Thomas Fitzgerald, 1st Earl of Kildare

“ And the grace she thus acquired long brought blessings upon her posterity, among whom there never were wanting able men and heroic women while they kept their place in the land. An equally celebrated but less amiable woman was Margaret Fitzgerald, daughter of the eighth Earl of Kildare, and wife of Pierce, eighth Earl of Ormond. "She was," says the Dublin Annalist, "a lady of such port that all the estates of the realm couched to her, so politique that nothing was thought substantially debated without her advice." ”

“ Boice, a secret friend of the Fitzgerald, a bystander, cried out "Auntraugh," i. e. "too late," which occasioned a proverbial saying, long afterwards used in Ireland—"Too late, quoth Boice." The castle is said by Archdall to have been erected by John, the sixth Earl of Kildare, early in the fifteenth century; [Pg 490] but in that case it must have been preceded by some other defensive structure; for it is certain that the Kildare branch of the Geraldines resided at Maynooth at a much earlier period. The first Earl of Kildare, John Fitz Thomas, was created by patent, dated 14th May, 1316. ”

“ FLATTISBURY, PHILIP (fl. 1500) , compiler, was of a family members of which, from the thirteenth century, held important positions as landowners in the county of Kildare, Ireland, and occasionally filled legal offices under the English government there. Flattisbury appears to have been a retainer of Gerald Fitzgerald, eighth earl of Kildare [q. v.] ”

“ 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 1532 he took part in the proceedings against Sir William Skeffington [q. v.] , and in 1534 was one of the few who remained loyal during Kildare's rebellion [see Fitzgerald, Gerald, ninth Earl of Kildare] ; during its course his property was plundered by the insurgents, and he was present at the surrender of Rosse Castle. ”

“ Maurice Fitzgerald, the common ancestor of the Earls of Desmond and Kildare, the Knights of Glyn, of Kerry, and of all the Irish Geraldines, died at Wexford in the year 1177. Raymond the Fat, superseded by Fitz-Aldelm, and looked on coldly by the King, retired to his lands in the same county, and appears only once more in arms—in the year 1182—in aid of his uncle, Robert Fitzstephen. ”

“ For centuries it was said that whoever might be Viceroy of Ireland it was the Earl of Kildare who governed the country. A long line of Kildares succeeded each other, and their living successor, better known as the Duke of Leinster, is now the premier of the Irish nobility, although he is still a boy, just twenty-one. Both the Kildares and the Earls of Desmond were descended from Gerald Fitzgerald, who in the thirteenth century founded that powerful clan known as the Geraldines. ”

“ Within his realms, Ireland, where the House of York had always been popular, offered a perpetual field in which to raise the standard of rebellion, any excuse for getting up a fight being generally welcomed. In that country the power of the King's government, such as it was, was practically confined to the limits of the Pale—and within those limits depended mainly on the attitude of the powerful Irish noble, Fitzgerald, Earl of Kildare, who held the office of Deputy. ”

“ Harsenet. Carola, daughter of Sir Roger Harsnett, knight. These verses are a variation of 'To my Lady Morland at Tunbridge.' vide p. 175.
p. 395 A letter to the Earl of Kildare. John FitzGerald, 18th Earl of Kildare, lived in St. James' Square, and in 1648 married, as his second wife, Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Charles Jones, 1st Earl of Ranelagh ('a fortune of £10,000.') She died in 1758 at the great age of ninety-three. ”

“ In the following autumn the United Irishmen became a military organisation, 280,000 men, according to a list given by Fitzgerald to Thomas Reynolds, being prepared with arms, and a military committee, headed by Fitzgerald, was deputed to prepare a scheme of co-operation with the French, or of a rising if their arrival could not be awaited. Fitzgerald was himself colonel of the so-called Kildare regiment, but induced Reynolds to take his place. ”

“ In the time of Henry VII., who became king in the year 1485, Garrett Fitzgerald, earl of Kildare—the "Great Earl" as he was called—was Lord Deputy, or chief ruler of Ireland, for the king: and he was the leading man of his day in Ireland. [68] We are told in the old accounts of him that he was tall of stature, of goodly presence, very liberal and merciful; of strict piety; mild in his government; very easily put into a passion, but just as easily appeased ”

