The life of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, 1763-1798

Prefatory Note

T DESIRE, in publishing the present volume, to -L thank the editors of The Nineteenth Century and ^fter, of The North American Review^ and of The English Illustrated Magazine^ for permission to include in it portions of papers on Lord Edward FitzGerald, the Irish Informers, and Pamela, which appeared in their respective Magazines.

I also wish to thank Mr. Walter Crane for his kindness in allowing me to reproduce his design upon the cover of the book ; Lord Walter FitzGerald for valuable information and help with regard to portraits and illustrations ; Mr. Strickland, of the National Gallery of Ireland, for assistance of the same kind ; Lord Cloncurry and Mr. BischofFsheim for permission to reproduce pictures in their possession ; and Mr. T. W. RoUeston for his kindness both in revising the proofs of my book and allowing me the use of his photograph of St. Werburgh's Church.

I. A. T.

Chapter I Page

Dublin and the Geraldines — St. Werburgh's Church — Lord Edward FitzGerald's Grave — His Career — A Cause — Varying Estimates of his Character — Unfitted for Leadership . . i

Chapter II 1763—1781

Birth and Parentage — The Race of the FitzGeralds — Features of their History — Lord Edward's Father and Mother — The Lennox Family — Childhood — The Duchess's Second Marriage — Boyhood in France — Commission in the Army — America . 12

Chapter III 1781— 1783

The American War — Opinions concerning It — Lord Edward at Charleston — Active Service — Dangerous Escapade — Wounded at Eutavv Springs — Tony — Early Popularity — St. Lucia — Back in Ireland 33

Chapter IV 1783—1786

Returned to Parliament — Life in Ireland — Tedium — The Condition of the Country — Westminster Election — Lord Edward's Family — Lord Edward in Love — At Woolwich — In the Channel Islands — Letters to his Mother 46 viii Contents

PAGE

Chapter V 1786— 1788

Lord Edward and his Mother — Increasing Interest in Politics — The Duke of Rutland Viceroy — Lord Edward's Position in Parliament and Outside It — Visit to Spain — General O'Hara 64

Chapter VI 1788— 1789

Lord Edward in New Brunswick — Second Love Affair — Letters to his Mother — Irish Affairs — The Duke of Leinster — Lord Edward declines to seek Promotion — Adventurous Expedition — Native Tribes — Disappointment — Return Home . . 74

Chapter VII 1790 — 1792

Lord Edward offered Command of the Cadiz Expedition— Refuses it on being returned to Parliament — Decisive Entry on PoHtics — In London — Charles James Fox — DubUn — Condition of Ireland — Whig Club — Society of United Irishmen — Thomas Paine and his Friends — Lord Edward in Paris • • • 95

Chapter VIII

Pamela — Her Birth and Origin— Introduced into the Orleans' Schoolroom — Early Training — Madame de Genlis and the Orleans Family — Visit to England — Southey on Pamela — Sheridan said to be Engaged to Pamela— Departure for France 1 1 5

Chapter IX

Lord Edward in Paris — Spirit of the Revolution — Enthusiasm in England and Ireland — Shared by Lord Edward — Compromising Action on his Part — Meeting with Pamela — The Due

Contents ix

PAGE

d'Orleans and Madame de Genlis — Marriage of Lord Edward and Pamela — Lord Edward Cashiered 133

Chapter X 1792— 1793

Pamela and Lord Edward's Family — Her Portrait — Effect upon Lord Edward of Cashierment — Catholic Convention — Scene in Parliament — Catholic Relief Bill — Lawlessness in the Country — Lord Edward's Isolation 152

Chapter XI 1793— 1794

Social Position affected by Political Differences — Married Life — Pamela's Apparent Ignorance of Pohtics — Choice of a Home — Gardening — Birth of a Son— Letters to the Duchess of Leinster — Forecasts of the Future 169

Chapter XII 1794— 1795

Failing Faith in Constitutional Methods ot Redress — Lord Edward's Relations with the Popular Leaders — His Qualifications for Leadership — Jackson's Career and Death — Ministerial Changes — Lord Fitzwilliam's Viceroyalty — And Recall — Lord Camden succeeds Him — Arthur O'Connor . . , 179

Chapter XIII

Dangerous State of the Country — Protestants and Catholics — Savage Military Measures — Lord Edward joins the United Association — Its Warlike Character — The "Bloody Code" — Lord Edward's Speech on Insurrection Act — Mission of Lord Edward and O'Connor to French Government — Meeting with Madame de Genlis — Hoche and Wolfe Tone — Failure of French Expedition . 196

