Chapter XI: Part 11

The other great Fitzgerald line was that of the earls of Desmond, who were undoubtedly of the same stock and claimed descent from Maurice, the founder of the family in Ireland, through a younger son Thomas. It would seem that Maurice, grandson of Thomas, was father of Thomas "Fitz Maurice" _Nappagh_ ("of the ape"), justice of Ireland in 1295, who obtained a grant of the territory of "Decies and Desmond" in 1292, and died in 1298. His son Maurice Fitz Thomas or Fitzgerald, inheriting vast estates in Munster, and strengthening his position by marrying a daughter of Richard de Burgh, earl of Ulster, was created earl of Desmond (i.e. south Munster) on the 22nd of August 1329, and Kerry was made a palatine liberty for him. The greatest Irish noble of his day, he led the Anglo-Irish party against the English representatives of the king, and was attacked as the king's enemy by the viceroy in 1345. He surrendered in England to the king and was imprisoned, but eventually regained favour, and was even made viceroy himself in 1355. He died, however, the following year. Two of his sons succeeded in turn, Gerald, the 3rd earl (1359-1398), being appointed justiciar (i.e. viceroy) in 1367, despite his adopting his father's policy which the crown still wished to thwart. But he was superseded two years later, and defeated and captured by the native king of Thomond shortly after. Yet his sympathies were distinctly Irish. The remote position of Desmond in the south-west of Ireland tended to make the succession irregular on native lines, and a younger son succeeded as 6th or 7th earl about 1422. His son Thomas, the next earl (1462-1467), governed Ireland as deputy from 1463 to 1467, and upheld the endangered English rule by stubborn conflict with the Irish. Yet Tiptoft, who superseded him, procured his attainder with that of the earl of Kildare, on the charge of alliance with the Irish, and he was beheaded on the 14th of February 1468, his followers in Munster avenging his death by invading the Pale. His younger son Maurice, earl from 1487 to 1520, was one of Perkin Warbeck's Irish supporters, and besieged Waterford on his behalf. His son James (1520-1529) was proclaimed a rebel and traitor for conspiring with the French king and with the emperor. At his death the succession reverted to his uncle Thomas (1529-1534), then an old man, at whose death there was a contest between his younger brother Sir John "of Desmond" and his grandson James, a court page of Henry VIII. Old Sir John secured possession till his death (1536), when his son James succeeded _de facto_, and _de jure_ on the rightful earl being murdered by the usurper's younger brother in 1540. Intermarriage with Irish chieftains had by this time classed the earls among them, but although this James looked to their support before 1540, he thenceforth played so prudent a part that in spite of the efforts of the Butlers, the hereditary foes of his race, he escaped the fate of the Kildare branch and kept Munster quiet and in order for the English till his death in 1558. His four marriages produced a disputed succession and a break-up of the family. His eldest son Thomas "Roe" (the Red) was disinherited, and failed to obtain the earldom, which was confirmed by Elizabeth to his half-brother Gerald "the rebel earl" (1558-1582), but Gerald had other enemies in his uncle Maurice (the murderer of 1540) and his son especially, the famous James "Fitz Maurice" Fitz Gerald. Gerald's turbulence and his strife with the Butlers led to his detention in England (1562-1564) and again in 1565-1566. In 1567 Sidney imprisoned him in Dublin Castle, whence, with his brother, Sir John "of Desmond," he was sent to England and the Tower, and not allowed to return to Ireland till 1573. Meanwhile the above James, in spite of the protests of Thomas "Roe," had usurped his position in his absence and induced the natives to choose him as "captain" or chieftain of Desmond. He formed a strong Irish Catholic party and broke into revolt in 1569. Suppressed by Sidney, he rebelled again, till crushed by Perrot in 1573. As Earl Gerald on his return would not join James in revolt, the latter withdrew to France. But Gerald himself, after some trimming, rose in rebellion (July 1574), though he soon submitted to the queen's forces. On the continent James Fitz Maurice offered the crown of Ireland in succession to France and to Spain, and finally to the nephew of Pope Gregory XIII. With the papal nuncio and a few troops he landed at Dingle in Kerry (June 1579) and called on the earls of Kildare and Desmond to join him, but the latter assured the English government of his loyalty, and James was killed in a skirmish. Yet Desmond was viewed with suspicion and finally forced, by being proclaimed as a traitor (Nov. 1st, 1579), into a miserable rebellion. His castles were soon captured, and he was hunted as a fugitive, till surprised and beheaded on the 11th of November 1583, after long wanderings, his head being fixed on London Bridge. His ruin is attributable to his restless turbulence and lack of settled policy. The vast estates of the earls, estimated at 600,000 acres, were forfeited by act of parliament.

