Before his release Keatinge undertook to drive the Geraldine chief out of Kildare. The wretched peasants crept back to their fields to save what was left of the harvest; and Cahir O'Connor, who saw how things were likely to end, came to Grey and Brabazon, and took an oath to defend the King's interests against Kildare, and against his own brother. The Earl had a stronghold in a boggy wood near Rathangan, fortified with earthworks and wet ditches, and almost impregnable had it been well manned and armed. Not being defended it was easily taken, and whatever would burn was burned. At last Skeffington felt well enough to take the field, and advanced with Grey and Butler to the borders of Offaly. Despairing of the cause, and anxious to save his harvest, O'Connor came in and submitted to the Lord Deputy at Castle Jordan; and Kildare, finding himself alone, then surrendered to Butler and Grey in the presence of three witnesses. Skeffington positively asserts that no condition was made, 'either of pardon, life, land, or goods;' and this is confirmed by a despatch from the Council sent three days later and signed by Lords Butler and Delvin, Rawson, Prior of Kilmainham, Saintloo, Brabazon, Aylmer, Salisbury, and Sir Rice Maunsell, the last two having been present at the surrender. But the councillors admitted that 'comfortable words were spoken to Thomas to allure him to yield,' and begged the King to spare his life according to the comfort of those words.[151] [Sidenote: The surrender was unconditional.] A great effort was made to cause a belief in England that the surrender was conditional, but it does not appear that the prisoner himself made any such assertion. He wrote to his connection Grey, confessing himself a rebel, but urging that he had done all by the advice of Thomas Eustace and Sir Gerald MacShane. He begged intercession for his life and lands: failing the efficacy of such aid, he had, he said, only to shift for himself as he best could. Writers favourable to the Geraldines have nevertheless stated that he was promised his life, and this has been copied into a long succession of popular manuals. Even at the time, the legal mind of Lord Chancellor Audeley refused to believe that the Irish Council had so dealt 'with so errant and cankered a traitor.' 'If this,' he added, 'be intended that he should have mercy, I marvel much that divers of the King's Council in Ireland have so largely told the King, afore this time, that there should never be good peace or order in Ireland till the blood of the Garrolds were wholly extinct. And it was also said that the Irishmen spared their effectual diligence in the persecution of him, because they heard that he should have pardon, and then he would revenge; and now it seemeth they would procure him mercy. They be people of a strange nature and much inconstancy.'[152] [Sidenote: Kildare is sent to England;]