third day, being Tuesday next before Easter-day, there was a galiard assault given before five o'clock in the morning, and the base court entered; at which entry there were slain of the ward of the castle about sixty, and of your Grace's army no more but John Griffin, yeoman of your most honourable guard, and six others. which were killed with ordnance of the castle at the entry. Howbeit, if it had not pleased God to preserve us, it were to be marvelled that we had no more slain. After the base court was thus won, we assaulted the great castle, which within a while yielded.' Thirtyseven of the remaining garrison were taken prisoners, with two officers, two Irish ecclesiastics who had distinguished themselves in promoting the insurrection, and one of the murderers of the Archbishop.

The place was taken by fair fighting, it seems, without need of treachery; and the capture by storm of a fortified castle was a phenomenon altogether new to the Irish, who had yet to learn the effect of well-served cannon upon walls.1

1 Henry VIII. was one of the | be forgotten. Two foreign engineers first men to foresee and value the whom he tempted into his service, power of artillery. Sebastiani men- first invented 'shells.' 'One Peter tions experiments on the range of Raud, a Frenchman born,' says guns which were made by him, in Stow, and another alien, called Southampton water; and it is likely Peter Van Collen, a gunsmith, both that the cannon used in the siege of the King's feed men, conferring toMaynooth were the large-sized brass gether, devised and caused to be guns which were first cast in Eng- made certain mortar pieces, being at, land in the year of its capture. the mouth from eleven inches unto STOW, p. 572. When the history nineteen inches wide, for the use of artillery is written, Henry VIII.'s whereof they [also] caused to be labours in this department must not made certain hollow shot of cast

VOL. II.

13

The work was at length begun in carnest, and in order to drive the lesson home into the understanding of the people, and to instruct them clearly that rebellion and murder were not any longer to be tolerated, the prisoners were promptly brought up before the provostmarshal, and twenty-six of them there and then, under the ruins of their own den, were hung up for a sign to the whole nation.1

A judicial operation of this kind had never before been witnessed in Ireland within the known cycle of its history, and the effect of it was proportionately startling. In the presence of this 'Pardon of Maynooth,' as it was called, the phantom of rebellion vanished on the spot. It was the first serious blow which was struck in the war, and there was no occasion for a second. In a moment the noise and bravado which had roared from Donegal to Cork was hushed into a supplication for forgiveness. Fitzgerald was hastening out of Thomond to the relief of his fortress. When they heard of the execution, his army melted from him like a snowdrift. The confederacy of the chiefs was broken up; first one fell away from it, and then another; and before the summer had come, O'Brien of Inchiquin, O'Connor, who had married Fitzgerald's sister, and the few scattered banditti of the Wicklow mountains, were all who

iron, to be stuffed with firework or wildfire; whereof the bigger sort for the same had screws of iron to receive a match to carry fire kindled, that the firework might be set on fire for to break in pieces, the same

hollow shot, whereof the smallest piece hitting any man would kill or spoil him.'-STow, Chronicle, p. 584.

1 State Papers, vol. ii. p. 237.

remained of the grand association which was to place the Island of Saints at the feet of the Father of Christendom.

Sadder history in the compass of the world's great chronicle there is none than the history of the Irish : so courageous, yet so like cowards; so interesting, yet so resolute to forfeit all honourable claims to interest. In thinking of them, we can but shake our heads with Lord Chancellor Audeley, when meditating on this rebellion, and repeat after him, they be a people of strange nature, and of much inconstancy.'1

Lord Fitzgerald was now a fugitive, with a price. upon his head. He retreated into Thomond, intending to sail for Spain, and to attempt with his own lips to work persuasion with the Emperor. There was an expectation, however, that the Spaniards might be already on their way; and O'Brien persuaded him to remain, to prevent the complete disintegration of his party. Sir James de la Hyde was therefore sent to Charles; and the wretched young nobleman himself wandered from place to place, venturing, while Skeffington still lay at Maynooth, into the neighbourhood of his home, among his own people, yet unable to do more than evade the attempts which were made to capture him. The life of the rebellion was gone from it.

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

1 State Papers, vol. i. p. 446.

2 Ibid. vol. ii. p. 253.

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.

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,

August.

offered to surrender. It was by this time Au-. gust, and Lord Leonard Grey, his father's brother-inlaw, 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.'1

In reply to this overture, Grey suggested an interview. The appointment of so near a relative of the Kildares to high office in Ireland, had been determined, we may be sure, by the Geraldine influence in the Eng

Lord Thomas Fitzgerald to Lord Leonard Grey: State Papers, vol. ii. p. 273.

lish 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 connection. He is not to be suspected, therefore, of treachery, at least towards his kinsman. The interview was agreed upon, and on the eighteenth of August, Grey, with Sir Rice August 18. 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 presence. Fitzgerald interpreting expressions confessedly intended to allure him to yield," in the manner most favourable to himself, placed himself in the hands of the marshal, and rode back with him to the camp.

1 The Lord Leonard repayreth | Thomas to allure him to yield him, at this season to your Majesty, ye would be merciful to the said bringing with him the said Thomas, Thomas, especially concerning his beseeching your Highness most life.-The Council of Ireland to humbly, that according to the com- Henry VIII.: State Papers, vol. ii. fort of our words spoker to the same P. 275.