country of the Decies, to his "reigning wife's father," Sir John Fitzgerald, of Dromond.*

In a letter to the King, dated May 5th, 1532, he excuses himself for his non-performance of his promise to send his son to the Court of Henry VIII., on the plea, "that he himself was well stricken in age, while his heir was of tender years; that he had sundry mortall enemies, and moche adowe for to kipe owr owne." He afterwards consented to send the boy, and sad were the consequences.

Thomas, called the "Court Page," was properly the Thirteenth Earl of Desmond. He was the grandson of Thomas, the Twelfth Earl, the husband of the old Countess. He was sent, when young, as we have seen, to the Court of Henry VIII. Hence his title of Court Page. He was sent there under the plea of being educated, but in reality as a hostage or pledge for the old man's good behaviour.

On returning home at his grandfather's death, to take possession of his estates, the grandson found that they had been all seized by an old savage grand-uncle, called Sir John Desmond, who urged, in justification of his conduct, that his grand-nephew, the Court Page, "spekes very good Ynglyshe, and keepith his hair and cap after the Ynglysh fashion."

The followers and tenants of the young Earl sat as a jury on this charge, and brought in a verdict against the young man of guilty. His estates were accordingly confiscated, and handed over to the uncle.

*The Earl's second wife, Catherine Fitzgerald, a daughter of the Fitzgeralds of Dromona in the County of Waterford, was the "Old Countess."

The young Earl, who appears to have had some Irish cunning in his head, notwithstanding the English fashion of his cap, married an Irish wife, the daughter of the Mac Carthy Mór,* a descendant of the Irish Earls of Desmond, or Kings of Munster. But he did not succeed in recovering either his estates or title, notwithstanding the power of his wife's family and followers.

The old grand-uncle assumed the title of the Fourteenth Earl of Desmond. This wicked old man murdered his! own brother. When he was required by the Lord Deputy to go to London, and try his claim with his grandnephew, before the King, he replied:-" What should I do in England, to meet a boy there? But give me the Yrish horson, Morac Oge, and I will go." We may conclude that he got the "Yrish horson, Morac Oge," for which he endangered life as well as "kingdom;"† for a State Letter, dated Waterford, 1535, reports:-" This day, came Sir John Desmond. He is an old man, and can speak very good Ynglysche," one of the charges he brought against his grand-nephew. He died in 1536.

The grand-nephew made a last attempt, just before the death of the old man, to regain his rights. He first went to London, where he had his claims fully acknowledged by the English monarch, who sent him over to take possession, providing him with ships, and a body-guard. His title was disputed and opposed by James, his cousin, the eldest son of old Sir John. If he were ever reinstated, which is doubtful, his enjoyment of his estates

* This word is generally spelt More, but Mór is the Irish spelling, from Mor, "big."

"A horse! a horse! My kingdom for a horse."-Shakspeare.

and title must have been of very short duration; for we find the State Counsel reporting to the King the following year:-"Your Grace's servant, James Fitzmaurice, who claimed to be Earl of Desmond, was cruelly slain on Friday, before Palm Sunday, by Maurice Fitz John, brother of James, the Usurper of the Earldom."

James, the Fifteenth Earl of Desmond, was called the Traitor. This James was afterwards received at Hampton Court, as the Fifteenth Peer, and transmitted the title to his second son, Gerald, or Garrett, as he is more frequently called-the "Great Earl of Desmond," uncle to the hero of my tale.

Garrett, the Sixteenth Earl of Desmond, has been styled one of the greatest subjects of Europe. He held the rank of Prince Palatine, and exercised all the authority of King over his immense possessions, in the counties of Limerick, Cork, and Kerry.

The Earls of Desmond, and the whole Geraldine family, were always hard to govern. They adopted, from an early period, the language, manners, and customs of the Irish, and were said to have been Hibernis ipsis Hiberniores-" More Irish than the Irish themselves."

A Young Irelander speaks of those Old Irelanders, or Anglo-Irelanders, thus:—

"Those Geraldines, those Geraldines, not long our air they breathed,
Not long they fed on venison, in Irish water seethed,

Not often had their children been by Irish mothers nursed,
When from their full and genial hearts, an Irish feeling burst.
The English monarch strove in vain, by law, and force, and bribe,
To win from Irish thoughts and ways, this more than Irish tribe;
For still they clung to fosterage, to brehon, cloke and bard;
What king dare say to Geraldine, your Irish wife discard ?"

The Earls of Desmond were the stern opponents of the doctrine of the Reformation, the "Maccabees" of the Irish Church, as they have been styled by the Irish historian, the Abbe Mac Geoghegan.

During the entire reign of Queen Elizabeth, a period of forty-five years, fierce and incessant wars were waged by her Government against the Earls of Desmond, in Munster, and the O'Neills in Ulster, the Great Northern and Southern princes or potentates of Ireland, who resisted the establishment of the Reformation to the death. During the last fifteen years of the Queen's reign, the war was cruel and exterminating. It is called by O'Sullivan Beare, Bellum Quindecim Annorum, or "Fifteen Years' War."

It cost millions of money, and the lives of hundreds of thousands of men, besides an enormous destruction of property, of cattle, corn, castles, monasteries, and towns. It is supposed that the total expenditure of English money was about three millions, which has been estimated as equal to thirty millions of money of the present day-an enormous sum, considering the limited extent and resources of the British empire at that time. About a hundred thousand men are supposed to have fallen at each side. A number of English Generals and Lord Deputies were killed and wounded in these wars.

Garrett, the Great Earl of Desmond, was called the Ingens Rebellibus Exemplar;" but he was as wily and as cunning as a fox, and preserved a fair face to the Queen and her Deputies, as long as it was possible or convenient to do so. When Sir William Drury was Go

vernor, he invited the Deputy to visit him at his castle at Tralee. Sir William came with only a hundred and twenty men. The Earl assembled eight hundred followers to surprise his unsuspecting guest, and instead of giving him a "bene venu," or welcome, into the country, endeavoured to cut him off on his way; but the small force of Sir William scattered the kerne and gallowglasses of the Earl among the woods. On riding up to the house for an explanation of such conduct, the Deputy was met by the Countess, who went on her knees to propitiate the anger of the Englishman, and declared to him that the men had assembled on a hunting party to welcome him as Lord President. "And she so wiselie and modestlie did behave hirself," that Drury believed, or seemed to believe her explanation.

The Earl was known to be deeply compromised in the two landings of Spanish and Italian forces on the southwestern coast of Ireland. The first expedition was conducted by the Earl's cousin, Fitzmaurice, but it turned out a complete failure, from the circumstance of the famous Tom Stukely, called by Miss Porter, in her Don Sebastian, "Sir Thomas Stukely," deserting the Irish leader, and embarking his forces, with those of the Portuguese monarch, for the coast of Africa, where he fell at the battle of Alcazar. Maurice, therefore, had to return to Ireland with but three ships and one hundred men; but he landed three famous churchmen, Doctor Saunders, as Papal Nuncio, the Jesuit Allen, and O'Mulrian, Titular Bishop of Killaloe, in full canonicals, with crozier and mitre, before whom marched two friars,