liament, and of being never obliged to come within the walls of a fortified town. Living thus entirely among his vassals and dependants, he naturally over-estimated his power and importance, and was easily led to believe himself a match for his sovereign. Francis King of France, finding that Henry had joined the emperor against him, determined to raise some commotion in Ireland, and for this purpose sent an embassy to Desmond. The vain baron, proud of being treated as a sovereign prince, readily entered into an alliance offensive and defensive with the French king; but ere the treaty could produce any effect, Francis was made a prisoner in the fatal battle of Pavia, and Desmond left exposed to the vengeance of an outraged and vindictive sovereign. Orders were sent to Kildare, commanding him in the strongest terms to punish the presumption of his kinsman; but the deputy ventured to elude the performance, and marched into Ulster on the pretence of some disorders in that province, but really to support his brother-in-law O'Nial. The enemies of Kildare represented this suspicious conduct at court, and the deputy was ordered to appear before the king and answer to these charges. After a short interval, during which Ireland remained in a state of shocking distraction, the earl recovered the confidence of the king, and was once more restored to the government.

This victory over his rivals would have dangerously elated a man of stronger mind and cooler passions than Kildare possessed; and his actions soon showed that his little remnant of prudence was destroyed by his recent elevation. It is said also that his intellects were partially injured about this time, in consequence of a wound in his head; but it is not necessary to have recourse to such an explanation for the extravagant effects produced by repeated triumphs on a character naturally weak and haughty. The officers of the Irish government

became reasonably alarmed. They met in secret conclave, and prepared a representation of the evils by which Ireland was affected, which was soon laid before the king.

Though Kildare was not named in this petition, the evils mentioned were such as could not have occurred without his sanction or connivance. The jealous temper of Henry was fired by the recital, and he sent Kildare a peremptory mandate to come at once to London. Aware that his conduct would not bear a strict investigation, the earl, by means of his wife's relations, endeavoured to obtain delay; but, finding that the king's resolution was not to be shaken, he supplied his castles with arms and ammunition from the royal stores, and intrusted the government to his son Thomas, a youth scarcely twenty years old.

A. D. 1534.-Kildare, on his arrival in London, was sent to the Tower; and this mark of disfavour was reported in Ireland with the usual èxaggeration. Skeffington, who had been formerly lord-deputy, and the faction of the Butlers, reported that he had been sentenced to death, and soon after pretended to have received an account of his execution. The young Lord Thomas lent a credulous ear to these inventions of his enemies. Determined on revenge, he consulted with his Irish adherents; and having received promises of support, determined to raise the standard of rebellion. The chivalrous manner in which this young nobleman proceeded to execute his insane designs fills us at once with surprise and pity. Attended by a body of one hundred and forty armed followers, he entered the city of Dublin, and immediately proceeded to St. Mary's Abbey, where the council was assembled in deliberation. The sudden and tumultuous entrance of armed men filled all with consternation; but their fears were calmed by Lord Thomas, who, repressing the violence of his attendants, declared that VOL. I.-N

he came to resign the sword of state, to renounce his allegiance to the tyrant Henry, and to proclaim himself the mortal foe of the English government and its adherents.

While the other lords remained astonished and silent, Cromer, who was both chancellor and primate, rose, and taking the young lord by the hand, remonstrated with him in terms the most affectionate and winning. Unfortunately, an Irish rhymer at the end of his address, burst forth into a wild rhapsody on the glory of the Geraldines, and the high destiny for which the present heir of the house was designed; and Thomas, kindling with enthusiasm, made no reply to the chancer, but rushed out of the house.

The war, thus madly begun, was supported with the same disregard to the simplest dictates of prudence; and it is but fair to add, with the same generous attention to the laws of humanity. With the exception of Archbishop Alan, whom the Irish murdered, not wholly without his concurrence, Lord Thomas sanctioned no act of cruelty, but laboured strenuously to restrain the excesses of his followers. His career, however, was brief. Without adequate force or engines, he laid siege to Dublin, and wasted his time and forces in vain assaults on the city. Succours soon arrived from England; and, though one division was severely defeated, and almost annihilated, two others, commanded by Sir William Brereton, and the new deputy Sir William Skeffington, made good their entrance into the city, and soon forced Lord Thomas to raise the siege.

The deputy, infirm in body and vacillating in mind, made no efforts to follow up this success. Lord Thomas not only escaped, but, by entering into a treaty with the O'Connors and O'Nials, soon became formidable. Roused by the strong representations of the military officers, Skeffington at length took the field, and laid siege to Maynooth,

one of the strongest Geraldine fortresses. The spirit of the garrison and the strength of the place baffled the besiegers for fourteen days. They were about to raise the siege, when the unexpected treachery of Lord Thomas's foster-brother laid it at their mercy. Skeffington paid this double traitor the stipulated reward, and then ordered him to be instantly executed-an act of substantial justice, which may well redeem many of the deputy's misdemeanours. The greater part of the irregular army assembled by the young Geraldine dispersed when the capture of Maynooth became known, and as the heir of the great Desmond had been gained by Henry, he was driven to maintain a desultory warfare in the woods and mountains. Even thus, he made such a formidable resistance that he obtained from the English general. Lord Grey, the most solemn assurances of safety and protection on condition of dismissing his troops.

The indolent Skeffington died about the time that this war was concluded, and was succeeded by Lord Grey. The first act of the new governor was one of atrocious perfidy. In spite of his former promise, he sent the unfortunate Lord Thomas a prisoner to London, where he had the mortification to find that his father had not fallen by the hand of the executioner, but had died of grief when he heard of his insane rebellion. This crime was followed by a greater. The five uncles of Lord Thomas, three of whom had notoriously opposed the insurrection, were invited to a banquet by the deputy, and in the midst of the entertainment seized, hurried on shipboard, and sent to England as victims to the indiscriminate vengeance of Henry. Even these were not enough to glut the royal appetite for blood. A child of twelve years old, whom his aunt had conveyed to Munster, was sought for so eagerly, that he was forced to be sent to the continent for safety. Even there he was followed by the enmity of the

tyrant. Henry had the inconceivable meanness to demand him from the King of France as a rebellious subject; but the French monarch connived at his escape to Flanders. A similar demand was made to the emperor; but, before an answer was obtained, the youth had been taken under the protection of Cardinal Pole, by whom he was treated as a son.

CHAPTER IX.

The Effects of the Reformation in Ireland.

THE great moral convulsion which changed the ecclesiastical establishment throughout the north of Europe produced a new era in Irish history. Hitherto, the papal and priestly influence had been employed in the support of the English government, because the interests of both were in a great degree identified; but from henceforth we must look upon the Romish church as the great engine of opposition to the royal power, and find it earnestly supported by a people which it had long injured and insulted. The long baronial wars, and the desultory struggles of the natives, had effaced the memory both of the learning and piety of Ireland's national church; the new discipline introduced by Henry II. had triumphed over all resistance; and the church had become a third power, placed between the king and people, able to command and control both. The barons and toparchs looked upon the influence of the clergy with no little jealousy. Of doctrines and dogmas they knew little; but they knew that there had been a time when these prelates, now their rivals and compeers, depended on the chieftains for protection and support. They were, therefore, not