Richard at once determined upon a second expedition to chastise the Irish, and again landed at Waterford (June 1399). With an army nearly as large as on his first visit, he proceeded to Kilkenny, and from that city he marched directly against Mac Murrough. Slowly retreating across the Barrow and the Slaney, Art kept up a continuous opposition to the English King’s advance.

Richard burned the villages on his way, and forced the peasantry to cut passages through the woods. But his army was harassed and tormented by Mac Murrough’s active warriors, who constantly hovered around it, obstructing its progress, cutting off supplies, and defeating scattered parties. To a conciliatory message from Richard, the defiant reply of Art was ” that he was rightful King of Leinster, and would never cease from war and the defence of his country until his death.”

The starving and disheartened English army laboriously toiled through the mountains, and at length reached the coast near Arklow. There ships came with provisions, and so famished were the soldiers that they rushed into the sea to seize the food.
Return and Fate oi Richard.—Richard then made his way to Dublin, Mac Murrough’s little army of 3,000 men, still intact, skirmishing on his flanks.

Silken Thomas Fitz-Gerald, Vice-Deputy

Henry, highly incensed, ordered Kildare to come at once to London to answer these charges, but gave him permission to himself nominate a substitute to fulfil hi» duties during his absence. Kildare’s choice fell on his eldest son, Thomas, a dashing, valiant youth, not yet twenty-one years of age, so famed for the splendour of his dress that  he  had   gained  the  name of ” Silken Thomas.”

 The post which he was to hold would have tried the capacity and prudence of a far more experienced man. Not only were his enemies on the Council many and powerful, but he became the centre, probably without his own knowledge, of intrigues extending beyond Ireland or even England.

The insurrections of Lambert Simnel, and of Perkin Warbeck, in the preceding reign, seem to have directed the attention of the Continental sovereigns to the use that could be made of Ireland for the purpose of attacking England. We know that, at the time of Kildare’s departure for England, the Emperor Charles V had an agent in Ireland closely watching the young Vice-Deputy, and reporting to his master as to the means by which he could be utilised.