Note (return) — Chapter III

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 them as a right. The rebel chief consented without difficulty to conditions which cost him nothing, and after an interview with Cusack, O'Neill wrote a formal apology to Elizabeth, and promised for the future to be her Majesty's true and faithful subject. Indentures were drawn up on December 17, in which the Ulster sovereignty was transferred to him in everything but the name, and the treaty required only Elizabeth's signature, when a second dark effort was made to cut the knot of the Irish difficulty.'6