When Conn O'Neill, one of the more recent claimants to be high king of Ireland, but who had also received the title of earl of Tyrone, died in 1559, his son Shane was the logical successor since his brother Matthew, the designated successor, had predeceased the father. However, Shane refused to hold tenure as vassal to the English Crown, the situation which his father had accepted, preferring instead to be an Irish chieftain. The queen would have preferred therefore that Matthew's son, the baron of Dungannon, receive the title. However, the earl of Sussex, who had been deputy and then elevated to lord lieutenant, suggested first trying diplomacy, even having O'Neill entertained at the royal court in the early part of 1562. Although he gave his submission to the queen, O'Neill, upon returning to Ireland, was unremitting in his adherence to the old ways. Accordingly, three years later, Sir Henry Sidney, who had succeeded Sussex, his brother-in-law, decided a campaign had to be undertaken to bring O'Neill down. He sent a large army into Ulster after him, which had great success but did not capture him. What brought him down in the end was defeat by a rival Irish force, that of O'Donnell of Tyrconnell. When he sought protection from the MacDonnells of Antrim, whom he had defeated a few years earlier, they murdered him. With his death, which was followed by the attainment of his lands by the queen, a second cousin, Turloch O'Neill, the Tanist, succeeded as the Gaelic chieftain. The queen also acquiesced to his ascendancy in Tyrone, although Shane's young nephew, Hugh, who had been rescued and brought to London after Turloch had killed his brother Brian, remained her ultimate favorite for the earldom. Paradoxically, several decades later, he would come to lead the last great stand of the Gaelic order against her policy of Anglicization.
World History
