Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 19.djvu/152

 prominent, and his features well-coloured and pleasant. He would spend sleepless nights in his anxiety for the safety of his troops. Careless in the matters of food and drink, raiment, or personal comfort, he had the art to appear the servant rather than the lord of his followers, to whom he showed himself liberal and gentle. Though a man of undoubted spirit, he always tempered his valour with prudence, and, 'though he had much of the knight about him, he had still more of the captain. He was specially happy in this, that he rarely or never failed in any enterprise he took in hand through rashness or imprudence' (ib. pp. 323-4 ; cf. the quaint englishing of this passage in, p. 190; and the Book of Howth, pp. 297-8). [It is hardly possible to make Giraldus's account of Raymond's movements harmonise completely with that of Regan, and the Irish Annals give little or no help in settling the details of the chronology from 1172 to 1176. Giraldus Cambrensis, Expugnatio Hibernica, ed. Dimock (Rolls Series), vol. v. ; the Anglo-Norman poet cited as Regan, ed. Michel and Wright (London, 1837) ; Annals of Loch Cé, ed. Hennessy (Rolls Series) ; Annals of the Four Masters, ed. O'Donovan; Annals of Inisfallen and Boyle, ap. O'Conor's Scriptores Rerum Hibernicarum, vol. ii. ; Hoveden, ed. Stubbs (Rolls Series), vol. ii.] 

FITZGERALD, THOMAS, second (d. 1328), twice justiciar of Ireland, was the son of John Fitzthomas, the first earl, and of his wife Blanche 'de Rupe' [see first ], and was therefore generally called Thomas Fitzjohn. On 16 Aug. 1312 his marriage at Greencastle, on Carlingford Bay, with Joan, daughter of Richard de Burgh, the 'red earl' of Ulster, was the symbol of the union of the two greatest Norman families in Ireland (Ann. Hib. MS. Laud in Chart. St. Mary's, ii. 341). On 8 Sept. 1316 he succeeded to the new earldom of Kildare on his father's death (ib. p. 352). He at once gathered a great army to fight against Edward Bruce and the Scots, and served against them. His free use of the system of 'bonaght,' or 'coigne and livery,' to support these troops afterwards became a very bad precedent. In 1317 he was thanked by Edward II for his services against Bruce (Fœdera, ii. 327), and in the same year he received from the king the office of hereditary sheriff for his county of Kildare, which involved full jurisdiction and liberties within the earldom (ib. ii. 354). In 1319 and again in 1320 he served on a commission to inquire into the treasons committed during the Bruce invasion (ib. ii. 396, 417). In 1320 he was made justiciar of Ireland, though he only acted as viceroy for a year (Ann. Hib. MS. Laud, p. 361). During his tenure of office Archbishop Bicknor [q. v.] attempted to found a university in Dublin. Kildare received a patent empowering him to subject to English law such of his Irish tenants as chose to be governed by it. In 1322 he was summoned to serve against the Scots, but the truce prevented his services being required (Fœdera, ii. 501, 523). In 1324 he was at the Dublin parliament, where the magnates of Ireland pledged themselves to support the crown (Rot. Claus. Hib. 18 Edw. II, p. 30 b, Record Comm.) In 1324 he was accused of being an adherent of Roger Mortimer and of corresponding with him after his escape from the Tower of London (Parl. Writs, vol. ii. pt. iii. p. 1052). This seems probably true, for one of the first acts of Mortimer's party after the accession of Edward III was to reappoint Kildare justiciar of Ireland. This was before 13 Feb. 1327 (Fœdera, ii. 688). He experienced some difficulty before the partisans of Edward II would accept him. In July several great barons, including John de Bermingham [q. v.], were still refractory (ib. ii. 710). But a local feud which involved the Berminghams, the Butlers, the Poers, and De Burghs in a private war with the Geraldines of Desmond, because Arnold le Poer had called Maurice Fitzthomas, first earl of Desmond [q. v.], a rhymer, was probably at the bottom of this disobedience (Ann. Hib. MS. Laud, p. 365; cf., Viceroys, pp. 163-4). However, Kildare compelled the chief offenders to sue for pardon at the parliament of Kilkenny. During his viceroyalty a native 'king' of Leinster ventured to set up his standard within two miles of Dublin, but was soon subdued. The burning of one of the O'Tooles for heresy was another example of Kildare's vigour (, pp. 107-8). In 1327 he granted the advowson of Kilcullen to the priory of Holy Trinity, Dublin (Hist. MSS. Comm. 9th Rep. pt. ii. p. 269). He died, still in office, on 9 April 1328 at Maynooth, and was buried in the chapel of St. Mary which he had built in the Franciscan convent at Kildare (, Monast. Hib. p. 312). He is described as wise and prudent (, p. 76). His wife, Joan de Burgh, remarried, on 3 July 1329, his successor as justiciar, John D'Arcy (Ann. Hib. MS. Laud, p. 371). He had by her three sons, of whom John, the eldest, died in 1323 or 1324 at the age of nine (ib. p. 362), being then in the hands of the king as a hostage for his father (, p. 16). The second Richard succeeded his father as third earl, but died in July 1331 (Hist. MSS. Comm. 9th Rep. pt. ii. p. 268), aged 12. The