X Contents

PAGE

Chapter XIV

Effects of the French Failure — United Irishmen and Parliamentary Opposition — Attitude of Grattan — Lord Castlereagh — Government Brutality — Lord Moira's Denunciation — Lord Edward and his Family — Charge against Him — Meets a French Envoy in London — Insurrectionary Projects 212

Chapter XV

Irish Informers — " Battalion of Testimony" — Leonard McNally — Thomas Reynolds — Meeting between Reynolds and Lord Edward — Reynolds and Neilson — Curran's Invective . . 232

Chapter XVI

Lord Edward's Doom Approaching — His Portrait at this Date — Personal Attraction — Differences among the Leaders — Delay of French Assistance — Arrest of O'Connor — His Acquittal and Imprisonment — National Prospects — Reynolds's Treachery — Arrest of the Committee 245

Chapter XVII

Excitement in Dublin — Pamela— Lord Edward's Family — Lord Castlereagh's Sympathy — Lord Edward's Evasion — Various Reports — Reynolds's Curious Conduct — Meeting of Lord Edward and Pamela — Martial Law^Lord Edward's Position — Spirit in which he met It 262

Chapter XVIII

Lord Edward in Hiding — Hairbreadth Escapes — Loyalty and Treachery — In Thomas Street — Last Visit to his Wife —

Contents xi

PAGE

Insurrectionary Plans — Higgins and Magan — Attempt at Capture — Acquittal of Lord Kingston — Lord Edward tracked, wounded, and taken Prisoner 282

Chapter XIX

Conduct when a Prisoner — Various Scenes in Dublin — Pamela — The Facts and her Account of Them at Variance — Her After-life — Visit to Barere — Death . . . . . . . 305

Chapter XX

Attempts to ensure a Fair Trial — Prince of Wales — Conspiracy to Rescue — Lord Edward's Condition — Harshness of the Government — Refusal to admit his Family — Change for the Worse — Last Interview with Lady Louisa ConoUy and his Brother— Death — And Burial — Summing Up. . . .316

APPENDIX A Funeral of Lord Edward FitzGerald 335

APPENDIX B The Bill of Attainder ; . 337

LIST OF PRINCIPAL AUTHORITIES 339

INDEX 341

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

LORD EDWARD FITZGERALD Frontispiece

Page

JAMES, EARL OF KILDARE (DUKE OF LEINSTER) . . . . ' . l8

EMILY, COUNTESS OF KILDARE (DUCHESS OF LEINSTER) .... 24

CARTON 47

PARLIAMENT HOUSE 68

DEATH MASK OF THEOBALD WOLFE TONE I07

MISS LINLEY (MRS SHERIDAN) AS ST. CECILIA 126

RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN 13I

PAMELA 154

LEINSTER HOUSE 177

ARTHUR O'CONNOR 192

VISCOUNT CASTLEREAGH 2l8

LORD EDWARD FITZGERALD . . 247

PAMELA (LADY EDWARD FITZGERALD) AND CHILD 272

ST. CATHERINE'S CHURCH AND THOMAS STREET 302

LORD HENRY FITZGERALD , . 325

SOUTH WALL OF ST. WERBURGH'S CHURCH 332

xii

LIFE OF

LORD EDWARD FITZGERALD

Chapter I

Dublin and the Geraldines — St. Werburgh's Church — Lord Edward FitzGerald's Grave — His Career — A Cause — Varying Estimates of his Character — Unfitted for Leadership.

NEAR the east gate — formerly the gate of St. Mary Les Dames — of the city of Dublin stand a group of buildings notable indeed.

Near by is the Castle, with all its historical and political associations, past and present. A stone's throw removed is the sombre edifice whose foundation dates from the days of faith when, " about the year of our Lord 1038, the Danish Prince of Dublin gave to Donat, Bishop of that see, a place to erect a church to the honour of the Holy Trinity." So the Black Book of Christchurch records the first gift to the famous Priory of the Trinity, now known as Christchurch Cathedral. Again, in close proximity to the priory (where in 1562 the monument of another alien, this time of Norman blood. Earl StrongboWj a life Of •llor^ l!£^\^^n•^ 3flt30cl•al^

w^s broken and rcpairevi) the City H;ill h;is replaced, by a double secularisation, Cork House, on the consecrated oTound where once stood the Coiu'ent and Church ot St. Mary Les Panics ; while, last ot ihc group, at an almost equal distance from the Castle on the farther side, the modern Cluircl\ of St. WerburQ;h, \\'ith its eighteenth-century, pseudo-classic frontage, its railed-in pavement and gasHt portico, remains to tell that once an Anglo-Norman foundation miported from over the sea the nan\e and tan\e of Saint ^Yerberga, son\etime — in those remote ages when blood-ropdty and sainthood went hand-in-iiand — Princess of Elast Anglia and Abbess, as her mother and STcUidmother before her, of the Monastery of Ely.

