streets, and thus protecting his followers from the arrows and shot from the Castle walls. Encouraged by the news of approaching succour from England, the besieged made a brave sally, slew 100 gallowglasses, and obliged Lord Offaly to raise the siege, and agree to a temporary truce and an exchange of prisoners. On the 14th October he left his army encamped at Howth, and went to place the castle of Maynooth in a proper state of defence. Portlester, Rathangan, Lea, Athy, Kilkea, Castledermot, and Carlow, were all well garrisoned and fortified. His chief allies were his cousin Con Bacagh O'Neill of Tyrone, his brother-in-law O'Conor Faly, O'More, O'Byrne, MacMurrough, O'Brien, and most of the gentlemen of Kildare. In the autumn he defeated at Clontarf an English contingent that had lauded, sending the survivors prisoners to Maynooth. His admiral, Roukes, about the same period, captured several English transports. On 14th October Sir W. Skeffington, Lord-Deputy, sailed from Beaumaris with a fleet, which was driven by a storm under shelter of Lambay; but he was shortly enabled to land with troops and supplies for the relief of Dublin; and the Earl of Ossory invaded and ravaged Carlow and Kildare, and induced Sir Thomas Eustace and forty of Lord Offaly's adherents to return to their allegiance. The winter passed over with desultory operations on both sides. In December Offaly succeeded to the earldom of Kildare on the death of his father in the Tower of London. In March 1535 the new Earl of Kildare had with him 120 horse, 240 gallowglasses, and 500 kerns. Leaving Maynooth Castle strongly fortified in the hands of his foster brother and confidant, Christopher Parese, he went into Offaly to raise additional adherents for the summer campaign. Skeffington invested Maynooth Castle on the 14th March, and on the 23rd Parese, consenting to betray his trust, permitted the outer defences to be taken without resistance, after which the keep was carried by assault. A park of heavy artillery, brought up to the siege by the English, and for which the Anglo-Irish were quite unprepared, had no small effect in compelling such a speedy surrender of a place the Earl of Kildare regarded as almost impregnable. Of the garrison, twenty-five were beheaded, and one hanged, as it was thought dangerous to spare skilled soldiers. "Great and rich was the spoile; such store of beddes, so many goodly hangings, so rich a wardrob, suche brave furniture, as truly it was accompted, for householde stuffe and utensiles, one of the richest earle his houses under the crowne of Englande." Parese, to increase the estimation in which his treachery should be regarded, dwelt on the trust and confidence Kildare bestowed on him: and Stanihurst tells us how his treachery was rewarded: "The Deputy gave his officers commandment to delyver Parese the summe of muney that was promised to him upon the surrender of the castell, and after to choppe off his heade." The Earl had meanwhile raised 7,000 men in Offaly and Connaught, and was on his way to relieve the castle, when the news of its fall induced most of his forces to disperse and return to their homes. With such as remained true, he advanced and gave battle to the royal forces near Slane. The Deputy's artillery again gave him a superiority, and the Earl was defeated with heavy loss. Again the Deputy considered he was justified in putting his prisoners, 140 gallowglasses, to death. After this disaster, the Earl took refuge in Thomond, with a retinue of sixteen gentlemen and priests, sending a deputation to the Emperor to entreat for succour. The Irish chiefs one by one submitted, and the Earl's castles were taken, except Crom and Adare. In July, aided by O'Conor Faly, the Earl assaulted and took Rathangan Castle, and held it for a time; he also harassed the Deputy by cutting off his supplies, and carrying on a skirmishing warfare; nevertheless, but for the supineness of the English commanders and the extreme disorder of the soldiers, the war would soon have been ended. On 3rd August Kildare's forces were further disorganized in an engagement near the Hill of Allen—indeed, would have been annihilated, but that at the decisive moment, the kerns of O'More and O'Conor, nominally in alliance with the English, refused to fall upon their fellow-countrymen. William Keating, one of Kildare's captains, was taken in this engagement, and saved his life by not only deserting the cause of his leader, but undertaking to drive him out of his fastnesses in Kildare, and to allure from him the Keating kerns, his last reliance. Driven out of a fortified rath near Rathangan, the Earl was forced to retire into Offaly, and at length, worn out by fatigue, and deserted by all his followers, he surrendered himself to Lord Grey, near Maynooth, on the 18th August 1535, as Stanihurst asserts, on the promise that he should be pardoned on his conveyance to England. During the first six mouths of the fourteen which the war lasted, Ireland was practically clear of English troops, and it was in the power of the Irish lords and chiefs to have made a permanent stand against the English rule,
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