back of the rebellion and left Sir Humphrey Gilbert behind to suppress fitz Maurice, who sought refuge in the woods of Aherlow, south of Tipperary. After Gilbert's departure fitz Maurice raised a new force in February 1570 and by a surprise night attack on 2 March, took Kilmallock and after hanging the chief townsmen at the market cross, plundered its wealth and burned the town. In February 1571, Sir John Perrot landed at Waterford as President of Munster and challenged fitz Maurice to a duel, which fitz Maurice declined with the remark, "For if I should kill Sir John Perrot the Queen of England can send another president into this province; but if he do kill me there is none other to succeed me or to command as I do." Fitz Maurice attacked Perrot, but retreated on mistaking a small cavalry company for the advance party of a larger force. After a second and successful siege by Perrot of the Geraldine stronghold of Castlemaine, fitz Maurice sued for pardon, which was granted in February 1573, after he prostrated himself in Kilmallock church with the president's sword point next to his heart. Fitz Maurice swore fealty to the crown, and gave up his son as hostage. Continental intrigue After the return to Ireland of the Earl of Desmond in 1573, fitz Maurice left for the continent, offering his reasons variously as a desire to gain pardon from the queen through the French court, and the unkindness of the earl. In March 1575 he and his family, along with the Geraldine Seneschal of Imokilly, James Fitzedmund Fitzgerald, and the White Knight, Edmund Fitzgibbon, sailed on the La Arganys for St Malo, Brittany, where they were received by the governor. He had several interviews with Catherine de' Medici in Paris, offering to help make Henry III of France king of Ireland, and was granted a pension of 5,000 crowns in 1576. Early in the following year he left for the Spanish court, where he offered the crown to the brother of King Philip II, Don John; the king was cautious, however. Fitz Maurice left his sons Maurice and Gerald with Cardinal Granvelle, and travelled to Italy to meet Pope Gregory XIII. Invasion of Ireland At the papal court fitz Maurice met the adventurer Captain Thomas Stukley, and together they persuaded the pope to underwrite the cost of 1,000 troops to invade Ireland, most