“ Dyce, vol. i. p. xxxiv n.) , Shirley went to Ireland under the patronage of George Fitzgerald, sixteenth earl of Kildare [q. v.] , to whom he dedicated his play of the ‘Royal Master,’ and by whose influence this play was acted in the castle before the lord-deputy (it was also acted at Ogilby's new theatre) . Although the dedication merely states that he was encouraged when ‘a stranger’ in Ireland by Kildare's patronage, it is by no means impossible that he made this young nobleman's acquaintance in England, where he had been educated. ”

“ He must play his last card, or his influence was gone for ever. Lord Thomas Fitzgerald, his eldest son, who in his boyhood had resided in England, [50] had been left as vice-deputy in his father's absence. The Earl before his departure had taken precautions to place the fortresses of the pale, with the arms and ammunition belonging to the Government, in the hands of dependents whom he could absolutely trust. No sooner was his arrest known than, in compliance with secret instructions which had been left with them, or were sent from England, his friends determined upon rebellion. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Kildare was involved in the opposition led by Maurice Fitzthomas, earl of Desmond [q. v.] , to the new policy which the justiciar, Ralph D'Ufford, endeavoured to enforce, of superseding the 'English born in Ireland' by 'English born in England.' In 1345 Ufford sent a knight named William Burton to Kildare with two writs, one summoning him to an expedition to Munster, the other a secret warrant for his arrest. ”

“ Fitzgerald, R., 189, 196.
Fitzgerald, T., 14, 15.
Fitzgibbon, J., (Earl of Clare,) 42,170.
Fitz John, W. 2.
Fitz Richard, S. 114,123
Fitz Symon, E., 61, 163, 186.
Fitzsymons Thomas. W., 11, 13. ”

“ Cashiered from the army for attendance at this revolutionary banquet, he was not, however, so immersed in politics as to neglect the theatres. Hence his brief courtship and his marriage, 27 Dec. 1792 [see Fitzgerald, Pamela] . He took his bride over to Ireland, and six days after his arrival at Dublin caused a scene in parliament by describing the lord-lieutenant and the majority as 'the worst subjects the king has.' He was ordered into custody, but refused to make any serious apology. When not attending parliament he enjoyed the society of his wife and child and of his flowers at Kildare. ”

“ He was summoned to three parliaments in 1295, and in December of that year he was sent to Gascony ‘on the king's service.’ In the mythical Geraldine version of the quarrel with Fitzthomas, Vescy's employment in France is represented as his fleeing beyond sea to avoid his antagonist, and in the same way Vescy's surrender of Kildare, effected two years later, is made out to be the consequence of this, and Edward is said to have granted it at once to Fitzthomas, who really became earl of Kildare in 1316. Vescy was now growing old and infirm. ”

“ In library of the Royal Irish Academy, Dublin.
[344] The Sirr MSS. This letter is quoted by Dr. Madden, who thinks that the information on which Dodgson and Caulfield acted came from Kildare; but it appears by the letter he himself prints (i. 522) that it came from Dublin. Caulfield's letter, addressed to Major Sirr, says, 'In consequence of your information, I reached Philipstown.' On the two previous occasions when Major Sirr had laid hands on Lord Edward Fitzgerald, the information as we see came from Magan. Dr. ”

“ In the summer of 1288 the new justiciar of Ireland proclaimed a muster against the Irish of Offaly and Leix, who were in a state of open rebellion. They had in 1285 taken Gerald Fitzmaurice, Fitzthomas's predecessor in the barony, prisoner on his own lands (ib. iii. 265; Clyn, pp. 10, 11) . John Fitzthomas was one of the three chief leaders of the host, and was appointed to guard the marchers from Rathemegan (Rathangan? in co. Kildare) to Baly-madan. The expedition was on the whole successful, but there is an entry of 11l. 13s. 4d. for the ‘rescue of John Fitzthomas’ (Sweetman, pp. 267, 273) ”

