Gerald FitzGerald, 14th Earl of Desmond

Gerald FitzGerald, 14th Earl of Desmond (c. 1533 – 1583), also counted as 15th or 16th,^[a] owned large part of the Irish province of Munster. In 1565 he fought the private Battle of Affane against his neighbours, the Butlers. After this, he was for some time detained in the Tower of London. Though the First Desmond Rebellion took place in his absence, he led the Second Desmond Rebellion from 1579 to his death and was therefore called the Rebel Earl. He was attainted in 1582 and went into hiding but was hunted down and killed.

Birth and origins

Gerald was born about 1533.

Gerald's mother was an O'Carroll, a native Irish family or clan.^[5] He had two brothers and five sisters, who are listed in his father's article.

Early life

In 1541 his father had agreed, as one of the terms of his

Claims were made on the Desmond estate by the Butlers, the hereditary enemies of the Geraldines. The FitzGeralds and the Butlers were at perpetual war.[9]

First marriage

In 1550 Gerald FitzGerald married

On 14 October 1558, on his father's death, Gerald Fitzgerald succeeded as the 14th Earl of Desmond. On 30 November he was knighted by Lord Deputy Thomas Radclyffe, 3rd Earl of Sussex, at Waterford^[11] and offered homage. He soon established close relations with his namesake Gerald FitzGerald, 11th Earl of Kildare (1525–1585), and with Shane O'Neill. Despite a decree issued by Sussex in August 1560 regulating the matters in dispute between Ormond and the FitzGeralds, outlaws from both sides continued to plunder the other.^[8] In 1560 his wife's intervention secured a peaceful outcome to a stand-off at Bohermore, known as "the battle that never was".^[12]

For some time, Desmond resisted a summons to appear at

Desmond's first wife died on 2 January 1565.[13] Shortly thereafter he remarried to the 20-year-old Eleanor Butler, daughter of Edmond Butler, 1st Baron Dunboyne.

Gerald and Eleanor had two sons:

1. James (1570–1601), called the Tower Earl
2. Thomas

—and five daughters:

1. Margaret married Diarmid O'Conor^[14]
2. Joan (died 1598) married Diarmid O'Sullivan^[15]
3. Catherine, married first Maurice Roche, 6th Viscount Fermoy and secondly Daniel O'Brien, 1st Viscount Clare^[16]
4. Ellen, married firstly Sir Donough O'Conor of Sligo, secondly Sir Robert Cressy, and thirdly her cousin Edmond Butler, 3rd/13th Baron Dunboyne, and died at a great age in 1660.^[17]
5. Ellis (Elisabeth),
   Earls of Kenmare^[19]

In 1565 he raided Thomond, and in Waterford, he sought to enforce his feudal rights on Sir Maurice Fitzgerald of Decies, who invoked the help of Thomas Butler (Gerald's former step-son by his 1st wife and 1st cousin to his new wife), the 10th Earl of Ormond.^[8] This slid into war with the Ormonds. On 8 February 1565, only a bit more than a month after his 1st wife's death, the two sides fought the private Battle of Affane on the Blackwater river. Here Ormond's brother, Sir Edmund Butler of Cloughgrenan, hit Desmond in the right hip with a pistol shot, cracking his thigh-bone and throwing him from his horse.^[20][21] About 300 Geraldines were killed, many of them drowning as they were intercepted by armed boats while crossing the river.

As the badly wounded captive Lord Desmond was being carried shoulder-high from the field, an Ormond commander rode up and jubilantly inquired, "Where is now the great Lord Desmond?" Desmond retorted,

Where but in his proper place, on the necks of the Butlers?

Ormond took the wounded Desmond in captivity to

Lords Ormond and Desmond were called to London where they promised to keep the peace, being allowed to return to Ireland early in 1566, where a royal commission was appointed to settle the matters in dispute between them. Desmond and his brother Sir John of Desmond were sent over to England, where they surrendered their lands to the queen after imprisonment in the Tower in 1568.^[8]

First Desmond Rebellion

Meanwhile Desmond's cousin, James FitzMaurice FitzGerald, FitzMaurice for short, caused himself to be acclaimed captain of Desmond in defiance of Henry Sidney, and in the evident expectation of usurping the earldom. He sought to give the movement an ultra-Catholic character, with the idea of gaining foreign assistance, and allied himself with John Burke, son of the Earl of Clanricarde, with Connor O'Brien, 3rd Earl of Thomond, and even secured Ormond's brother, Sir Edmund Butler, whom Sidney had offended. Edward Butler also joined the rebellion, but the appearance of Sidney and Ormond in the southwest was rapidly followed by the submission of the Butlers. Most of the Geraldines were subjugated by Humphrey Gilbert, but FitzMaurice remained in arms, and in 1571 Sir John Perrot undertook to reduce him. Perrot hunted him down, and at last on 23 February 1573 he made formal submission at Kilmallock, lying prostrate on the floor of the church by way of proving his sincerity.^[8]

Return to Ireland

In 1573 Desmond was discharged from the Tower and allowed to return to Ireland, despite the protestation of Elizabeth's counsellors. He promised not to exercise palatinate jurisdiction in Kerry until his rights to it were proven. He was detained for six months in Dublin, but in November slipped away. Edward FitzGerald, brother of the Earl of Kildare, and lieutenant of the queen's pensioners in London, was sent to remonstrate with Desmond, but accomplished nothing.^[22]

Desmond asserted that none but

On 18 July 1574 the Geraldine chiefs signed a 'Combination' promising to support the Earl unconditionally; shortly afterwards Ormond and the lord deputy, William Fitzwilliam, marched on Munster, and put Desmond's garrison at Derrinlaur Castle to the sword. Desmond submitted at Cork on 2 September, handing over his estates to trustees: Sir Henry Sidney visited Munster in 1575, and affairs seemed to promise an early restoration of order.^[23]

Second Desmond Rebellion

But FitzMaurice had fled to

Carrigafoyle Castle and Askeaton Castle fell to the English in April 1580.^[24][25] Desmond's younger brother, Sir John of Desmond was killed in December 1581 near Castlelyons, and the Geraldine seneschal of Imokilly surrendered on 14 June 1583. This seneschal's lands excited envy; he was arrested in 1587, and died in Dublin Castle two days later.^[23]

Death and timeline

In June 1581 Desmond took to the woods, but still had a considerable following for some time. By June 1583, when Ormond offered a price for his head, he was fleeing with only four followers.^[23] He was killed five months later, on 11 November 1583 in Glenageenty Wood near Tralee, County Kerry.^[26] His followers had attacked and plundered a farm but the farmer alerted the government forces who pursued the Earl and his men^[27] and surprised them at dawn in a cabin in the forest,^[28] five miles (8.0 km) east of Tralee at Bóthar an Iarla (Earl's Road). The Moriarty chieftain was given a substantial reward by Queen Elizabeth.

Ancestry

Notes, citations, and sources

Notes

Citations

Sources

• O'Donovan, John, ed. (1856). Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland, by the four Masters, from the Earliest Period to 1606. Vol. V (2nd ed.). Dublin: Hodges, Smith & Co.
  OCLC 1039532722
  . – 1501 to 1588
• Williams, T. Evan (2013). The Secret Life of Eleanor, Rebel Countess of Desmond. Vol. 1. Scott's Valley, Ca.: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.
  ISBN 978-1-4909-8100-0
  .