Blog 5: Thomas Fitzgerald

After going to the Tower of London and looking at the graffiti left carved in the walls, I was really hoping to look into Thomas Rooper. Sadly, I found nothing much about him other than he was imprisoned for a religious reason in the 1500s.

Upon scanning the list over, though, I decided to look into a different Thomas. Thomas Fitzgerald caught my interest afterlooking him up because his father, Garrett Oge Fitzgerald, had been imprisoned in the tower as well. He was a lord deputy from Ireland who went to England on the king’s mandate, but got charged for crimes and was therefore put in the tower. Thomas, who was twenty-one at the time, was convinced by people who disliked the Irish in general that his father had been beheaded. This young man was also called Silken Thomas because the trappings he wore were made of silk fringe. Upset over the news of his father as well as the idea that it was intended for Thomas and his uncles to meet the same fate, Thomas gathered a group and went to St. Mary’s Abbey where a council he had summoned was meeting. He caused a rebellion, saying he was no longer in allegiance with King Henry VIII.

After hearing about this, Thomas’s father who had palsy, worsened and died soon after. Thomas then attacked Dublin. Castle. During that, they captured archbishop Allen who begged for mercy. Thomas felt pity on him and told his men to let him just be capture. But they intentionally killed him, pretending to have misinterpreted Thomas’s wish. Because of the murder, he was excommunicated and the clergy refused to support him.

At Maynooth, one of Thomas’s fortresses, there was an attack that was successful in 1535 (March, 1535) by Sir William Skeffington. The siege lasted nine days and in the end only thirty seven men were left who were then all killed. Thomas just kept losing support to the point that he eventually had to surrender himself over, but only after he gave the condition that he be kept alive. In 1535 he was taken to the tower. He was left in the tower, miserable and neglected for eighteen months. He sent a letter to a friend at one point asking for 20 pounds. It is not mentioned whether the friend actually sent him anything.

In 1537 in Tyburn, Thomas was executed along with his five uncles who were brought in under treacherous crimes despite three of them saying that they were against the rebellion. No one bothered to care about Thomas having surrendered himself under the pretenses of staying alive.

Gory, depressing, cruel, but it happened. Thomas’s story was rather misfortunate as it all could have been avoided I he had not believed those who were against him. He will be remembered though, along with all those other names on the walls of the Tower of London.

Gaps filled in by: Wikipedia