Close neighbours, these three religious houses shared with the Castle many a memory of past days ; and amono-st these memories is ever and again recurrent the name of Ireland's foster-sons, the Ger;ildines. To them she gave true birthrights. With her traditions, her stones, her sepulchres, and her dust, their race is associated bevond possibility of severance.

In the Castle FitzGerald after KitzGerald ruled, whether as the King's Deputy or despite of him. In the Castle, too, one after another lay imprisoned. li\ the Priory close at hand was entombed Maurice FitzGerald, Earl of Kildare, dead in i >c)o — once a prisoner in the Castle, afterwards Deputy there. Little more than a centurv later, in the choir of the same church, St. Mary's Chapel was built by

Xtfe ot Xcco JEOwaro f ttsGeratO '.

another Earl Gerald, who, dying the following year, 1513, he({ueathed "his best gown of gold and purple to make dresses for the priests," already endowed by him with vestments of cloth-<jif-goJd, a yearly commemoration, with other spiritual privileges, being zccfjrdtd to the donor and doubtless observed for many a year. In the Priory, not a score of years earlier, this same Gerald must have borne a leading part in the ceremony when — our Lady's statue in the adjacent Convent-church of St. Mary Les Dames lending her crown for the occasion — the poor puppet-king, Lambert Simnel, **well faced and princely shaped, and of no very evil nature," was crowned, with feasting and triumphing and mighty shouts and cries ; and, the pageant ended, was borne ** on tall men's shoulders," and doubtless accompanied by the FitzGerald brothers — Deputy and Chancellor at the time — his chief supporters, to the King's Castle. In the Priory, again, the rebel nobles, Kildare at their head, received the royal pardon under the Great Seal, the oath of allegiance taken by the Earl upon a Host consecrate<;l by the English chaplain, lest even in this solemnity deception might be practised and the pledge rendered a nullity.

Scenes like this, with their vivid medisevalism, will recur no more in the quarter of the city where Christchurch, the King's Castle, and the City Hall recall or obscure the remembrance of the past. The Priory, with its vestments of purple and gold, is become the cathedral church of a faith which has

4 %itc ot Xorb Bbwar^ 3flt36eralb

discarded purple and gold — and much else beside. St. Mary Les Dames is dispossessed, not only of her crown, but of her nuns, her convent, her chapel, and her worshippers ; and her parish, as far back as the sixteenth century, was incorporated with that of St. Werberga, But St. Werburgh's Church — even the St. Werburgh's of to-day, with its Corinthian columns and classic portico, has still one tradition to hand on : a tradition which links the chivalries of the past, chivalries armoured and helmed, lance in rest and banners flying, with the chivalries of new centuries of hope and aspiration and sacrifice, hope with no coloured visions, aspiration shorn of glamour, sacrifice without its ritual of palm and crown. For beneath the chancel of the church dedicated to the Anghan saint lies Edward FitzGerald ; while without, in a piece of burying-ground belonging to his family, by a coincidence as strange as that which placed Lord Castlereagh's monument near that of Grattan in Westminster, is the tomb of Charles Henry Sirr, from whose hand Lord Edward received the wound of which he died.

Ireland gives to her sons many gifts and great ; and, giving much, she requires from them also much. To the Geraldines of old she gave her loves, her hates, her blood, and her soul, receiving from them in return fair chapels, loyalty to her faith, devotion to her nationality. To Edward FitzGerald she gave her last gift — a dream ; and he, for her gift — greater love hath no man than this— laid down his life.

%ifc of Xort) Bbwart) jftt3(BetalD 5

To place a death, as it were, as the headline of a life, and a grave as its frontispiece, might seem to reverse the natural order of things. But it is precisely the close of Lord Edward's career which has riveted upon him for a hundred years the gaze of his countrymen ; and of him, as of another, it may be said that, in their eyes, no action of his Hfe became him like the leaving it. It is, in fact, his title to a place in history.

