What he will do I know not, but I assure your Highness he may do it without danger if he will.

And if he will not do that he may in your service, there will be done _to him_ what others may.

God send your Highness a good end.' This English nobleman was, it seems, pious as well as honourable, and could mingle prayers with his plots for assassination.

Mr.Froude suggests extenuating circumstances: 'Lord Sussex, it appears, regarded Shane as a kind of wolf, whom having failed to capture in fair chase he might destroy by the first expedient that came to his hand.' And 'English honour, like English coin, lost something of its purity in the sister island.' Of course; it was the Irish atmosphere that did it all.

But Sussex was not singular in this mode of illustrating English honour.