7 - Rebellion, State Paper Dark Age, 1534–40

Summary

Exploding within an already toxic political atmosphere, the outbreak of rebellion was a source of profound bewilderment for both sympathisers and enemies alike. A shocked Thomas Finglas did not even remotely anticipate Offaly's actions ‘as fere as [he] had knowlege at that tyme’ and Robert Cowley was quick to deem the ‘seducyous proditorious rebelling’ as heresy. Framing the westward conquest as a crusade, Ossory's indenture of 1534 had portrayed the king as a ‘vertuous and most cristen prince’ in reducing Ireland to ‘Cristen manners’. Having failed to take Dublin, Thomas moved to secure Maynooth and the south Leinster buffer between Kildare and Ormond. The arrival of Skeffington with a force of 2,300 men eventually allowed for the rebellion to be quelled with a great deal of ferocity as the shires of Kildare, Meath and environs were laid waste. Aylmer, Alen and Brabazon later commented on the destruction, as the former liberty of Kildare was ‘all brent’. The Pale was rocked by violent exchanges and the infamous incidence of slaughter was the ‘pardon’ of Maynooth. After the fall of Maynooth, with Kildare in retreat, there was a significant loss of momentum for the rebels. Fitzgerald's appeal to Rome in May 1535 was less a theological move and more an act of desperation born of necessity. An absolution from Rome was required to preserve support for the rebellion but it also obstructed paths to a possible resolution with the crown. It was Lord Leonard Grey as marshal of the army who relayed the surrender of Kildare in August 1535. Thomas was then bound for Court with the promise of a pardon.

Cowley's reproof of Offaly's stance as the ‘popes secte and bande’ obscured a more complex picture. Yet there was always an ecclesiastical, if not religious, aspect to the rebellion even as recent scholarship has moved away from religion as its main cause.8 While the Reformation exposed a weakness in the crown's position, the break with Rome also ran against Kildare's pan-cultural patronage and influence. As a result, a blind spot for Kildare was a failure to appreciate the significance of the Henrician religious Reformation.