At first sight Lord Edward's story presents only another monument of failure, vowed as he was to the service of a cause predestined to disaster, and, furthermore, dead before it had been granted to him to strike so much as a blow in its defence. But there is another reading to the record, and Fate is more just in her dealings than it sometimes appears. The gift of a cause is in itself no small one, and who shall determine whether, the character of the man being taken into account, the price exacted for it was disproportionately great .?

It is, however, necessary to distinguish. If he was essentially a man with a cause, he was in no wise a fanatic. To some men it chances to possess their cause ; to others to be possessed by it. To some, again, it is, so far as choice can be said to be a factor at all in the lives of men, the result of free election ; while there are others to whom it might almost appear that no alternative has been offered, in whose case the attempt to elude the destiny prepared for them would be as vain as the endeavour to escape from some

6 3Llfe of %ov^ BbwatD 3fit36eralb

doom which, pronounced upon them at birth, would be found, like Asrael, the Angel of Death in the Eastern legend, awaiting them, wherever they might fly.

It was to this last class that Edward FitzGerald belonged. Single-hearted and loyal as was his devotion to his country and his country's cause, it would be a misapprehension to confuse him with those comrades to whom the enfranchisement of their native land had been, from youth up, the one engrossing preoccupation of life, and who formed a group bound together by the closest ties of association, of class, and of interest.

Between Lord Edward and such men — men of the stamp of Wolfe Tone, his friend Russell, Emmet, McNevin, and the rest — cordial as were their relations during those later years in the course of which he was being drawn into the stream which was hurrying them on towards revolution, there was nevertheless a gulf which, bridged over as it was by a common aim and a common political interest, could not but leave them in a measure apart. To the patriots who were represented by Wolfe Tone, the one absorbing object removed, life would have held but little meaning. To Lord Edward, on the other hand, dedicated to that object as were the closing years of his brief manhood, it constituted, taking his life as a whole, but one aim out of many, a single thread, however shining and important, in the texture of a manycoloured woof. It was by the gradual elimination of rival, if not conflicting, interests that the ultimate domination of that which was to prove paramount

%itc of XorJ) ]£&warD 3fit3<Beral& 7

was assured. Lover, soldier, and patriot by turns, though it is in the last character alone that he has won a place in the remembrance of men, he brought almost equal enthusiasm to bear upon each pursuit. The enterprise in which he met his death was | embraced in precisely the same gallant and irre- \ sponsible spirit of adventure, though combined with an invincible faith in the justice of his cause and a i more serious purpose, which led him to imperil his life in a harebrained exploit during the American war or to traverse wildernesses in Canada hitherto unexplored.

It is true that it is not altogether an easy matter, oppressed by the sense of coming tragedy — a tragedy all the darker for the setting in which it is framed and from the very nature of the victim — to avoid allowing the shadow to fall backwards, and to cast its sombre tints over days troubled by no foreboding. But to do so is at once to lose the true atmosphere by which Lord Edward's life was pervaded, the bright and light-hearted daring which does not so much disregard danger as forget it, and makes its sacrifices with a spontaneous and reckless generosity which is almost unreflecting.

The mistake made by some of those whose admiration has been warmest has been of this nature. They have lost sight of the fact that amongst his most distinctive traits was the gaiety with which he faced the crises of life, great and small — a gaiety not incompatible, especially in those of his race, with

8 Xtfe of %ov^ B5wart) 3fit36etalb

complete earnestness of purpose and passionate conviction ; but incomprehensible to men of more ponderous temper, and possibly perplexing to those of more concentrated aims. Thus one writer is found adverting to the reverence inspired by the " solemn religious enthusiasm " belonging to his character ; while la. tone approaching deprecation is discernible in the '■explanation offered by Dr. Madden of the levity of his bearing at the very crisis of his fate, when not only life and liberty, but the entire issue of the enterprise of which he was leader, were at stake. It was his habit, says this apologist, to '■^appear'' in his usual spirits, " apparently " light-hearted and easily amused ; leaving it to be inferred from the italics that this gaiety was nothing but a mask, assumed at will. The theory is as widely at variance with the openness and simplicity of his nature as the assertions of a writer less favourably disposed towards him, who declared him to have artfully concealed his traitorous designs under the cover of his amiable manners and conduct, to have fascinated all his acquaintance into unqualified confidence, and to have sought to disguise his treason under the shield of the sublimest virtue and patriotism.