But the influence of his mighty house was still great among the Irish. The disinherited Thomas "Roe" left a son James "Fitz Thomas," who, succeeding him in 1595 and finding that the territory of the earls would never be restored, assumed the earldom and joined O'Neill's rebellion in 1598, at the head of 8000 of his men. Long sheltered from capture by the fidelity of the peasantry, he was eventually seized (1601) by his kinsman the White Knight, Edmund Fitz Gibbon, whose sister-in-law he had married, and sent to the Tower. The "sugan" (sham) earl lingered there obscurely as "James M'Thomas" till his death. In consequence of his rebellion and the devotion of the Irish to his race, James, son of Gerald "the rebel earl," who had remained in the Tower since his father's death (1583), was restored as earl of Desmond and sent over to Munster in 1600, but he, known as "the queen's earl," could, as a Protestant, do nothing, and he died unmarried in 1601. The "sugan" earl's brother John, who had joined in his rebellion, escaped into Spain, and left a son Gerald, who appears to have assumed the title and was known as the Conde de Desmond. He was killed in the service of the emperor Ferdinand in 1632. The common origin of the earls of Desmond and of Kildare had never been forgotten, and intermarriage had cemented the bond. Just before his death the exile wrote as "Desmond _alias_ Gerratt Fitz Gerald" to his "Most Noble Cosen" the earl of Kildare, that "wee must not be oblivious of the true amity and love that was inviolably observed betweene our antenates and elders."

There can be no doubt that the house of Fitzmaurice was also of this stock, although their actual origin, in the 12th century, is doubtful. From a very early date they were feudal lords of Kerry, and their dignity was recognized as a peerage by Henry VII. in 1489. The isolated position of their territory ("Clanmaurice") threw them even more among the Irish than the earls of Desmond, and they often adopted the native form of their name, "MacMorrish." Under Elizabeth the lords of Kerry narrowly escaped sharing the ruin of the earls. The conduct of Thomas in the rebellion of James "Fitz Maurice" was suspicious, and his sons joined in that of the earl of Desmond, while he himself was a rebel in 1582. Patrick, his successor (1590-1600), was captured in rebellion (1587), and when free, joined the revolt of 1598, as did his son and heir Thomas, who continued in the field till he obtained pardon and restoration in 1603, though suspect till his death in 1630. His grandson withdrew to France with James II., but the next peer became a supporter of the Whig cause, married the eventual heiress of Sir William Petty, and was created earl of Kerry in 1723. From him descend the family of Petty-Fitzmaurice, who obtained the marquessate of Lansdowne (q.v.) in 1818, and still hold among their titles the feudal barony of Kerry together with vast estates in that county.

From the three sons by a second wife of one of the earls of Desmond's ancestors, descended the hereditary White Knights, Knights of Glin and Knights of Kerry, these feudal dignities having, it is said, been bestowed upon them by their father, as Lord of Decies and Desmond. Glin Castle, county Limerick, is still the seat of the (Fitzgerald) Knight of Glin. Valencia Island is now the seat of the Knights of Kerry, who received a baronetcy in 1880.

AUTHORITIES.--Calendars of Irish documents and state papers and Carew
papers; Gilbert's _Viceroys of Ireland_; Lord Kildare's _Earls of
Kildare_; G.E. C[okayne]'s _Complete Peerage_; Haymond Graves,
_Unpublished Geraldine Documents_; _Annals of the Four Masters_;
Calendar of the duke of Leinster's MSS. in 9th _Report on Historical
MSS._, part ii.; Ware's _Annals_; J.H. Round's "Origin of the
Fitzgeralds" and "Origin of the Carews" in the _Ancestor_; his
"Earldom of Kildare and Barony of Offaley" in _Genealogist_, ix., and
"Barons of the Naas" in _Genealogist_, xv.; and his "Decies and
Desmond" in _Eng. Hist. Rev._ xviii. (J. H. R.)