“ But the bold and domineering spirit of Fitzgibbon—the leader of the Castle party, then, and long afterwards—did not shrink before even so formidable a phalanx. The Duke of Leinster was dismissed from the honorary office of Master of the Rolls; the Earl of Shannon, from the Vice-Treasurership; William Ponsonby from the office of Postmaster-General; Charles Francis Sheridan, from that of Secretary at War, and ten or twelve other prominent members of the Irish administration lost places and pensions to the value of 20,000 pounds a year, for their over-zeal for the Prince of Wales. ”

“ On his mother’s side Fitzwilliam was related to John Russell, 1st earl of Bedford, a circumstance to which he owed his introduction to Edward VI. In 1559 he became vice-treasurer of Ireland and a member of the Irish House of Commons; and between this date and 1571 he was (during the absences of Thomas Radclyffe, earl of Sussex, and of his successor, Sir Henry Sidney) five times lord justice of Ireland. ”

“ Infected by the fashionable Rousseau admiration for savage life, Fitzgerald made his way by compass through the woods from Frederickton to Quebec, was formally admitted at Detroit into the Bear tribe, and went down the Mississippi to New Orleans, but was refused the expected permission to visit the Mexican mines. On returning home he found himself M.P. for Kildare, became intimate with the whig leaders in London, joined in April 1792 their Society of the Friends of the People, shared their enthusiasm for the French revolution, and in October 1792 visited Paris. ”

“ He seems unaware of one distinguishing feature of J. S.’s mind—its subtlety of perception—and the excellence of his English style escapes his critic, whose notices on that subject by the bye would not necessarily command assent.’
p. 175From Thomas Carlyle.
5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea
6 Nov. 1874.
Dear FitzGerald,
Thanks for your kind little Letter. I am very glad to learn that you are so cheerful and well, entering the winter under such favourable omens. I lingered in Scotland, latterly against my will, for about six weeks: the scenes there never can cease to be impressive to me ”

“ FITZGERALD, JAMES Fitzmaurice (d. 1579) , 'arch traitor,' was the second son of Maurice Fitzjohn à totane, i. e. of the burnings, and Julia, second daughter of Dermot O'Mulryan of Sulloghade, co. Tipperary, nephew of James, fourteenth, and cousin of Gerald, fifteenth earl of Desmond Earl James had shown his appreciation of the 'accident' that had removed his competitor, James Fitzmaurice, the so-called thirteenth earl [q. v.] , from his path, by rewarding his brother, Maurice à totane, with the barony of Kerrykurrihy. ”

“ When Lord Camden, Fitzwilliam’s successor in the viceroyalty, arrived in Dublin on the 31st of March 1795, Fitzgibbon’s carriage was violently assaulted by the mob, and he himself was wounded; and in the riots that ensued his house was also attacked. But as if to impress upon the Catholics the hopelessness of their case, the government who had made Fitzgibbon a viscount immediately after his attack on the Catholics in 1793 now bestowed on him a further mark of honour. In June 1795 he was created earl of Clare. ”

“ See Thomas Moore, Life and Death of Lord Edward Fitzgerald (2 vols., London, 1832) , also a revised edition entitled The Memoirs of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, edited with supplementary particulars by Martin MacDermott (London, 1897) ; R.R. Madden, The United Irishmen (7 vols., Dublin, 1842-1846) ; C.H. Teeling, Personal Narrative of the Irish Rebellion of 1798 (Belfast, 1832) ; W.J. Fitzpatrick, The Sham Squire, The Rebellion of Ireland and the Informers of 1798 (Dublin, 1866) , and Secret Service under Pitt (London, 1892) ”

“ Sir Thomas and Lady Fitzgerald were not his uncle and aunt, but nevertheless they took kindly to him;—very kindly at first, though that kindness after a while became less warm. He was the nearest relation of the name; and should anything happen—as the fatal death-foretelling phrase goes—to young Herbert Fitzgerald, he would become the heir of the family title and of the family place.
When I hear of a young man sitting down by himself as the master of a household, without a wife, or even without a mother or sister to guide him, I always anticipate danger. ”