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174 Stephen Dunford: The Journey of The IrIsh
Throughout this period Skeffington remained militarily inactive, but in March 1535, with his forces fit and bolstered by re-inforcements, he marched from Dublin and besieged Maynooth Castle, the principal stronghold of the Leinster Geraldines. After nine days’ of incessant pounding bombardment and siege the castle fell and despite having surrendered, its surviving defenders were slaughtered by Skeffington, in what has become known in Irish history as ‘the pardon of Maynooth.’ The fall of Maynooth Castle marks the turning point of the rebellion of Silken Thomas, because in the aftermath the campaign hastily melted away, and in a short time Thomas himself had surrendered on condition that his life be spared.
Thrown into prison in London, and after an interval to allow Irish passions to cool, Thomas, having suffered great hardships in the company of his five uncles, none of whom had shown any sympathy with the rebellion, was executed at Tyburn in 1537. “These execu- tions,” the Four Masters wrote, “were great losses and a cause of lamentation throughout Ireland.”
A young boy of twelve, Gerald Fitzgerald, a half-brother of Thomas’s, was now the heir to the great earldom, and unsurprisingly, his person was eagerly though unsuccessfully sought by the authorities. It is documented that several Irish chieftains, north and south, including, O’Donnell, O’Neill, O’Brien and the Earl of Desmond, hid, protected and fos- tered the youth, and in due course sent him, like the children of many other Irish chiefs, to Florence and Rome, where he was educated, principally under the direction of Cardinal Reginald Pole, former friend and advisor to King Henry V111. In 1554, during the reign of Mary, the young Fitzgerald was restored to his family estates and titles.
While the ill-considered rebellion of Silken Thomas had its origin in personal grievance, gullible diplomacy, and politics, and consequently earned for its progenitor the contempt of posterity, there is no doubt that its brutal suppression also marked a major turning point in Irish history. It gave King Henry the pretext he needed to destroy the most powerful, influential, and most dangerous family of the Sean-Ghaill. Furthermore, it also put an end to the possibility that an independent kingdom would ever be established in Ireland by the Norman-Irish, and in turn cleared the way for the Tudor policy of governing Ireland through paid officials of English birth, who could never be in a position to challenge the King’s authority.
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