Wives
As was the custom of the day, marriages were normally arranged for political alliances. If the alliance fell apart, then the husband could send the wife back to her father in a political type divorce. Such was the case in more than one of Shane's marriages. His first wife was Catherine, the daughter of James MacDonald (McDonnell in Irish), Earl of the Isles. He divorced her, and treated his second wife, Mary, a daughter of Calvagh O'Donnell, with cruelty in revenge for her brother's hostility. She soon died when Shane captured and imprisoned her father who was his enemy. Calvagh was married to Catherine MacLean Campbell, the dowager Countess of Argyle and daughter of Hector Mor MacLean of Clan MacLean and the Scottish island of Duart and former wife of Archibald Campbell, 4th Earl of Argyll. Shane kept Calvagh, whom he hated for defeating him in battle and eventually kidnapped, imprisoned at Dungannon for years. In that time, he took Calvagh's wife as a mistress. Upon Calvagh's negotiated release, Catherine decided to stay with the much younger Shane. Her father came to Ireland and blessed the marriage between the two in 1563. During his time in London, he asked Queen Elizabeth to find him a "proper English wife". Toward the end of his life, as Shane was trying to negotiate a settlement, he agreed to send Catherine MacLean back to her father and marry the widow of James MacDonald, who was also the base sister of the Earl of Argyll. He did not end the marriage with Countess MacLean, as she was with him at his death in Antrim. Catherine and her children fled into the nearby forest of Glenconkeyne and were protected by the O'Neill clan therein. She eventually made her way to safety at Duart Castle where her brother put the youngest of Shane's children into his care. Catherine MacLean, Countess Campbell, then Lady O'Donnell, then Lady O'Neill eventually married a minister of the Scottish throne and died in Scotland.
Read more about this topic: Shane O'Neill
Famous quotes containing the word wives:
“I was amongst the virtues like the great Turk in his seraglio of women, and I chose to dwell with that virtue which looked the fairest in my eyes and gave me at that season most pleasure. In short, I made wives of them: I first admired them, then made them my own property, and if they would not submit to my will, I again turned them off and divorced them.”
—Sarah Fielding (1710–1768)
“Traditionally, marriage involved a kind of bartering, rather than mutual inter-dependence or role sharing. Husbands financially and economically supported wives, while wives emotionally, psychologically and socially supported husbands. He brought home the bacon, she cooked it. He fixed the plumbing, she the psyche.”
—Bettina Arndt (20th century)
“...husbands should love their wives as they do their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.”
—Bible: New Testament, Ephesians 5:28.