Gerald FitzGerald, 11th Earl of Kildare Gerald FitzGerald, 11th Earl of Kildare Gerald FitzGerald, 11th Earl of Kildare (1525 – 16 November 1585), also known as the "Wizard Earl" (a sobriquet also given to Henry Percy, 9th Earl of Northumberland), was an Irish peer. He was the son of Gerald FitzGerald, 9th Earl of Kildare and his second wife Elizabeth Grey, Countess of Kildare. FitzGerald became the sole male representative of the Kildare Geraldines at the age of twelve, after his half-brother, Silken Thomas, the tenth earl, was executed at Tyburn in 1537 with five of his uncles. He spent the next few years on the
Edward Seymour, 1st Earl of Hertford to rely on Sir John Thynne for some financial support. Under Queen Mary he was "restored in blood", but was not given back his title; Queen Elizabeth I created him Earl of Hertford, in the earldom's second creation, in 1559. Between April and May 1605 following the Treaty of London (1604) he was sent on an Embassy by King James I to Albert VII, Archduke of Austria, sovereign of the Spanish Netherlands between 1598 and 1621, at Brussels, to receive his oath of peace. His first wife, Lady Catherine Grey, was a potential claimant to Elizabeth's throne, and law established