Sir Thomas FitzGerald of Laccagh (c.1458–1487) was an Irish lawyer, statesman and soldier who was Lord Chancellor of Ireland under Richard III and Henry VII, but rebelled against Henry and was killed at the

Battle of Stoke The Battle of Stoke Field on 16 June 1487 may be considered the last battle of the Wars of the Roses, since it was the last major engagement between contenders for the throne whose claims derived from descent from the houses of Lancaster and Yo ...

.Ball, F. Elrington ''The Judges in Ireland 1221-1921'' John Murray London 1926 p.187

Background

He was born about 1458, second son of

Thomas FitzGerald, 7th Earl of Kildare Thomas FitzJohn FitzGerald, 7th Earl of Kildare ( – 25 March 1477), was an Irish peer and statesman of the fifteenth century who held the office of Lord Chancellor of Ireland. Background Kildare was the son of John Fitzmaurice FitzGerald, 6th ...

and Joan FitzGerald, daughter of

James FitzGerald, 6th Earl of Desmond James FitzGerald, 6th Earl of Desmond (d. 1462), called 'the Usurper', was a younger son of Gerald FitzGerald, 3rd Earl of Desmond, and Lady Eleanor, daughter of James Butler, 2nd Earl of Ormond. Life The younger brother of John FitzGerald, 4 ...

.Fitzgerald, Walter. "The Fitzgeralds of Lackagh", ''Journal of the Co. Kildare Archaeological Society and Surrounding Districts'', Vol. 1, County Kildare Archaeological Society, Kildare, 1895
/ref> He married Elizabeth Preston, daughter of Robert Preston, 1st Viscount Gormanston and Janet Molyneux. Through his eldest daughter, Margaret, who married Garrett Wellesley, he was an ancestor of the

Duke of Wellington Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, (1 May 1769 – 14 September 1852) was an Anglo-Irish people, Anglo-Irish soldier and Tories (British political party), Tory statesman who was one of the leading military and political figures of Uni ...

. He resided at Laccagh (the modern spelling of the placename is Lackagh) near

Monasterevin Monasterevin (), also Monasterevan, and Mevin is a town in County Kildare, Ireland. The town lies on the River Barrow and the Barrowline, a canal branch of the Grand Canal. The population was 4,246 at the 2016 Census. Location and Access Sit ...

, County Kildare, and despite his rebellion against the Crown his descendants were able to retain their estates; they were still at Lackagh in the 1570s.

Lord Chancellor

He became Lord Chancellor of Ireland in 1484. After the downfall of the

Yorkist The House of York was a cadet branch of the English royal House of Plantagenet. Three of its members became kings of England in the late 15th century. The House of York descended in the male line from Edmund of Langley, 1st Duke of York, t ...

dynasty, the new King Henry VII confirmed him in office, but his loyalty to the new regime was deeply suspect. The Anglo-Irish nobility were, in general, strongly Yorkist in sympathy, while the Fitzgeralds of Kildare were willing to back either the Yorkist or the

Tudor dynasty The House of Tudor was a royal house of largely Welsh and English origin that held the English throne from 1485 to 1603. They descended from the Tudors of Penmynydd and Catherine of France. Tudor monarchs ruled the Kingdom of England and it ...

to advance their own power: Henry VII is said to have remarked that they would ''crown an ape'' to secure their position. Thomas's father, and his eldest brother Gerald, "the Great Earl", reached a position of almost absolute power in Ireland, a state tolerated by successive English Kings.

Lambert Simnel

In 1487 the impostor

Lambert Simnel Lambert Simnel (c. 1477 – after 1534) was a pretender to the throne of England. In 1487, his claim to be Edward Plantagenet, 17th Earl of Warwick, threatened the newly established reign of Henry VII (1485–1509). Simnel became the ...

, who claimed to be

Edward Plantagenet, 17th Earl of Warwick Edward Plantagenet, 17th Earl of Warwick (25 February 1475 – 28 November 1499) was the son of Isabel Neville and George Plantagenet, 1st Duke of Clarence, and a potential claimant to the English throne during the reigns of both his uncle, ...

, rightful heir of the House of York, appeared in Ireland, in the company of a priest called Richard Symonds, and appealed to the Irish nobility for military aid to gain the English Crown. Simnel bore a strong resemblance to the real Warwick, who was in fact a prisoner in the

Tower of London The Tower of London, officially His Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress of the Tower of London, is a historic castle on the north bank of the River Thames in central London. It lies within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, which is sep ...

, where he remained until his execution in 1499. Thomas and his brother Gerald, 8th Earl of Kildare, were among Simnel's strongest supporters and were present at his

coronation A coronation is the act of placement or bestowal of a crown upon a monarch's head. The term also generally refers not only to the physical crowning but to the whole ceremony wherein the act of crowning occurs, along with the presentation of ot ...

in Christchurch Cathedral, Dublin. Thomas resigned the Chancellorship and recruited a force of some 4500 soldiers, including both Old Irish and Anglo-Irish, to supplement a troop of Continental mercenaries sent by the real Warwick's aunt, Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy. He led his troops to England; but the rebellion was crushed at the Battle of Stoke, where Thomas was killed. His brother was more fortunate: Henry showed remarkable clemency to the surviving rebels, including Kildare, who received a royal pardon, and to Simnel himself, who was given a job in the royal kitchens, and later promoted to the office of Falconer.Otway-Ruthven p. 404 The Fitzgeralds retained their predominance in Irish politics for another 50 years: another reported remark of King Henry VII was that if all Ireland could not rule the Earls of Kildare, then they must rule all Ireland. However his son Henry VIII came in time to take a very different view: by 1540 the Kildare Fitzgeralds had been ruthlessly crushed, although they later regained some of their old influence.

Children

By his wife Elizabeth Preston, he had at least three children: *Sir Maurice Fitzgerald of Laccagh (killed 1520) *Margaret, who married Garrett Wellesley''Burke's Peerage 106th Edition'' Switzerland 1999 Vol.2 p.2971 *Isabella. In 1572 Sir Maurice FitzGerald of Lackagh took a lease of the lands at Knightstown, County Laois.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fitzgerald, Thomas, Of Laccagh Thomas 1487 deaths Irish soldiers People from County Kildare Year of birth uncertain 15th-century Irish people Younger sons of earls Lord chancellors of Ireland