Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 2.djvu/169

1515.] the reply as sufficient. The council laughed. 'All Ireland cannot govern this Earl,' said one. 'Then let this Earl govern all Ireland,' was the prompt answer of Henry VII. He was sent over a convicted traitor—he returned a knight of the Garter, lord deputy, and the representative of the Crown. Rebellion was a successful policy, and a lesson which corresponded so closely to the Irish temper was not forgotten.

'What, thou fool,' said Sir Gerald Shaneson to a younger son of this nobleman, thirty years later, when he found him slow to join the rebellion against Henry VIII. 'What, thou fool, thou shalt be the more esteemed for it. For what hadst thou, if thy father had not done so? What was he until he crowned a king here, took Garth, the King's captain) prisoner, hanged his son, resisted Poynings and all deputies; killed them of Dublin upon Oxmantown Green; would suffer no man to rule here for the King but himself! Then the King regarded him, and made him deputy, and married thy mother to him; or else thou shouldst never have had a foot of land, where now thou mayest dispend four hundred marks by the year.'

These scornful words express too truly the position of the Earl of Kildare, which, however, he found it convenient to disguise under a decent exterior. The borders of the pale were partially extended; the O'Tooles were