FITZGERALD, EDWARD (1809-1883), English writer, the poet of Omar Khayyam, was born as EDWARD PURCELL, at Bredfield House, in Suffolk, on the 31st of March 1809. His father, John Purcell, who had married a Miss FitzGerald, assumed in 1818 the name and arms of his wife's family. From 1816 to 1821 the FitzGeralds lived at St Germain and at Paris, but in the latter year Edward was sent to school at Bury St Edmunds. In 1826 he proceeded to Trinity College, Cambridge, where, some two years later, he became acquainted with Thackeray and W.H. Thompson. With Tennyson, "a sort of Hyperion," his intimacy began about 1835. In 1830 he went to live in Paris, but in 1831 was in a farm-house on the battlefield of Naseby. He adopted no profession, and lived a perfectly stationary and rustic life, presently moving into his native county of Suffolk, and never again leaving it for more than a week or two. Until 1835 the FitzGeralds lived at Wherstead; from that year until 1853 the poet resided at Boulge, near Woodbridge; until 1860 at Farlingay Hall; until 1873 in the town of Woodbridge; and then until his death at his own house hard by, called Little Grange.

During most of this time FitzGerald gave his thoughts almost without interruption to his flowers, to music and to literature. He allowed friends like Tennyson and Thackeray, however, to push on far before him, and long showed no disposition to emulate their activity. In 1851 he published his first book, _Euphranor_, a Platonic dialogue, born of memories of the old happy life at Cambridge. In 1852 appeared _Polonius_, a collection of "saws and modern instances," some of them his own, the rest borrowed from the less familiar English classics. FitzGerald began the study of Spanish poetry in 1850, when he was with Professor E.B. Cowell at Elmsett and that of Persian in Oxford in 1853. In the latter year he issued _Six Dramas of Calderon_, freely translated. He now turned to Oriental studies, and in 1856 he anonymously published a version of the _Salaman and Absal_ of Jami in Miltonic verse. In March 1857 the name with which he has been so closely identified first occurs in FitzGerald's correspondence--"Hafiz and _Omar Khayyam_ ring like true metal." On the 15th of January 1859 a little anonymous pamphlet was published as _The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam_. In the world at large, and in the circle of FitzGerald's particular friends, the poem seems at first to have attracted no attention. The publisher allowed it to gravitate to the fourpenny or even (as he afterwards boasted) to the penny box on the bookstalls. But in 1860 Rossetti discovered it, and Swinburne and Lord Houghton quickly followed. The _Rubaiyat_ became slowly famous, but it was not until 1868 that FitzGerald was encouraged to print a second and greatly revised edition. Meanwhile he had produced in 1865 a version of the _Agamemnon_, and two more plays from Calderon. In 1880-1881 he issued privately translations of the two Oedipus tragedies; his last publication was _Readings in Crabbe_, 1882. He left in manuscript a version of Attar's _Mantic-Uttair_ under the title of _The Bird Parliament_.

From 1861 onwards FitzGerald's greatest interest had centred in the sea. In June 1863 he bought a yacht, "The Scandal," and in 1867 he became part-owner of a herring-lugger, the "Meum and Tuum." For some years, till 1871, he spent the months from June to October mainly in "knocking about somewhere outside of Lowestoft." In this way, and among his books and flowers, FitzGerald gradually became an old man. On the 14th of June 1883 he passed away painlessly in his sleep. He was "an idle fellow, but one whose friendships were more like loves." In 1885 a stimulus was given to the steady advance of his fame by the fact that Tennyson dedicated his _Tiresias_ to FitzGerald's memory, in some touching reminiscent verses to "Old Fitz." This was but the signal for that universal appreciation of Omar Khayyam in his English dress, which has been one of the curious literary phenomena of recent years. The melody of FitzGerald's verse is so exquisite, the thoughts he rearranges and strings together are so profound, and the general atmosphere of poetry in which he steeps his version is so pure, that no surprise need be expressed at the universal favour which the poem has met with among critical readers. But its popularity has gone much deeper than this; it is now probably better known to the general public than any single poem of its class published since the year 1860, and its admirers have almost transcended common sense in the extravagance of their laudation. FitzGerald married, in middle life, Lucy, the daughter of Bernard Barton, the Quaker poet. Of FitzGerald as a man practically nothing was known until, in 1889, Mr W. Aldis Wright, his intimate friend and literary executor, published his _Letters and Literary Remains_ in three volumes. This was followed in 1895 by the _Letters to Fanny Kemble_. These letters constitute a fresh bid for immortality, since they discovered that FitzGerald was a witty, picturesque and sympathetic letter-writer. One of the most unobtrusive authors who ever lived, FitzGerald has, nevertheless, by the force of his extraordinary individuality, gradually influenced the whole face of English _belles-lettres_, in particular as it was manifested between 1890 and 1900.

