reduced to thirty-seven men, seeing the case hopeless, surrendered, doubtless expecting mercy. But they were all executed. The fall of Maynooth damped the spirits of Lord Thomas's adherents; and one of his best friends, O'Moore of Leix, was induced by the earl of Ossory, one of the Butlers, to withdraw from him.

The rebellion had already brought the English Pale to a frightful state, three-fourths of Kildare and a great part of Meath burned and depopulated; while to add to the ruin and misery of the people, the plague was raging all over the country. Lord Leonard Grey, marshal or military commander of Ireland, was at last directed to place himself at the head of the army and to take more active measures. He made short work of the rebellion. Lord Thomas's remaining allies rapidly fell off; and he and his faithful friend O'Conor sent offers of submission. O'Conor was received and pardoned; and Lord Thomas delivered himself up to Lord Grey, on condition that his life should be spared.

He was conveyed to England in 1535 and imprisoned in the Tower. Here he was left for about eighteen months, neglected and in great misery. There is extant a pitiful letter written by him while in the Tower in

Signature of Silken Thomas to letter of 1536. "By me Thomas fytz Gerald." From Gilbert's "Fac-Sim. Nat. MSS.," in which is a fac-simile of the whole letter.

1536 to an old servant in Ireland, asking that his friend O'Brien should send him £20 to buy food and clothes :"I never had any money since I came into prison but a noble, nor I have had neither hosen, doublet, nor shoes, nor shirt but one; nor any other garment but a single frieze gown, instead of a velvet furred with

lambskin [as formerly], and so I have gone shirtless and barefoot and barelegged divers times (when it hath not been very warm); and so I should have done still, but that poor prisoners, of their gentleness, hath sometimes given me old hosen and shoes and shirts."

At the time of his arrest his five uncles were treacherously taken by Grey, who invited them to a banquet, and had them seized and manacled on their arrival. Though it was well known that three of them had openly discountenanced the rebellion, and notwithstanding the promise made by Grey to the young lord, he and his uncles were all executed at Tyburn in 1537. Thus fell, at one cruel blow, the great and illustrious house of Kildare: for though the earldom and an heir to it remained, and the lands were ultimately restored, the family never attained its former power and magnificence. During the rebellion, though it lasted little more than a year, the county Kildare was wasted and depopulated, and the whole Pale, as well as the country round it, suffered unspeakable desolation and misery. It was a reckless enterprise, for there never was the remotest chance of success: the only excuse was the extreme youth and inexperience of Lord Thomas Fitzgerald.

Notwithstanding the efforts of King Henry VIII. to extirpate the house of Kildare, there remained the two sons of the ninth earl by Lady Elizabeth Grey. Gerald (or Garrett) the elder, then about twelve years of age, was at Donore near Naas in Kildare, sick of small-pox, at the time of the apprehension of his five uncles. His faithful tutor Thomas Leverous, afterwards bishop of Kildare, fearing for his safety, wrapped him up warm in flannels, and had him secretly conveyed in a cleeve or basket to Thomond,

where he remained under the protection of O'Brien. The other son, then an infant, was in England with his mother. It must be remembered that Leonard Grey, now lord justice, was uncle to these two children, for their mother Lady Elizabeth was his sister; but notwithstanding this he was quite earnest in his endeavours to capture the boy.

Great efforts were now made to discover the place of young Gerald's retreat; and certain death awaited him if he should be captured. But he had friends in every part of Ireland, for the Irish, both native and of English descent, had an extraordinary love for the house of Kildare. By sending him from place to place disguised, his guardians managed to baffle the spies that were everywhere on the watch for him. Sometimes the Irish chiefs that were suspected of protecting him were threatened, or their territories were wasted by his uncle the lord justice; and large bribes were offered to give him up; but all to no purpose.

When Thomond became an unsafe asylum, he was sent by night to Kilbrittain in Cork, to his aunt Lady Eleanor Mac Carthy, widow of Mac Carthy Reagh and sister of the boy's father, who watched over him with unshaken fidelity. While he was under her charge, Manus O'Donnell chief of Tirconnell made her an offer of marriage, which she accepted, mainly for the sake of securing a powerful friend for her outlawed nephew. In the middle of June, 1537, the lady travelled with young Gerald all the way from Cork to Donegal, through Thomond and Connaught, escorted and protected everywhere by the chiefs through whose territories they passed. The illustrious wayfarers must have been well known as they moved slowly along, yet none of the people attempted to betray them. The journey was

performed without the least accident; and she and O'Donnell were immediately married.

The earls of Kildare were connected, either by blood or marriage, with most of the leading Irish families, both native and Anglo-Irish, who were all incensed at the execution of the six Geraldines; and the chiefs, headed by Conn O'Neill prince of Tyrone, a near cousin of the Kildare family, now (1537) formed a league— the First Geraldine League-which included the O'Donnells, the Desmonds, the O'Conors, the O'Briens, the M'Carthys, and many others, with the object of restoring the young nobleman to his rightful place, appointing a guard of twenty-four horsemen to wait on him continually. This greatly alarmed the authorities, and extraordinary efforts were made to capture him, but all in vain.

At the end of two years Lady Eleanor, having reason to believe that her husband was about to betray the boy, had him placed, disguised as a peasant, on board a vessel which conveyed him to St. Malo. On the Continent he was received with great distinction. He was however dogged everywhere by spies, greedy to earn the golden reward for his capture; but he succeeded in eluding them all. And he was pursued from kingdom to kingdom by the English ambassador, who in vain demanded from the several sovereigns that he should be given up. He found his way at last to Rome to his kinsman Cardinal Pole, who gave him safe asylum, and educated him as became a prince.

After a career full of adventure and many narrow escapes, he was reinstated in all his possessions by Edward VI. in 1552; and in 1554 Queen Mary restored his title, and he succeeded as the eleventh earl of Kildare.

From Miss Stokes's "Early Christian Architecture," 76.

CHAPTER XXIX.

SUBMISSION OF THE CHIEFS.

A.D. 1535-1541.-Henry VIII.

ATTERS had now (1535) come to such a pass in Ireland that the English government had to choose one or the other of two courses: either to give up the country altogether, or to put forth the strength they had hitherto held back and regain their authority. Henry VIII., with his strong will, determined to attempt the restoration of the English power, and, as we shall see, he succeeded.

A few years before the time we have now arrived at, King Henry had begun his quarrel with Rome, the upshot of which was that he threw off all spiritual allegiance to the Pope, and made himself supreme head of the church in his own kingdom of England. He made little or no change in religion: on the contrary he did his best to maintain the chief doctrines of the Catholic church, and to resist the progress of the Reformation. All he wanted was that he, and not the Pope, should be head.

He was now determined to be head of the church in Ireland also; and to carry out his measures, he employed the deputy Skeffington, the earl of Ormond, and George