemence of their abuse of the disobedient Irish people ; of their less compliant brethren, who still clung to the old order of things, and not infrequently of one another.

St. Leger, who continued in office for over a year, carried out his conciliatory policy towards the chiefs with a fair measure of success, but the ascendancy party in England considered him lukewarm in pushing the Reformation, and, in April 1548, he was recalled, and Sir Edward Bellingham sent in his place. Bellingham was a man, straightforward and honest enough, but rough, imperious, and a believer in stern direct methods.