Gerald FitzGerald, 14th Earl of Desmond

Gerald was born about 1533.[1] He was the eldest son of James FitzGerald by his second wife, More O'Carroll. His father was the 13th (or 14th or 15th)[lower-alpha 1] Earl of Desmond. The FitzGeralds of Desmond were a cadet branch of the Old English Geraldines, whereas the FitzGeralds of Kildare were the senior branch. As his father's name was James, he was also, after the Norman patronymic manner, called "fitz James". His full name was therefore: "Gerald fitz James FitzGerald". Gerald's mother was an O'Caroll, a native Irish family or clan. His parents had married in 1551.[5]

In 1541 his father had agreed, as one of the terms of his Surrender and regrant submission to Henry VIII, to send young Gerald to be educated in England. At the accession of Edward VI proposals to this effect were renewed; Gerald was to be the companion of the young king. These projects were not carried out.

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.[13]

In 1550 Gerald FitzGerald married Joan Fitzgerald. She was his second cousin; their common great-grandfather was the 7th Earl of Desmond (see Family tree). She was about 40 whereas he was 17. She was the only daughter of the 10th Earl of Desmond, the widow of the 9th Earl of Ormond and the mother of the reigning 10th Earl of Ormond.[14] The marriage was childless.

James Butler, 9th Earl of Ormond had married Lady Joan Fitzgerald, daughter and heiress-general of James FitzGerald, 10th Earl of Desmond. On Ormond's death she proposed to marry Gerald FitzGerald, and eventually did so after the death of her second husband, Sir Francis Bryan. The effect of this marriage was a temporary cessation of hostility between the Desmonds and her son, Thomas Butler, 10th Earl of Ormond.

In 1558, on the death of his father, the 13th Earl of Desmond, Gerald Fitzgerald succeeded as the 14th Earl of Desmond. He was knighted by the lord deputy Thomas Radclyffe, 3rd Earl of Sussex, and offered homage at Waterford. He soon established close relations with his namesake Gerald FitzGerald, 11th Earl of Kildare (1525–1585), and with Shane O'Neill. In spite of an decree issued by Sussex in August 1560 regulating the matters in dispute between Ormond and the FitzGeralds, outlaws from each side continued to plunder the other. In 1560 his wife's intervention secured a peaceful outcome to a stand-off at Bohermore (known as "the battle that never was").

For some time, Desmond resisted a summons to appear at Elizabeth's court with the plea that he was at war with his uncle Maurice. When he did appear in London in May 1562, his (according to the English) insolent conduct before the privy council resulted in a short imprisonment in the Tower of London. Desmond was detained in England until 1564.

His first wife died on 2 January 1565.[15] 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. ?

—and at least four daughters:

1. Joan (died 1598)
2. Catherine, married Daniel O'Brien, 1st Viscount Clare
3. Alice, also called Ellis, married Sir Valentine Browne, 1st Baronet, ancestor of the Earls of Kenmare[16]
4. Ellen, married three times, lastly to her cousin Edmond Butler, 3rd/13th Baron Dunboyne, and died at a great age in 1660.

His first wife died on 2 January 1565.[15] He then 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. 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.[17][18] About 300 Geraldines were killed, with many drowning as they were intercepted by armed boats while crossing the river.

As the badly wounded captive 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 Clonmel and then to Waterford, where Lord Justice Nicholas Arnold took custody of him after a legal wrangle with Ormond.

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 1668.

In the 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 south-west 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.

Gerald FitzGerald, 15th Earl of Desmond leaves via Lough Swilly for France, c. 1575. (J. C. McRae after H. Warren, 1884)

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.

Desmond asserted that none but Brehon law should be observed between Geraldines. FitzMaurice seized Captain George Bourchier (father of Henry), one of Elizabeth's officers in the west. Essex met the Earl near Waterford in July, and Bourchier was surrendered, but Desmond refused the other demands made in the Queen's name. A document offering £500 for his head, and £1,000 to any one who would take him alive, was drawn up, but was vetoed by two members of the council.

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.

But FitzMaurice had fled to Brittany in company with other leading Geraldines, John Fitzedmund Fitzgerald, seneschal of Imokilly, who had held Ballymartyr against Sidney in 1567, and Edmund Fitzgibbon, the son of the White Knight who had been attainted in 1571. He intrigued at the French and Spanish courts for a foreign invasion of Ireland, and at Rome met the adventurer Thomas Stucley, with whom he projected an expedition that should have made a nephew of Pope Gregory XIII king of Ireland. In 1579 FitzMaurice landed at Smerwick Bay (Cuan Ard na Caithne), where he was joined later by some Spanish soldiers at the Dún an Óir. His ships were captured on 29 July 1579 and he himself was slain in a skirmish while on his way to Tipperary.

Nicholas Sanders, the papal legate who had accompanied FitzMaurice, sought to draw the Earl into rebellion. On 1 November 1579 Sir William Pelham proclaimed Desmond a traitor. The sack of Youghal and Kinsale by the Geraldines was speedily followed by attacks by Ormond and Pelham acting in concert with Admiral William Winter. Desmond's brother, Sir John of Desmond was killed in December 1581, and the Geraldine seneschal of Imokilly had surrendered on 14 June 1583. This seneschal's lands excited envy; he was arrested in 1587, and died in Dublin Castle two days later.

Memorial at the site of the 15th Earl's beheading.

In June 1581 Desmond took to the woods, but he maintained a considerable following for some time. By June 1583, when Ormond offered a price for his head, he was fleeing with only four followers. Five months later, on 11 November 1583,[19] he was murdered by Moriarty of Castledrum, at Glenagenty, five miles east of Tralee at Bóthar an Iarla (Earl's Road).[20][21] The Moriarty chieftain was given a substantial reward by Queen Elizabeth.

• Bagwell, Richard (1885). Ireland under the Tudors. 2. London: Longmans, Green, and Co. – 1558 to 1578
• Burke, Bernard (1866). A Genealogical History of the Dormant, Abeyant, Forfeited and Extinct Peerages of the British Empire (New ed.). London: Harrison. (for Desmond)
• Cokayne, George Edward (1895). Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct, or Dormant. 6 (1st ed.). London: George Bell and Sons. – N to R (for Ormond)
• Cokayne, George Edward (1916). Gibbs, Vicary (ed.). The complete peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, extant, extinct, or dormant. 4 (2nd ed.). London: St Catherine Press. – Dacre to Dysart (for Desmond)
• Joyce, Patrick Weston (1903), A Concise History of Ireland from the Earliest Times to 1837 (12th ed.), Dublin: M. H. Gill & Son
• McGurk, J. J. N. (2004). "FitzGerald, Gerald Fitz James, fourteenth earl of Desmond (c. 1533–1583)". In Matthew, Colin; Harrison, Brian (eds.). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. 19. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 809–811. ISBN 0-19-861369-5. – (for the 14th Earl of Desmond)
• Smyth, Constantine (1839). Chronicle of the Law Officers of Ireland. London: Henry Butterworth. (for Table of reigns)

• O’Donovan, John (1856). Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland, by the four Masters, from the Earliest Period to 1606. 5 (2nd ed.). Dublin: Hodges, Smith & Co. – 1501 to 1588
• Williams, T. Evan (2013). The Secret Life of Eleanor, Rebel Countess of Desmond. Scott's Valley, Ca.: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. ISBN 978-1490981000.