That person, after many denials, at length confessed his guilt, and said that his object was to rid his country of a dangerous enemy.

This motive was so good in the eye of the Government that it saved the life of the culprit.

Sir Thomas Cusack, writing to Cecil, March 22, 1564, says, 'I persuaded O'Neill to forget the matter, whereby no more talk should grow of it; seeing there is no law to punish the offender other than by discretion and imprisonment, which O'Neill would little regard except the party might be executed by death, and that the law doth not suffer.

So as the matter be wisely pacified, it were well done to leave it.' Shane was probably aware that Smith was but an instrument, who would be readily sacrificed as a peace-offering.
The sketch which Mr.Froude gives of Ulster and its wild sovereign at this time is admirably picturesque.

'Here then, for the present, the story will leave Shane safely planted on the first step of his ambition, in all but the title, sole monarch of the North.