There was no danger that he would be betrayed. The Irish had many faults—we may not refuse them credit for their virtues. However treacherous they were to their enemies, however inconstant in their engagements, uncertain, untrue in ordinary obligations, they were without rivals in the world in their passionate attachments among themselves; and of all the chiefs who fell from Fitzgerald's banner, and hastened with submission to the English deputy, there was perhaps not one who, though steeped in the blood of a hundred murders, would not have been torn limb from limb rather than have listened to a temptation to betray him.
Arrival of Lord Leonard Grey. Fitzgerald writes to him with an offer of surrender.
At length, after a narrow escape from a surprise, from which he rescued himself only by the connivance of the Irish kerne who were with the party sent to take him, the young earl, as he now called himself, weary of his wandering life, and when no Spaniards came, seeing that his cause was for the present hopeless offered to surrender. It was by this time August, and Lord Leonard Grey, his father's brother-in-law, was present with the army. To him he wrote from O'Connor's Castle, in King's County, apologizing for what he had done, desiring pardon "for his life and lands," and begging his kinsman to interest himself in his behalf. If he could obtain his forgiveness, he promised to deserve it. If it was refused, he said that he "must shift for himself the best that he could."[376]
Grey suggests an interview.
In reply to this overture, Grey suggested an interview. The appointment of so near a relative of the Kildare's to high office in Ireland had been determined, we may be sure, by the Geraldine influence in the English council. The marshal was personally acquainted with Fitzgerald, and it is to be observed that the latter in writing to him signed himself his "loving friend." That Lord Leonard was anxious to save him does not admit of a doubt; he had been his father's chief advocate with the king, and his natural sympathy with the representative of an ancient and noble house was strengthened by family connexion. He is not to be suspected, therefore, of August 18.
Fitzgerald meets him, treachery, at least towards his kinsman. The interview was agreed upon, and on the eighteenth of August, Grey, with Sir Rice Mansell, Chief Justice Aylmer, Lord James Butler, and Sir William St. Loo, rode from Maynooth into King's County, where, on the borders of the Bog of Allen, Fitzgerald met them. Here he repeated the conditions upon which he was ready to surrender. Lord Grey said that he had no authority to entertain such conditions; but he encouraged the hope that an unconditional surrender would tell in his favour, and he promised himself to accompany his prisoner to the king's And surrenders on a dubious promise of pardon. presence. Fitzgerald interpreting expressions confessedly intended "to allure him to yield,"[377] in the manner most favourable to himself, placed himself in the hands of the marshal, and rode back with him to the camp.
The deputy wrote immediately to announce the capture. Either the terms on which it had been effected had not been communicated to him, or he thought it prudent to conceal them, for he informed Henry that the traitor had yielded without conditions, either of pardon, life, lands, or goods, "but only submitting to his Grace's mercy."[378] The truth, however, was soonEmbarrassment of the government. known; and it occasioned the gravest embarrassment. How far a government is bound at any time to respect the unauthorized engagements of its subordinates, is one of those intricate questions which cannot be absolutely answered;[379] and it was still less easy to decide, where the If Fitzgerald was spared, the government of Ireland was impossible. object of such engagements had run a career so infamous as Lord Thomas Fitzgerald. No pirate who ever swung on a well-earned gallows had committed darker crimes, and the king was called upon to grant a pardon in virtue of certain unpermitted hopes which had been held out in his name. He had resolved to forgive no more noble traitors in Ireland, and if the archbishop's murder was passed over, he had no right to affect authority in Yet, were the English entitled to reap the benefit of his capture? a country where he was so unable to exert it. On the other hand, the capture of so considerable a person was of great importance; his escape abroad, if he had desired to leave the country, could not have been prevented; and while the government retained the benefit which they derived from his surrender, their honour seemed to be involved in observing the conditions, however made, by which it had been secured.
It is likely, though it is not certain, that Lord Leonard foresaw the dilemma in which Henry would be placed, and hoped by means of it to secure the escape of his kinsman. His own ultimate treason throws a shadow on his earlier loyalty; and his talent was fully equal to so ingenious a fraud. He had placed the king in a position from which no escape was possible that was not open to grave objection. To pardon so heavy an offender was to violate the first duty of government, and to grant a general licence to Irish criminality; to execute him was to throw a shadow indirectly on the king's good faith, and lay his generals open to a charge of treachery. Henry resolved to err on the side on which error was least injurious. The The Duke of Norfolk advises delay of punishment. difficulty was submitted to the Duke of Norfolk, as of most experience in Irish matters. The duke advised that execution should be delayed; but added significantly, "quod defertur non aufertur."—Pardon was not to be thought of; the example would be fatal.[380] Immediate punishment would injure the credit of Lord Grey, and would give occasion for slander against the council.[381] The best course would be to keep "the traitor" in safe prison, and execute him, should it seem good, at a future time.[382] This Fitzgerald is hanged the following year at Tyburn. advice was followed. Fitzgerald, with his uncles, who had all been implicated in the insurrection, was committed to the Tower; and in the year following they were hanged at Tyburn.
So ended the rebellion in Ireland; significant chiefly because it was the first in which an outbreak against England assumed the features of a war of religion, the first which the pope was especially invited to bless, and the Catholic powers, as such, to assist. The features of it, on a narrow scale, were identical with those of the later risings. Fostered by the hesitation of the home authorities, it commenced in bravado and murder; it vanished before the first blows of substantial resistance. Yet the suppression of the insurrection was attended by the usual Irish fatality: mistake and incompleteness followed the proceedings from the beginning to the end; and the consciousness remained that a wound so closed would not heal, that the moral temper of the country remained unaffected, and that the same evils would again germinate.
NOTES:
[277] "Panderus, or the author of a book, De Salute Populi, flourished in the reigns of Edward IV., Edward V., Richard III., and Henry VII.; perhaps also in the reign of Henry VIII."—Sir James Ware, Writers of Ireland, p. 90.