The one view is no less erroneous than the other. So far as it is possible to judge from the evidence that remains, what Lord Edward appeared to be, that he was. There are natures so complex that it is a difficult matter for even their contemporaries to hazard an opinion upon them, to adventure with

Xtfe of Xort) Bbwart) 3fit36etalt) 9

any assurance a conjecture as to the motives by which they are swayed, or to reconcile the man and his actions. But Lord Edward was not one of these. There was a singleness and a transparence about his character which forced upon men of the most opposite views the recognition of its main features, and amongst those best quaHfied to judge a rare consonance of opinion on the subject is found. On his gallantry and courage, his unblemished personal integrity, the sincerity of his ardour, his loyalty to the cause he had made his own, and the rare and sunny sweetness , of his disposition, scarcely a doubt has been cast, ^ even by those whose natural bias would have inclined them to take an unfavourable view of the leader of the movement in which he was engaged. Thus a political opponent, Henry MacDougall, who published in the year 1799 an account of the persons concerned in the " foul and sanguinary conspiracy " which had just been crushed, describes the young commander-in-chief of that foul conspiracy as "the delight and pride of those who knew him (this truly unfortunate circumstance of his life excepted), nor did there ever exist in the estimation of his friends a more noble youth, a braver gentleman " ; and if it is true that the absence of bitterness amongst his Irish opponents | may have been in part due to the glamour clinging \ to the figure of a Geraldine, those to whom no suspicion of national prejudice can attach are at one with his countrymen in this respect, and few are the stones which have been cast at his personal character.

lo %itc ot %ot^ B^wat& 3fit3<Beral&

In his capacity of political leader, however, it was another matter. Here he suffered to a marked degree from " ks defauts de ses qualitesy A worse man would have made a better conspirator ; and amongst all, save such as are pledged to allow no failing or deficiency to mar the portrait of their hero, there is as full a concurrence of opinion concerning his unfitness for the part he was set to play as with regard to the stainlessness of his honour. An authority vouched for by Madden as being better acquainted with him perhaps than any other of his associates, while bearing witness to the nobility of his character, his freedom from selfishness, meanness, or duplicity, and to his frankness and generosity, yet denied his capacity to conduct a revolution ; Reinhard, French Minister to the Hanseatic towns, and a most friendly critic of the envoy who had been sent to open negotiations with his Government, while declaring himself ready to answer for the young man's sincerity with his head — a compliment, it may be observed, which Lord Edward would not have reciprocated — added that he was wholly unsuited to be leader of an enterprise or chief of a party ; and, to quote an observer in a very different sphere, the informer Cox, while adding his testimony to Lord Edward's zeal, declared him, at the same time, unfit to command a sergeant's guard.

Such would seem to be the general verdict, contemporary and posthumous, and one borne out by the issue of the struggle in which he was engaged

3Ltfe of Xorb lEbwar^ jfitsGetalb n

and his failure to carry it to a successful conclusion. It was a verdict in which — since neither vanity nor arrogance are to be counted amongst his failings — he would himself in all probability have concurred. It was part of the gallantry of his disposition not to shrink from responsibility when it was thrust upon him. But it was his misfortune, and, according as it is regarded, the misfortune or the salvation of his country, that he was forced into a position which he was not competent to fill. The incongruity of the man and of the situation lends half its tragedy to the melancholy story.

Chapter II 1763—1781

Birth and Parentage — The Race of the FitzGeralds — Features of their History — Lord Edward's Father and Mother — The Lennox Family — Childhood — The Duchess's Second Marriage — Boyhood in France — Commission in the Army — America.

L

^ I ORD EDWARD FITZGERALD, fifth son and

/ _I y twelfth child of the twentieth Earl of Kildare

and first Duke of Leinster, was born in London on October 15th, 1763.

The period during which his short life was to be passed — not thirty-five years in all — was a stormy one for Ireland. It was a time when the brooding resentment over the wrongs of centuries was gathering to a head, and sullen submission was being exchanged for fierce and passionate resistance ; a time when injuries were inflicted in the name of religion ; when tyranny was begetting violence, and oppression brutality ; and when men, despairing of justice, were taking the vindication of their rights, as well as vengeance for their wrongs, into their own hands.

The story has been told often enough, now from one point of view, now from another ; and it is not

Xife ot Xort) ]Et>wart> 3fit36eralb 13

intended to offer a further repetition of it here, except in so far as it may be necessary for the purposes of purely personal narrative.

