Kildare Reinstated & His Crisis
Above : Painting Of Thomas Boleyn
During his stay in England Kildare was not imprisoned, but remained in attendance upon the King. Both Surrey and Ormonde had employed themselves in collecting evidence against him, and the charges against him were enquired into by Wolsey. But Kildare, like his father, made an influential second marriage with Lady Grey, a relative of the King. Thanks, perhaps, to this, he was allowed to return to Ireland (1523). Almost immediately hostility developed between himself and Ormonde, still Lord Deputy. Commissioners were sent over to inquire, with the result that Ormonde was dismissed and Kildare again made Lord Deputy (1524).
Kildare now devoted himself to attempts to reconcile the powerful northern chiefs, O’Neill and O’Donnell, who were still at war. Conn Bacach O’Neill was the near relative of the Earl and had carried his sword of state at his last inauguration. But although Kildare on one occasion brought an army to his kinsman’s aid, he repeatedly endeavoured to establish peace between the two and, despite the laws against it, formed the tie of gossipred with O’Donnell. For the time, however, his efforts failed. A serious situation then developed. His kinsman, the Earl of Desmond, had entered into a correspondence with the King of France on the prospects of an invasion of Ireland by the latter. The plot was discovered by Ormonde, and news King. Desmond was summoned to London, and when h refused to go, Kildare was ordered to arrest him. The Deputy arched into Munster, but apparently allowed Desmond to evade him) Ormonde declared that Kildare had been guilty of collusion with the southern Earl, and Kildare was again summoned to England and committed to the Tower (1526). After an angry scene with Wolsey at the Privy Council, he was first released on bail and eventually allowed to return to Ireland with Sir William Skeffington, who was appointed Lord Deputy (1530).
This proved, in the event, to be the last return of Garrett Og to Ireland. He must have realised that the crisis was approaching for 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.
Below : Piers Butler Tomb
