nounce the pope, to attend parliament, to cut down the woods between him and the Pale, and to rebuild the ruined churches in his country, was received to mercy. He renewed his submission to St. Leger on 19 May 1542, attended a parliament at Trim, and shortly afterwards repaired to England, St. Leger lending him two hundred marks ‘rather to adventure the losse thereof, then he should lette to come to your Majestie.’
On 24 Sept. he submitted to Henry at Greenwich, and a week later was created Earl of Tyrone for life, with remainder to his supposed son Mathew, alias Ferdorach O'Neill, alias Kelly, who was created at the same time Baron of Dungannon, with remainder to the eldest son of the Earl of Tyrone for the time being. The expenses of his installation were borne by Henry, who also gave him a gold chain of the value of ‘three score pounds and odde,’ and one hundred marks in ready money. Subsequently, on 7 May 1543, Tyrone was admitted a privy councillor of Ireland, and on 9 July received a grant of lands in Dublin for his maintenance during his attendance on parliament. His submission produced a profound sensation in Ireland, and St. Leger was in hopes that, if the arrangement could only be continued for two generations, the country would be for ever reformed. It was afterwards urged by Tyrone's eldest legitimate son, Shane, that, in surrendering his lands and consenting to hold them by English tenure, Tyrone exceeded his rights as chief of his clan; and it was doubtless true that, in theory at least, an Irish chief possessed merely a life interest in the lands of his tribe. But it pleased Shane to forget that the arrangement was one established at the point of the sword, and that Tyrone's submission implied the submission likewise not only of his immediate followers, but of his urraghs as well. It was not here that the real difficulty lay, but in the attempt to substitute succession by primogeniture for that by tanistry, and in the unfortunate accident that led to the choice of Mathew as Tyrone's heir. Still, his acceptance of an English title did unquestionably impair Tyrone's authority. It was felt to be a degradation, and it only wanted that some ambitious rival, such as ultimately presented himself in Shane O'Neill, should arise to oust him from his position, and restore things to their old footing.
For some time, however, the arrangement worked fairly well, and in 1544 Tyrone furnished ninety kerne to the Irish contingent for service in France. But rumours were rife of intrigues with Rome; the claims of Tyrone over his urraghs led to constant breaches of the peace, and there were not wanting signs that Tyrone himself was growing discontented with his position, to which he was not reconciled by the impolitic behaviour of subordinate officials, like Andrew Brereton, in calling him a traitor. The government fixed its hopes on the Baron of Dungannon, but it was inevitable that as power slipped from Tyrone's grasp, it should fall into the hands of Shane. Still the result was not at first so apparent, and the baron was by no means a despicable rival. One consequence of the struggle was that the country suffered severely. ‘The contre of Tyrone,’ Cusack wrote on 27 Sept. 1551, ‘is brought throughe warre of the Erle and his sonnes (oon of them silves against other) to suche extream myserie as there is not ten plowes in all Tyrone.’ ‘Hundreddis,’ he calculated, ‘this last yere and this somer died in the field throghe famen.’ At the request of the Baron of Dungannon, Tyrone was persuaded to go to Dublin, and an attempt was made to restore the country to some sort of order. But even with the assistance of government, the baron was barely able to hold his own against Shane, and after a year's trial Tyrone was, in December 1552, restored, in the vain hope ‘that quiet and tranquillity would follow, and that the Scots could be the more easily expelled from the northern parts.’ But practically Shane was master of the situation, and in 1557 Tyrone and the Baron of Dungannon were obliged to seek shelter in the Pale. After Shane's defeat by Calvagh O'Donnell [q.v.] , they were restored by the Earl of Sussex; but in 1558 the baron was murdered by Shane's orders, and Tyrone once more fled for safety into the Pale, where, worn out with age and injuries, he died, apparently, in 1559.
Con O'Neill married, first, Mary, a daughter of Hugh Boy O'Neill, lord of Clandeboye, who was mother of Shane [q.v.] ; secondly, a daughter of O'Byrne, by whom he had a son, Niall Riach, the father of Turlough Breaslach. In addition to his putative son Mathew or Ferdorach, he had among other illegitimate children Henry, Con, a priest, and Shane Glade, and two daughters, one of whom was married to Sorley Boy MacDonnell, and the other to Hugh Oge MacMahon, lord of the Dartrie.
[State Papers, Henry VIII (printed); Cal. State Papers, Irel. ed. Hamilton; Cal. Carew MSS.; Ware's Annals; Annals of the Four Masters, ed. O'Donovan; Annals of Loch Cé, ed. Hennessy; Marquis of Kildare's Earls of Kildare; Irish Genealogies, Harl. MS. 1425.]
