jealousy of Henry VIII. Being "overtaken. with vehement suspicion of sundry treasons, it was deemed politic to draw him away from Ireland; and, by secret heavers and enviers of his fortunes, nourishers of the old grudge, the king was urged to call upon him to attend the English court." The illustrious but involuntary absentee, was, on his first arrival in England, treated with a severity vainly intended to intimidate a spirit which was afterwards to be subdued by other and more seducing means. Among many frivolous charges, " he was opposed with divers interrogatories touching the Earl of Desmond, his cousin, a notorious traytor." His trial, however, was but a mockery, and as the object was to sink the popular chief of a nation into a pliant courtier, to bind him more firmly to the English interests, and to weaken his feelings of patriotism, the union of the turbulent Gerald was proposed with the Lady Elizabeth Grey, the kings own kinswoman and daughter of the Duke of Suffolk.

This marriage, celebrated with royal splendour, with all the festivities of a boisterous but splendid court, was deemed a preliminary step to permanent subjection, and to frequent and long visits to the English court.

Scarcely, however, had Kildare returned home, and resumed the deputyship of Ireland, when the domestic tumults of the great lords of the pale involved him in new accusations on the part of the crown, "intimations of new treasons passing to and fro, with complaynts and replyes;" and as Cardinal Wolsey "did hate the Kildare bloud," and had resolved on breaking down their power, the earl was again called from his stronghold in Ireland, and accused of having " wilfully winked at the Earl of Desmond (whose large possessions were his crimes in the eye of the minister), and with having curried acquaintance and friendship with mere Irish. "While lying under the imputation of a crime, always heinous in the Irish,natural affection to the land and its suffering

children, the brave Kildare (like an eagle taken from its eirie in the mountain-cliffs of its native region, and chained to the earth in a golden cage) was suffered to loiter away his existence, in listless indolence and life-wearing anxiety, in the purlieus of a court that resembled the seraglio of an Asiatic satrap, alternately favoured and persecuted, as the caprice of the sovereign or the aversion of the minister ruled the hour. It was at this period, when his mind was borne down by his humiliating position, that he was prevailed on to consent to his daughter the Lady Elizabeth Fitzgerald's permanent residence at court; and it was by this concession that the loveliest of all Irish absentees, "the more than celestial Geraldine," has become an object of interest and admiration to posterity, as the poetical idol of the gallant and unfortunate Surrey.*

* English antiquaries have been much puzzled to determine the identity of this "more than celestial

Although educated at the rural palace of Hunsdon with her kinswomen the Princesses

we

Geraldine." "Who she was," says Walpole, are not directly told." Surrey himself mentions some particulars of her, but not her name. The editor of the last edition of Surrey's Poems, in some short notes on his life, says, "that she was the greatest beauty of her time, and maid of honour to Queen Catharine; but I think I have very nearly discovered who this fair person was, &c. &c. &c. I am inclined to think her poetical appellation was her real name, as every one of the circumstances tally." The elegant antiquary then devotes three pages to prove the probability that Lady Elizabeth, daughter of the Earl of Kildare, was the Geraldine of Lord Surrey. Warton adopts this supposition, and compliments the biographer on having, with the most happy segacity, solved the difficulties of "this little enigmatical ode.”—History of English Poets. There was, however, a much shorter way of solving the difficulties, namely, the consultation of Irish authors for an historical incident respecting one of the most illustrious Irish families. Campion,

Mary and Elizabeth, and though afterwards maid of honour to the Queen, it is probable that

who had probably many a time and oft seen the "fair Geraldine," with his usual quaint simplicity says, "The Fitzgerald family is touched in the Sonnet of Surrey made upon Kildare's sister, now Lady Clinton;"

From Tuscane came my ladyes worthy race,

Faire Florence was sometime her ancient seate; The western isle, whose plaisant shore doth face Wilde Cambre's cliffes, did give her lively heate." The ode goes on as follows;

Fostered she was with milk of Irish breast,

Her sire an earle, her dame of prince's blood; From tender years in Britain she doth rest

With kinges childe, while she tasteth costly food. Honsdon did first present her to mine yeen, Bright is her hue, and Geraldine her hight,

&c. &c. &c.

This fair and celebrated Irish absentee, after having sent her illustrious lover to Italy" to defend her beautie by an open challenge," in which he was victorious, married the Earl of Clinton :- -a most unsentimental conclusion to a most romantic story.