Meanwhile Earl Gerald the younger had been rapidly gaining favour at Court, had accompanied Henry to France, and like his father before him, had wooed and won an English bride.  Like his father, too, he possessed that winning charm which had for generations characterized his house.  Quick-witted and genial, with the bright manner and courteous ease of high-bred gentlemen, such—­even on the showing of those who had no love for them—­was the habitual bearing of these Leinster Geraldines.  The end was that Kildare after a while was allowed to return to Ireland, and upon Surrey’s departure, and after a brief and very unsuccessful tenure of office by Sir Pierce Butler, the deputyship was restored to him.

Three years later he was again summoned, and this time, on Wolsey’s urgent advice, thrown into the Tower.  Heavy accusations had been made against him, the most formidable of which was that he had used the king’s ordnance to strengthen his own castle of Maynooth.  The Ormonds and the cardinal were bent upon his ruin.  The earl, however, faced his accusers boldly; met even the great cardinal himself in a war of words, and proved to be more than his equal.  Once again he was acquitted and restored to Ireland, and after a while the deputyship was restored to him, John Allen, a former chaplain of Wolsey’s, being however appointed Archbishop of Dublin, and Chancellor, with private orders to keep a watch upon Kildare, and to report his proceedings to the English Council.

Yet a third time in 1534 he was summoned, and now the case was more serious.  The whole situation had in fact in the meanwhile utterly changed, Henry was now in the thick of his great struggle with Rome.  With excommunication hanging over his head, Ireland had suddenly become a formidable peril.  Fears were entertained of a Spanish descent upon its coast.  One of the emperor’s chaplains was known to be intriguing with the Earl of Desmond.  Cromwell’s iron hand too was over the realm and speedily made itself felt in Ireland.  Kildare was once more thrown into the Tower, from which this time he was never destined to emerge.  He was ill already of a wound received the previous year, and the confinement and trouble of mind—­which before long became acute—­brought his life to a close.

His son Thomas—­generally known as Silken Thomas from the splendour of his clothes—­had been rashly appointed vice-deputy by his father before his departure.  In the month of August, a report reached Ireland that the earl had been executed, and the whole house of Geraldine was forthwith thrown into the wildest convulsions of fury at the intelligence.  Young Lord Thomas—­he was only at the time twenty-one—­hot-tempered, undisciplined, and brimful of the pride of his race—­at once flew to arms.  His first act was to renounce his allegiance to England.  Galloping up to the Council with a hundred and fifty Geraldines at his heels, he seized the Sword of State, marched into the council-room, and addressing the Council in his capacity of Vice-deputy, poured forth a speech full of boyish fanfaronade and bravado.  “Henceforth,” said he, “I am none of Henry’s deputy!  I am his foe!  I have more mind to meet him in the field, than to serve him in office.”  With other words to the like effect he rendered up the Sword, and once more springing upon his horse, galloped out of Dublin.