This proved, in the event, to be the last return of Garrett to Ireland. He must have realised that the crisis was approachinor himself and for his country.

His enemies were powerful. Anne Boleyn, a relative of Butler, had now won a sinister influence over the King, and Piers Butler had resigned to her father, Sir Thomas Boleyn, the Earldom of Ormond, taking instead the title of Earl of Ossory. It was evident, too, that a new tone with regard to Ireland was being adopted by the English officials, and that its affairs were being discussed in a spirit which recognised no rights in either Gaelic chief or Norman lord. The whole country was spoken of as a single unit, over every part of which the King should have absolute dominion as he had in England.

 Kildare could no longer be, at once, the ruler of a semi-independent Ireland and the King’s Deputy. On the other hand he knew his own power, to which he owed his immunity. He had added to the widespread alliances of his family by marrying his daughters to the chiefs of Ui Failghe and of Eile (O’Carroll), and all his kinsmen had shown their readiness to support him. One of them (O’Connor) had openly declared his resolve to drive the English out of Ireland.

He knew also that not only the King of France but the Emperor of Germany had been in correspondence with Desmond, and that the King of Scotland had sounded O’Donnell. Having ruled Ireland for fifty years the Geraldines were approaching a crisis.