In his capacity of political leader, however, it was another matter. Here he suffered to a marked degree from "les défauts de ses qualités." A worse man would have made a better conspirator; and amongst all, save such as are pledged to allow no failing or deficiency to mar the portrait of their hero, there is as full a concurrence of opinion concerning his unfitness for the part he was set to play as with regard to the stainlessness of his honour. An authority vouched for by Madden as being better acquainted with him perhaps than any other of his associates, while bearing witness to the nobility of his character, his freedom from selfishness, meanness, or duplicity, and to his frankness and generosity, yet denied his capacity to conduct a revolution; Reinhard, French Minister to the Hanseatic towns, and a most friendly critic of the envoy who had been sent to open negotiations with his Government, while declaring himself ready to answer for the young man's sincerity with his head-a compliment, it may be observed, which Lord. Edward would not have reciprocated-added that he was wholly unsuited to be leader of an enterprise or chief of a party; and, to quote an observer in a very different sphere, the informer Cox, while adding his testimony to Lord Edward's zeal, declared him, at the same time, unfit to command a sergeant's guard. Such would seem to be the general verdict, contemporary and posthumous, and one borne out by the issue of the struggle in which he was engaged and his failure to carry it to a successful conclusion. It was a verdict in which-since neither vanity nor arrogance are to be counted amongst his failingshe would himself in all probability have concurred. It was part of the gallantry of his disposition not to shrink from responsibility when it was thrust upon him. But it was his misfortune, and, according as it is regarded, the misfortune or the salvation of his country, that he was forced into a position which he was not competent to fill. The incongruity of the man and of the situation lends half its tragedy to the melancholy story. CHAPTER II 1763-1781 Birth and Parentage-The Race of the FitzGeralds-Features L ORD EDWARD FITZGERALD, fifth son and twelfth child of the twentieth Earl of Kildare and first Duke of Leinster, was born in London on October 15th, 1763. The period during which his short life was to be passed-not thirty-five years in all-was a stormy one for Ireland. It was a time when the brooding resentment over the wrongs of centuries was gathering to a head, and sullen submission was being exchanged for fierce and passionate resistance; a time when injuries were inflicted in the name of religion; when tyranny was begetting violence, and oppression brutality; and when men, despairing of justice, were taking the vindication of their rights, as well as vengeance for their wrongs, into their own hands. The story has been told often enough, now from one point of view, now from another; and it is not intended to offer a further repetition of it here, except in so far as it may be necessary for the purposes of purely personal narrative. Nor does it come within the compass of the present work to dwell otherwise than briefly upon the race from which the subject of it sprang. To give a consecutive account, however incomplete, of the Geraldines, of their dogged resistance to English rule, their forced submissions, and their renewed revolts, would be, it has been said, to epitomise the history of their entire nation-a nation whose annals, unconnected and episodical," are like the scenes of a tragedy whose author had much imagination but no art"-and would occupy more space than can be afforded here. It is with a certain "Dominus Otho" that the story begins; who, said to have been one of the Gherardini of Florence, passed into England by way of Normandy, and is found holding the rank of "honorary Baron" there in the reign of Edward the Confessor. The descendants of Lord Otho did not remain for long rooted on the eastern side of St. George's Channel. About the year 1169-before Strongbow had made good his footing in Ireland-two half-brothers, Maurice FitzGerald and Robert FitzStephen, crossed over, on the invitation of the King of Leinster, to help him against his foes, were invested by him with the lordship of Wexford, and so were established on Irish soil.1 For a certain time it would seem that the tradition 1 From this Maurice not only the Earls of Kildare, but their kinsmen the Earls of Desmond traced their descent. of loyalty to the English throne was, though intermittently, observed by the Geraldines, their services. rendered to Edward III. in his contest with the Bruce having been such as to be rewarded, in the year 1316, with the earldom of Kildare. But as years went by and the original connection with England grew more remote, they proved less and less submissive vassals of the Crown; and though frequently holding high office in Ireland, they are constantly found suffering imprisonment or disgrace, for offences real or imputed, and acccused, on one occasion at least, of "alliance, fosterage, and alterage with the King's Irish enemies," from whom, however, they continued to the end to be held distinct. As early as the fourteenth century a General Assembly was called together at Kilkenny by Maurice, Earl of Kildare, and others, in opposition to the Parliament summoned to meet in Dublin, Earl Maurice suffering a subsequent term of imprisonment; and under the Tudor kings the Earls of Kildare continued to display the same features of turbulence and insubordination; open revolt alternating with perfunctory acts of submission which plainly bore the character of mere provisional concessions to necessity. The history of Earl Gerald, in particular, dating from 1477, might almost be taken as typical of the relations existing between the English kings and their "cousins the Earls of Kildare." Invested with the office of Deputy, he persisted in retaining it, in spite of dismissal; and, calling together a Parliament, was confirmed by it in his post. It was this same Gerald, |