Desmond did not deny that he had given meat and drink to some proclaimed traitors, but pleaded that Irish hospitality could scarcely do less, and that he had never helped them to do any harm. He maintained stiffly that he had authority to rule all Munster Geraldines, and to decide their causes without any regard to sheriffs. Sir Maurice Fitzgerald, evidence of whose tenure from the Crown was recorded in the Exchequer, protested energetically against this theory. A long list of outrages in Munster was charged against the Earl, and mention was made of a little friar who had been a messenger between him and the O'Neills, and who had been found begging in their camp after Shane's death. Finding that the case was likely to go against them, and feeling that they were in the lion's mouth, the Earl and his brother thought it wise to make a general surrender of all their lands into her Majesty's hands; and Desmond even brought himself to beg that she would place a President and Council in Munster. So far as law went, Elizabeth now had Munster at her mercy, but she kept fast hold on her prisoners until time should declare how far the law coincided with the facts.[145] [Sidenote: Kildare. Oliver Sutton.] The leader of the Northern Geraldines, who had, perhaps, no fancy either for the Tower or for a renewed exile, had his accusers at this time, and later events tend to prove that they were not without justification. In 1534 it had been David Sutton, a Kildare gentleman of ancient race, who had led the attack on the ninth Earl of Kildare, and laid bare the many abuses of his rule. 'The office of belling the cat,' says a modern writer, 'descended hereditarily to Oliver Sutton,' who attacked his grandson and namesake. In 1565 he presented to the Queen articles containing matters of the gravest importance against Kildare. He had previously complained to Arnold, but that despotic proconsul was submissive to the Earl, and imprisoned the unfortunate reformer for sixteen weeks. In fear of his life, Sutton was obliged to quit his lands and to hide from the local tyrant's rage in Dublin or England. Arnold was confessedly a reformer himself, and, except from partiality to Kildare, it is hard to see why he treated Sutton so harshly, while listening with excessive credulity to all Bermingham's representations. Coyne and livery in their most oppressive forms and every kindred exaction were charged against the Earl. The bastard Geraldines and Keatings were supported by him, even when openly resisting the Queen's troops. They boasted that the Earl, and not the English power, really defended the country, and that there would be no quiet until he became chief Governor. Pride of blood made them wish to enslave all others, and 'the daily exclamations of the poor were right sorrowful to hear.' The Queen, having heard Sutton herself and read his reports, sent him back to Ireland, of which Sidney had assumed the government, observing that they touched Kildare too