_The Works of Edward FitzGerald_ appeared in 1887. See also a
chronological list of FitzGerald's works (Caxton Club, Chicago, 1899);
notes for a bibliography by Col. W.F. Prideaux, in _Notes and Queries_
(9th series, vol. vi.), published separately in 1901; _Letters and
Literary Remains_ (ed. W. Aldis Wright, 1902-1903); and the _Life of
Edward FitzGerald_, by Thomas Wright (1904), which contains a
bibliography (vol. ii. pp. 241-243) and a list of sources (vol. i. pp.
xvi.-xvii.). The volume on FitzGerald in the "English Men of Letters"
series is by A.C. Benson. The FitzGerald centenary was celebrated in
March 1909. See the _Centenary Celebrations Souvenir_ (Ipswich, 1909)
and _The Times_ for March 25, 1909. (E. G.)

FITZGERALD, LORD EDWARD (1763-1798), Irish conspirator, fifth son of James, 1st duke of Leinster, by his wife Emilia Mary, daughter of Charles Lennox, 2nd duke of Richmond, was born at Carton House, near Dublin, on the 15th of October 1763. In 1773 the duke of Leinster died, and his widow soon afterwards married William Ogilvie, who superintended Lord Edward's early education. Joining the army in 1779, Lord Edward served with credit in America on the staff of Lord Rawdon (afterwards marquess of Hastings), and at the battle of Eutaw Springs (8th of September 1781) he was severely wounded, his life being saved by a negro named Tony, whom Lord Edward retained in his service till the end of his life. In 1783 Fitzgerald returned to Ireland, where his brother, the duke of Leinster, had procured his election to the Irish parliament as member for Athy. In parliament he acted with the small Opposition group led by Grattan (q.v.), but took no prominent part in debate. After spending a short time at Woolwich to complete his military education, he made a tour through Spain in 1787; and then, dejected by unrequited love for his cousin Georgina Lennox (afterwards Lady Bathurst), he sailed for New Brunswick to join the 54th regiment with the rank of major. The love-sick mood and romantic temperament of the young Irishman found congenial soil in the wild surroundings of unexplored Canadian forests, and the enthusiasm thus engendered for the "natural" life of savagery may have been already fortified by study of Rousseau's writings, for which at a later period Lord Edward expressed his admiration. In February 1789, guided by compass, he traversed the country, practically unknown to white men, from Frederickstown to Quebec, falling in with Indians by the way, with whom he fraternized; and in a subsequent expedition he was formally adopted at Detroit by the Bear tribe of Hurons as one of their chiefs, and made his way down the Mississippi to New Orleans, whence he returned to England.

