FITZGERALD, RAYMOND, or Redmond (d. ca. 1182), surnamed Le Gros, was the son of William Fitzgerald and brother of Odo de Carew. He was sent by Strongbow to Ireland in 1170, and landed at Dundunnolf, near Waterford, where he was besieged in his entrenchments by the combined Irish and Ostmen, whom he repulsed. He was Strongbow’s second in command, and had the chief share in the capture of Waterford and in the successful assault on Dublin. He was sent to Aquitaine to hand over Strongbow’s conquests to Henry II., but was back in Dublin in July 1171, when he led one of the sallies from the town. Strongbow offended him later by refusing him the marriage of his sister Basilea, widow of Robert de Quenci, constable of Leinster. Raymond then retired to Wales, and Hervey de Mountmaurice became constable in his place. At the outbreak of a general rebellion against the earl in 1174 Raymond returned with his uncle Meiler Fitz Henry, after receiving a promise of marriage with Basilea. Reinstated as constable he secured a series of successes, and with the fall of Limerick in October 1175 order was restored. Mountmaurice meanwhile obtained Raymond’s recall on the ground that his power threatened the royal authority, but the constable was delayed by a fresh outbreak at Limerick, the earl’s troops refusing to march without him. On the death of Strongbow he was acting governor until the arrival of William Fitz Aldhelm, to whom he handed over the royal fortresses. He was deprived of his estates near Dublin and Wexford, but the Geraldines secured the recall of Fitz Aldhelm early in 1183, and regained their power and influence. In 1182 he relieved his uncle Robert Fitzstephen, who was besieged in Cork. The date of his death, sometimes stated to be 1182, is not known.
FITZGERALD, LORD THOMAS (10th earl of Kildare), (1513-1537), the eldest son of Gerald Fitzgerald, 9th earl of Kildare, was born in London in 1513. He spent much of his youth in England, but in 1534 when his father was for the third time summoned to England to answer for his maladministration as lord deputy of Ireland, Thomas, at the council held at Drogheda, in February was made vice-deputy. In June the Ormond faction spread a report in Ireland that the earl had been executed in the Tower, and that his son’s life was to be attempted. Inflamed with rage at this apparent treachery, Thomas rode at the head of his retainers[1] into Dublin, and before the council for Ireland (the 11th of June 1534) formally renounced his allegiance to the king and proclaimed a rebellion. His enemies, including Archbishop John Allen (of Dublin), who had been set by Henry VIII. to watch Fitzgerald, took refuge in Dublin Castle. In attempting to escape to England, Allen was taken by the rebels, and on the 28th of July 1534, was murdered by Fitzgerald’s servants in his presence, but whether actually by his orders is uncertain. In any case he sent to the pope for absolution, but was solemnly excommunicated by the Irish Church. Leaving part of his army (with the consent of the citizens) to besiege Dublin Castle, Fitzgerald himself went against Piers Butler, earl of Ossory, and succeeded at first in making a truce with him. But the citizens of Dublin now rose against him, Ossory invaded Kildare, and the approach of an English army forced Fitzgerald to raise the siege. Part of the English army landed on the 17th of October, the rest a week later, but taking advantage of the inactivity of the new lord deputy, Sir William Skeffington, Fitzgerald from his stronghold at Maynooth ravaged Kildare and Meath throughout the winter. He had now succeeded to the earldom of Kildare, his father having died in the Tower on the 13th of December 1534, but he does not seem to have been known by that title. In March Skeffington stormed the castle, the stronghold of the Geraldines, which was defended, and some said betrayed, by Christopher Parese, Fitzgerald’s foster-brother. It fell on the 23rd of March 1535, and most of the garrison were put to the sword. This proved the final blow to the rebellion. The news of what is known as the “pardon of Maynooth” reached Fitzgerald as he was returning from levying fresh troops in Offaley; his men fell away from him, and he retreated to Thomond, intending to sail for Spain. Changing his mind he spent the next few months in raids against the English and their allies, but his party gradually deserting him, on the 18th of August 1535 he surrendered himself to Lord Leonard Grey (d. 1541). It seems likely that he made some conditions, but what they were is very uncertain. He was taken to England and placed in the Tower. In February 1536 his five uncles were also, some of them with great injustice, seized and brought to England. The six Geraldines were hanged at Tyburn on the 3rd of February 1537. Acts of attainder against them and Gerald the 9th earl were passed by both the Irish and English parliaments; but the family estates were restored by Edward VI. to Gerald, 11th earl of Kildare (stepbrother of Thomas), and the attainder was repealed by Queen Elizabeth. Lord Thomas Fitzgerald married Frances, youngest daughter of Sir Adrian Fortescue, but had no children.
Bibliography.—Richard Stanihurst, Chronicles of Ireland (vol. ii. of Holinshed’s Chronicles); Sir James Ware, Rerum Hibernicarum annales (Dublin, 1664); The Earls of Kildare, by C.W. Fitzgerald, duke of Leinster (3rd ed., 1858); Richard Bagwell, Ireland under the Tudors (3 vols., 1885, vol. i. passim); Calendar State Papers, Hen. VIII., Irish; G. E. C.’s Peerage; John Lodge, Peerage of Ireland, ed. M. Archdall (1789), vol. i.
[1] Fitzgerald was known by the sobriquet of “Silken Thomas,” either from the silken fringes on his helmet, or from his distinguished manners.
FITZHERBERT, SIR ANTHONY (1470-1538), English jurist, was born at Norbury, Derbyshire. After studying at Oxford, he was called to the English bar, and in 1523 became justice of the Court of Common Pleas, the duties of which office he continued to discharge till within a short time of his death in 1538. As a judge he left behind him a high reputation for fairness and integrity, and his legal learning is sufficiently attested by his published works.
He is the author of La Graunde Abridgement, a digest of important legal cases written in Old French, first printed in 1514; The Office and Authority of Justices of the Peace, first printed in 1538 (last ed. 1794); the New Natura Brevium (1534, last ed. 1794), with a commentary ascribed to Sir Matthew Hale. To Fitzherbert are sometimes attributed the Book of Husbandry (1523), the first published work on agriculture in the English language, and the Book of Surveying and Improvements (1523) (see [Agriculture]).