Henry however had no inclination to set about the conquest of Ireland. His own theory, with which it may be assumed that Wolsey, now in the plenitude of his power, was in accord, was more akin to his father's. Moreover, Wolsey and the Howards were usually in opposition to each other. Surrey was instructed to appeal to the reason of the contumacious chiefs; to point out that obedience to the law is the primary condition of orderly government; to authorise indigenous customs in preference to imposed statutes where it should seem advisable. In fact there were two alternatives; one, to govern by the sword, involving a military occupation of the island; the other to endeavour to enlist the Irish nobles on the side of law and order and to govern through them. The first policy, Surrey's, was rejected; the second was attempted. But the Irish chiefs had no a priori prejudice in favour of law and order, and something besides rhetoric was needed to convince them that their individual interests would be advanced by such a policy. Henry VII. had prospered by reinstating the old Earl of Kildare; Henry VIII. tried reinstating the young one. But precedents suggested the unfortunate conclusion that a little treason more or less would hurt no one, least of all a Geraldine. Things went on very much as before. Kildare was summoned to London again, rated soundly by Wolsey, suffered a brief imprisonment, and was again restored. Desmond, his kinsman, intrigued with the Emperor, who was in a state of hostility to Henry because of the divorce proceedings; Kildare was accused of complicity, and going to London a third time in 1534 was thrown into the Tower from which he did not again emerge. Henry had just burnt his boats in his quarrel with Rome and was by no means in a placable mood.
[Sidenote: Fitzgerald's revolt, 1534]
Kildare had named his eldest son Lord Thomas Fitzgerald, a young man of twenty-one, to act as Deputy in his absence; moreover he had so fortified his castle of Maynooth and otherwise made military preparations, as to give colour to the idea that he had rebellion in contemplation. Excited by a report that his father had been put to death, Lord Thomas—known as Silken Thomas from a badge worn by his men—burst into the Council at Dublin, threw down the sword of office, and renounced his allegiance; then raised an insurrection at the head of his friends and followers. Dublin Castle was soon besieged by a large miscellaneous force; the Archbishop, a leader of the loyalists, attempted to escape but was taken and foully murdered; bands of marauders ravaged the Pale. The only effective counter-move was made by Ormonde who rejected Fitzgerald's overtures, and, in spite of Desmond's menacing attitude on the South-west, raided the Kildare country, and brought Silken Thomas back in hot haste to defend his own territories.
[Sidenote: 1535 The revolt quelled]
Fitzgerald's rising began in June. Henry had appointed as Deputy Sir William Skeffington, an old soldier who had held that office before during Kildare's last suspension. But his departure from England with his troops was delayed. Fitzgerald was back before Dublin in September, after a vain attempt to win over Ormonde who defied him boldly. Again the Kildare lands were raided, and Lord Thomas had to raise the siege; and now at the end of October Skeffington succeeded in crossing the channel and securing Dublin, while the rebels carried fire and sword through the neighbouring districts. For the rest of the winter Skeffington did nothing but send out a futile expedition, a detachment of which was ambuscaded: while the loyalists fumed. In the spring however he shook off some of this inactivity, whether due to sickness, advancing years, or general incompetence, and besieged Maynooth which was reputed impregnable. The fortress fell before long; owing to treachery as tradition relates, but more probably to the improved siege artillery as the official despatches affirm. Most of the garrison were promptly hanged; a fatal blow was dealt to the insurrection. The "pardon of Maynooth" became a proverb. Skeffington, retaining the deputyship, was replaced in command of the army by Lord Leonard Grey, Kildare's brother-in-law, son of Lord Dorset; to whom ultimately Silken Thomas surrendered under a vague half-promise of lenient treatment. Kildare himself had died in the Tower not long before; Lord Thomas and his principal kinsmen were executed after a little delay; the one surviving representative of the great house which had "ruled all Ireland" was a child, preserved in hiding by loyal friends and retainers. The Geraldine power was at an end.
[Sidenote: 1535-40 Lord Leonard Grey]
Grey himself was now appointed to the deputyship in place of Skeffington, Desmond in the south-west and O'Neill in Ulster carried on the resistance, but were no match for Grey, who followed up his military successes by attempting to carry out the principles of conciliation which Henry had laid down—to the bitter indignation of those loyalists who favoured the methods advocated in the past by Surrey. To this and to Grey's insolent temper were due violent altercations between him and the Council. A Commission was sent over to examine and set matters straight, but instead the commissioners took sides with the Council or with the Deputy. Affairs were complicated by the application to Ireland of the English theory of ecclesiastical Reformation as understood by Henry and Cromwell. The suppression of the monasteries was acquiesced in (though not till 1541); since their condition was undeniably bad, and the distribution of their property convenient for the recipients; but the revolt from Rome was antagonistic to Irish feeling. Disloyalty to England, the natural and normal condition of three-fourths of the island, received a new authority from the sanction of loyalty to the Church. Grey persisted in his policy of domineering over the English party—who would have preferred to do the domineering themselves—and of laying himself open to the charge of favouring and fostering rebels, especially of the Geraldine faction. Another rising of O'Neill and Desmond in 1539 forced him to reassert his authority, but he again allowed it to appear that he was influenced by his connexion with the Geraldines; and in 1540 he was recalled, attainted, and executed. Experience of Henry had taught the conclusion that to fight the charge of treason was useless; but Grey gained nothing by throwing himself on the royal clemency, though his admission of guilt is not under the circumstances very conclusive.
[Sidenote: 1540 St. Leger]
Whatever the extent of his actual guilt, his downfall was due not so much to his professed policy as to the personal methods adopted which in the end had excited almost universal distrust and hostility. The proof of this lies in the fact that St. Leger, his successor as Deputy, carried out the same nominal policy with very remarkable success, and, it would seem, with general approval: mainly because he applied the principles impartially instead of as a partisan. The agent of conciliation was judicious, clear-headed, and tactful, instead of being injudicious, hot-headed, and tactless. The new Deputy distributed titles and monastic lands with a shrewd perception of the value of the services to be purchased thereby; legal commissioners were appointed who were allowed a due latitude in applying native customs and relaxing the rigour of English law; a number of important chiefs were converted into supporters of the Government instead of its more or less open enemies; the Pale settled down into the condition of a reasonably well ordered State. In the last years of Henry there is a complete disappearance of the wonted turmoil. At length he had found a man capable of administering the policy he had enunciated in 1520. The Deputyship of St. Leger gave promise of initiating a new era; but it showed also how completely the working out of the Irish problem would depend on the character and capacity of the men to whom the task should be successively entrusted.
[Sidenote: Henry "King of Ireland">[