Lucy Aikin - Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth

In lord Herbert's narrative of this insurrection, we meet with a passage too remarkable to be omitted. "But the king, who was informed from divers parts, but chiefly from Yorkshire, that the people began there also to take arms, and knowing of what great consequence it might be if the great persons in those parts, though the rumour were false, should be said to join with him, had commanded George earl of Shrewsbury, Thomas Manners earl of Rutland, and George Hastings earl of Huntingdon, to make a proclamation to the Lincolnshire-men, summoning and commanding them on their allegiance and peril of their lives to return; which, as it much disheartened them, so many stole away," &c.

In this potency of the hereditary aristocracy of the country, and comparative feebleness, on some occasions at least, of the authority of the most despotic sovereign whom England had yet seen on the throne, we discern at once the excuse which Henry would make to himself for his severities against the nobility, and the motive of that extreme popularity of manners by which Elizabeth aimed at attaching to herself the affections of the middling and lower orders of her subjects.

Soon after these events, Henry confirmed the new impressions which his subjects had received of his character, by an act of extraordinary, but not unprovoked, severity, which involved in destruction one of the most ancient and powerful houses among the peerage of Ireland, that of Fitzgerald earl of Kildare. The nobleman who now bore this title had married for his second wife lady Elizabeth Grey, daughter of the first marquis of Dorset, and first-cousin to the king by his mother; he had been favored at court, and was at this time lord deputy of Ireland. But the country being in a very disturbed state, and the deputy accused of many acts of violence, he had obeyed with great reluctance a summons to answer for his conduct before the king in council, leaving his eldest son to exercise his office during his absence. On his arrival, he was committed to the Tower, and his son, alarmed by the false report of his having lost his head, broke out immediately into a furious rebellion. After a temporary success, Thomas Fitzgerald was reduced to great difficulties: at the same time a promise of pardon was held out to him; and confiding in it he surrendered himself to lord Leonard Grey, brother to the countess his step-mother. His five uncles, also implicated in the guilt of rebellion, were seized by surprise, or deceived into submission. The whole six were then conveyed to England in the same ship; and all, in spite of the entreaties and remonstrances of lord Leonard Grey, who considered his own honor as pledged for the safety of their lives, were hanged at Tyburn.

The aged earl had died in the Tower on receiving news of his son's rash enterprise; and a posthumous attainder being issued against him, his lands and goods were forfeited. The king however, in pity to the widow, and as a slight atonement for so cruel an injustice, permitted one of her daughters to retain some poor remains of the family plate and valuables; and another of them, coming to England, appears to have received her education at Hunsdon palace with the princesses Mary and Elizabeth her relations. Here she was seen by Henry earl of Surry, whose chaste and elegant muse has handed her down to posterity as the lovely Geraldine, the object of his fervent but fruitless devotion. She was married first to sir Anthony Brown, and afterwards became the wife of the earl of Lincoln, surviving by many years her noble and unfortunate admirer.

The countess of Kildare, and the younger of her two sons, likewise remained in England obscure and unmolested; but the merciless rancour of Henry against the house of Fitzgerald still pursued its destitute and unoffending heir, who was struggling through a series of adventures the most perilous and the most romantic.

This boy, named Gerald, then about twelve years old, had been left by his father at a house in Kildare, under the care and tuition of Leverous a priest who was his foster-brother. The child was lying ill of the small-pox, when the news arrived that his brother and uncles had been sent prisoners to England: but his affectionate guardian, justly apprehensive of greater danger to his young charge, wrapped him up as carefully as he could, and conveyed him away with all speed to the house of one of his sisters, where he remained till he was quite recovered. Thence his tutor removed him successively into the territories of two or three different Irish chieftains, who sheltered him for about three quarters of a year, after which he carried him to his aunt the lady Elenor, at that time widow of a chief named Maccarty Reagh.

This lady had long been sought in marriage by O'Donnel lord of Tyrconnel, to whose suit she had been unpropitious: but wrought upon by the hope of being able to afford effectual protection to her unfortunate nephew, she now consented to an immediate union; and taking Gerald along with her to her new home in the county of Donegal, she there hospitably entertained him for about a year. But the jealous spirit of the implacable king seemed to know no rest while this devoted youth still breathed the air of liberty, and he caused a great reward to be offered for his apprehension, which the base-minded O'Donnel immediately sought to appropriate by delivering him up. Fortunately the lady Elenor discovered his intentions in time, and instantly causing her nephew to disguise his person, and storing him, like a bountiful aunt, with "sevenscore portugueses," she put him under the charge of Leverous and an old servant of his father's, and shipped him on board a vessel bound for St. Malo's.

Having thus secured his escape, she loftily expostulated with her husband on his villainy in plotting to betray her kinsman, whom she had stipulated that he should protect to the utmost of his power; and she bid him know, that as the danger of the youth had alone induced her to form any connection with him, so the assurance of his safety should cause her to sequester herself for ever from the society of so base and mercenary a wretch: and hereupon, collecting all that belonged to her, she quitted O'Donnel and returned to her own country.

Gerald, in the mean time, arrived without accident in Bretagne, and was favorably received by the governor of that province, when the king of France, being informed of his situation, gave him a place about the dauphin. Sir John Wallop however, the English embassador, soon demanded him, in virtue of a treaty between the two countries for the delivering up of offenders and proscribed persons; and while the king demurred to the requisition, Gerald consulted his safety by making a speedy retreat into Flanders. Thither his steps were dogged by an Irish servant of the embassador's; but the governor of Valenciennes protected him by imprisoning this man, till the youth himself generously begged his release; and he reached the emperor's court at Brussels, without further molestation. But here also the English embassador demanded him; the emperor however excused himself from giving up a fugitive whose youth sufficiently attested his innocence, and sent him privately to the bishop of Liege, with a pension of a hundred crowns a month. The bishop entertained him very honorably, placing him in a monastery, and watching carefully over the safety of his person, till, at the end of half a year, his mother's kinsman, cardinal Pole, sent for him into Italy.

Before he would admit the young Irishman to his presence, the cardinal required him to learn Italian; and allowing him an annuity, placed him first with the bishop of Verona, then with a cardinal, and afterwards with the duke of Mantua. At the end of a year and a half he invited him to Rome, and soon becoming attached to him, took him into his house, and for three years had him instructed under his own eye in all the accomplishments of a finished gentleman. At the end of this time, when Gerald had nearly attained the age of nineteen, his generous patron gave him the choice either of pursuing his studies or of travelling to seek his adventures. The youth preferred the latter; and repairing to Naples, he fell in with some knights of Rhodes, whom he accompanied to Malta, and thence to Tripoli, a place at that time possessed by the order, whence they carried on fierce war against the "Turks and miscreants," spoiling and sacking their villages and towns, and taking many prisoners whom they sold to the Christians for slaves. In these proceedings, the young adventurer took a strenuous and valiant part, much to his profit; for in less than a year he returned to Rome laden with a rich booty. "Proud was the cardinal to hear of his prosperous exploits," and increased his pension to three hundred pounds a year. Shortly after, he entered into the service of Cosmo duke of Florence, and remained three years his master of the horse.