as he heard of Hugh O’Donnell’s death, Grey at once repaired to the borders of Ulster. The galleys of O’Neill and his Scotch allies had threatened a fortified settlement at Ardglass on the coast of Down, and the Deputy burned to invade Tyrone; but the Council dissuaded him, and the receipt of Manus O’Donnell’s letter gave hopes of settling the North by peaceful means. Some thought Grey too fond of making aimless raids, and Alen made some sensible remarks on the subject. ‘I would not,’ he wrote to St. Leger, ‘have the Deputy representing the King’s Majesty’s person and estate be a common skurrer for every light matter; but, when he should begin a war, begin it upon a just good ground, and when it were so begun, to be so profoundly executed, that all other should take example thereby.’ But the King thought only of increasing the revenue and diminishing the army.191
Grey is baffled by the O’Connors.
Grey had been sanguine enough to believe that his work in Offaly would be lasting, but, as Henry had partly foreseen, O’Connor’s return had undone it all. Cahir was a fugitive, and the floods protected Offaly, where the corn had been safely garnered in. At last the waters subsided, and Grey reached Brackland by the old road through Westmeath. O’Connor escaped into O’Doyne’s country, the modern barony of Tinnahinch, which Grey and Richard Butler proceeded to ravage. While thus employed the scattered troops were surprised by O’Connor, and some were killed. The Lord Deputy was just able to destroy or carry away the corn stored at Geashill, and to return to Dublin without having seen the enemy. To gain time till the season of long days came round again, Grey gave a safe-conduct to O’Connor, who proposed to visit Dublin. ‘But shortly herein to conclude,’ as Brabazon puts it, ‘the said traitor and his brother Cahir fell to agreement and concord, so that at this presents they both remain in Offaly.’ St. Leger, who had a cooler temper than Grey, saw the impossibility of subduing even a single clan by desultory hostings. ‘The country,’ he said, ‘is much easier won than kept.’ To overrun Offaly was a small thing, but it could only be united to the Pale by the costly expedient of fixed garrisons. O’Connor had got back his son, and indeed neither he nor any Irishman had much regard for promises or for the fate of hostages.192
He continues to attack them.
The O’Connors were weakened by repeated blows, and Alderman Herbert, who had long advised a colonising policy, proposed that Offaly should be peopled with Englishmen once for all. Grey again invaded the doomed district with 800 men, and O’Connor at once declared himself willing to treat, though he utterly refused to trust himself within the Pale. Grey halted at Kinnafad, where a castle built by the Berminghams still overhangs the ford of the Boyne. Having taken precautions against treachery, the Lord Deputy passed about half his men over the river, and then advanced with twelve horsemen to an open field about a quarter of a mile off, where O’Connor met him similarly attended. The chief submitted to the King’s clemency, begged Grey’s intercession, and promised to come to Dublin in three days. Cahir sent word that he would come too, but broke his promise. O’Connor kept his tryst, acknowledged himself the King’s liegeman, abjured the authority of the Pope for himself and his tribesmen, renounced all Irish exactions, and gave up his black-rents, including a pension of sixty marks from the King. Thanks were in future to be his only reward for service; and he offered to hold legally of the King ‘that portion of lands in Offaly which he held by partition after his country’s fashion,’ undertaking that his brothers and other holders of land there should become entitled in the same way. These lands were to be subject to impositions at so much per ploughland, as if they were situated in the Pale, assessments for the defence of the King’s subjects being made as occasion might arise at the Lord Deputy’s discretion. For himself he solicited the honour of Baron of Offaly, and begged for such protection as the Government habitually gave to Englishmen. He agreed that the Lord Deputy and all the marchers might cut passes where they pleased, and gave up his son again pending the King’s final decision. The crafty Cahir was hunted down, apparently with his brother’s help, and brought to Dublin, where he agreed to similar terms and also gave up his son. Yet many sceptics thought the O’Connors would slip the yoke at the first opportunity, and it is evident that nothing had occurred to change their nature, or to attach them to English habits or to English government.193
Seizure of the five Geraldines.
A main object of Grey’s attack both on the O’Connors and the O’Briens may have been to get possession of the heir of Kildare, whose half-sister was married to the chief of Offaly. It is difficult to avoid the thought that Grey had a private as well as a public object in persecuting to the death all members of the fallen family except the children of his own sister. The rebel Earl had five uncles, all men of fair ability and great influence, and Brabazon seems first to have suggested that they ought to be kept in England. Grey asked Sir James Fitzgerald and his brothers Walter and Richard, all of whom had opposed the rebellion, to dine with him at Kilmainham, and in the middle of dinner they were all seized and handcuffed. Sir John and Oliver were arrested before they had heard of their brothers’ capture, and the five were lodged in the castle. Grey always plumed himself on this exploit, though he admitted that some of the prisoners were innocent. The Irish Council approved the deed and applauded its secret handling, but none of the Irish officials knew that they were sending these men to the scaffold; the guilt of that must rest on Henry and Cromwell. Aylmer and Alen accompanied them to England, and the chronicler tells us that Richard, who had literary tastes, relieved the tedium of a sea-voyage by singing songs and repeating apophthegms. When he heard that the ship was called ‘The Cow,’ he was much dismayed, for there was a prophecy that five Earls’ brethren should be carried to England in a cow’s belly, and should never return. ‘Whereat,’ says Stanihurst, ‘the rest began afresh to howl and lament, which doubtless was pitiful, to behold five valiant gentlemen, that durst meet in the field as sturdy champions as could be picked out in a realm, to be so suddenly terrified with the bare name of a wooden cow, or to fear like lions a silly coxcomb, being moved (as commonly the whole country is) with a vain and fabulous old wives’ dream.’ On reaching London they were at once sent to the Tower, and left it only to take the last sad journey to Tyburn.194
Survivor of the Kildare family. The ‘Fair Geraldine.’
But the family was not destined to extinction. Lady Kildare had accompanied her husband to England, and had her three daughters with her. The eldest was deaf and dumb, and of the youngest nothing particular is recorded, but the second, Lady Elizabeth, has by a strange chance been immortalised as the ‘Fair Geraldine.’ While yet a child she became maid of honour to the Princess Mary, at whose house at Hunsdon Henry, Earl of Surrey, saw her. She was then only twelve. Four years later she was married to Sir Anthony Browne, Master of the Horse and Knight of the Garter, but also a widower of sixty, whose daughter by his first marriage became her brother Gerald’s wife. The unequal match was solemnized in the presence of the King and of the Lady Mary, and Ridley preached on the occasion which drew forth Surrey’s sonnet. The situation of the bride’s family and the apparent sacrifice of herself sufficiently account for the poetry, and there is no reason to suppose that the poet, who was married, had any regrets for himself. The study of Italian models would naturally lead to rather high-flown language, and poets were always privileged. The romantic fable of the magic mirror in which Cornelius Agrippa, an alchemist living at Florence, showed him the fair one reclining on a bridal couch and reading his sonnet, would not be worth noticing but that it found its way into the ‘Lay of the Last Minstrel.’ It is refuted by the fact that Surrey never was in Italy. After the death of Browne, who outlived Surrey, Lady Elizabeth was married to the Lord Admiral Clinton, who had been twice a widower. She left no children by either marriage, but her influence at Court may have had much to do with her brother’s restoration. A portrait remains to show that she had a sweet face, and that she was not fairer than many who have had no poet. But canvas, and especially the canvas of Holbein’s school, seldom preserves the charm of grace and motion. Three letters remain, creditable so far as they go, and
