[2] Geoffrey is said to have visited Spain and Italy in his youth; possibly he went to Paris in Sir Thomas Hoby's train in 1566, for he was living there in 1567, when he wrote Certaine tragicall discourses written oute of Frenche and Latin.
[2] Until 1579 Fenton continued his literary labours, publishing Monophylo in 1572, Golden epistles gathered out of Guevaraes workes as other authors ... 1575, and various religious tracts of strong Protestant tendencies.
He secured the Queen's confidence with his written reports, but was arrested at Dublin in 1587 by the authority of the sitting governor, Sir John Perrot,[2] on account of his debts, and was paraded in chains through the city.
[1] The policies Fenton promoted in relation to woodlands in the Plantations encouraged short-term commercial exploitation and clearance for agriculture, giving little weight to their conservation as a strategic resource.
[2] Fenton married in June 1585, Alice, daughter of Dr Robert Weston, formerly Lord Chancellor of Ireland by his first wife Alice Jenyngs, and widow of Dr Hugh Brady, bishop of Meath, by whom he had two children — a son, Sir William Fenton, and a daughter, Catherine, who in 1603 married Richard Boyle, 1st Earl of Cork.