Nor does it come within the compass of the present work to dwell otherwise than briefly upon the race from which the subject of it sprang. To give a consecutive account, however incomplete, of the Geraldines, of their dogged resistance to English rule, their forced submissions, and their renewed revolts, would be, it has been said, to epitomise the history of their entire nation — a nation whose annals, unconnected and episodical, " are like the scenes of a tragedy whose author had much imagination but no art " — and would occupy more space than can be afforded here.

It is with a certain " Dominus Otho " that the story begins ; who, said to have been one of the Gherardini of Florence, passed into England by way of Normandy, and is found holding the rank of " honorary Baron " there in the reign of Edward the Confessor.

The descendants of Lord Otho did not remain for long rooted on the eastern side of St. George's Channel. About the year 1169 — before Strongbow had made good his footing in Ireland — two half-brothers, Maurice FitzGerald and Robert FitzStephen, crossed over, on the invitation of the King of Leinster, to help him against his foes, were invested by him with the lordship of Wexford, and so were established on Irish soil.^

For a certain time it would seem that the tradition

^ From this Maurice not only the Earls of Kildare, but their kinsmen the Earls of Desmond traced their descent.

14 Xfte ot XorD Bbwatb jfitsOeralt)

of loyalty to the English throne was, though intermittently, observed by the Geraldines, their services rendered to Edward III. in his contest with the Bruce having been such as to be rewarded, in the year 131 6, with the earldom of Kildare. But as years went by and the original connection with England grew more remote, they proved less and less submissive vassals of the Crown ; and though frequently holding high office in Ireland, they are constantly found suffering imprisonment or disgrace, for offences real or imputed, and acccused, on one occasion at least, of " alliance, fosterage, and alterage with the King's Irish enemies," from whom, however, they continued to the end to be held distinct.

As early as the fourteenth century a General Assembly was called together at Kilkenny by Maurice, Earl of Kildare, and others, in opposition to the Parliament summoned, to meet in Dublin, Earl Maurice suffering a subsequent term of imprisonment ; and under the Tudor kings the Earls of Kildare continued to display the same features of turbulence and insubordination ; open revolt alternating with perfunctory acts of submission which plainly bore the character of mere provisional concessions to necessity.

The history of Earl Gerald, in particular, dating from 1477, might almost be taken as typical of the relations existing between the English kings and their " cousins the Earls of Kildare." Invested with the office of Deputy, he persisted in retaining it, in spite of dismissal ; and, calling together a Parliament, was confirmed by it in his post. It was this same Gerald,

%\tc ot Xort) I6&war& 3fit36eralt) 15

too, who headed the Irish nobles in their attempt to place Simnel upon the throne ; and when the enterprise had ended in disaster, and letters had been sent to England to demand a pardon, the nature of his submission is sufficiently indicated by the petition presented to the King's envoy by the citizens of Waterford, who, fearing lest vengeance might be wreaked upon them by the pardoned man in consequence of their refusal to join in the rebellion, entreated that they might be exempted from his jurisdiction as Deputy.

Two years later, summoned to meet the King, the great Irish nobles, Kildare at their head, repaired to Greenwich ; when Henry VII, , telling them goodhumouredly that '* they would at last crown apes, should he be long absent," entertained them at a banquet at which the ex-King Simnel played the part of butler.

Again the scene shifts. Five years more and the banqueting-hall is replaced by the council-chamber ; where Earl Gerald, an attainted man, is undergoing his trial, one of the offences of which he stands accused relating to the burning of Cashel Cathedral, in consequence of a feud with the Archbishop, now present in person to prove the charge.

" By my troth," answered the Earl, "I would never have done it, but I thought the Bishop was in it."

The King laughed, pleased, it would seem, with the bold retort ; and when the Bishop of Meath, also present, exclaimed that all Ireland could not rule this i6 Xife of Xort) BDwar^ jfit^Oetalb

man, " Then he shall rule all Ireland," was Henry's rejoinder. He kept his word. Earl Gerald went home a free man, restored to all his honours, and Lord Deputy besides.

His successor, another Gerald, held hostage in England for his father's good faith, had been present at the Field of the Cloth of Gold, apparently in favour with Henry VIII. Summoned from Ireland, however, later on, to answer charges preferred against him, he found a lodging in the Tower ; and a report gaining currency that his execution was to follow, his son Thomas, not more than twenty years old — a young man, according to the chronicler, of considerable personal attraction and "not devoid of wit, were it not, as it fell out in the end, that a fool had the keeping thereof ' ' — promptly resigned the Vice-deputyship, with which he had been entrusted in his father's absence ; and, joined by two of his uncles, headed an insurrection.