Finding that his brother had procured his election for the county of Kildare, and desiring to maintain political independence, Lord Edward refused the command of an expedition against Cadiz offered him by Pitt, and devoted himself for the next few years to the pleasures of society and his parliamentary duties. He was on terms of intimacy with his relative C.J. Fox, with R.B. Sheridan and other leading Whigs. According to Thomas Moore, Lord Edward Fitzgerald was the only one of the numerous suitors of Sheridan's first wife whose attentions were received with favour; and it is certain that, whatever may have been its limits, a warm mutual affection subsisted between the two. His Whig connexions combined with his transatlantic experiences to predispose Lord Edward to sympathize with the doctrines of the French Revolution, which he embraced with ardour when he visited Paris in October 1792. He lodged with Thomas Paine, and listened to the debates in the Convention. At a convivial gathering on the 18th of November he supported a toast to "the speedy abolition of all hereditary titles and feudal distinctions," and gave proof of his zeal by expressly repudiating his own title--a performance for which he was dismissed from the army. While in Paris Fitzgerald became enamoured of a young girl whom he chanced to see at the theatre, and who is said to have had a striking likeness to Mrs Sheridan. Procuring an introduction he discovered her to be a _protegee_ of Madame de Sillery, comtesse de Genlis. The parentage of the girl, whose name was Pamela (?1776-1831), is uncertain; but although there is some evidence to support the story of Madame de Genlis that Pamela was born in Newfoundland of parents called Seymour or Sims, the common belief that she was the daughter of Madame de Genlis herself by Philippe (Egalite), duke of Orleans, was probably well founded. On the 27th of December 1792 Fitzgerald and Pamela were married at Tournay, one of the witnesses being Louis Philippe, afterwards king of the French; and in January 1793 the couple reached Dublin.

Discontent in Ireland was now rapidly becoming dangerous, and was finding a focus in the Society of the United Irishmen, and in the Catholic Committee, an organization formed a few years previously, chiefly under the direction of Lord Kenmare, to watch the interests of the Catholics. French revolutionary doctrines had become ominously popular, and no one sympathized with them more warmly than Lord Edward Fitzgerald, who, fresh from the gallery of the Convention in Paris, returned to his seat in the Irish parliament and threw himself actively into the work of opposition. Within a week of his arrival he denounced in the House of Commons a government proclamation, which Grattan had approved, in language so violent that he was ordered into custody and required to apologize at the bar of the House. As early as 1794 the government had information that placed Lord Edward under suspicion; but it was not till 1796 that he joined the United Irishmen, whose aim after the recall of Lord Fitzwilliam in 1795 was avowedly the establishment of an independent Irish republic. In May 1796 Theobald Wolfe Tone was in Paris endeavouring to obtain French assistance for an insurrection in Ireland. In the same month Fitzgerald and his friend Arthur O'Connor proceeded to Hamburg, where they opened negotiations with the Directory through Reinhard, French minister to the Hanseatic towns. The duke of York, meeting Pamela at Devonshire House on her way through London with her husband, had told her that "all was known" about his plans, and advised her to persuade him not to go abroad. The proceedings of the conspirators at Hamburg were made known to the government in London by an informer, Samuel Turner. Pamela was entrusted with all her husband's secrets and took an active part in furthering his designs; and she appears to have fully deserved the confidence placed in her, though there is reason to suppose that at times she counselled prudence. The result of the Hamburg negotiations was Hoche's abortive expedition to Bantry Bay in December 1796. In September 1797 the government learnt from the informer MacNally that Lord Edward was among those directing the conspiracy of the United Irishmen, which was now quickly maturing. He was specially concerned with the military organization, in which he held the post of colonel of the Kildare regiment and head of the military committee. He had papers showing that 280,000 men were ready to rise. They possessed some arms, but the supply was insufficient, and the leaders were hoping for a French invasion to make good the deficiency and to give support to a popular uprising. But French help proving dilatory and uncertain, the rebel leaders in Ireland were divided in opinion as to the expediency of taking the field without waiting for foreign aid. Lord Edward was among the advocates of the bolder course. His opinions and his proposals for action were alike violent. He was on intimate terms with apologists for assassination; there is some evidence that he favoured a project for the massacre of the Irish peers while in procession to the House of Lords for the trial of Lord Kingston in May 1798. It was probably abhorrence of such measures that converted Thomas Reynolds from a conspirator to an informer; at all events, by him and several others the authorities were kept posted in what was going on, though lack of evidence producible in court delayed the arrest of the ringleaders. But on the 12th of March 1798 Reynolds' information led to the seizure of a number of conspirators at the house of Oliver Bond. Lord Edward Fitzgerald, warned by Reynolds, was not among them. The government were anxious to save him from the consequences of his own folly, and Lord Clare said to a member of his family, "for God's sake get this young man out of the country; the ports shall be thrown open, and no hindrance whatever offered." Fitzgerald with chivalrous recklessness refused to desert others who could not escape, and whom he had himself led into danger. On the 30th of March a proclamation establishing martial law and authorizing the military to act without orders from the civil magistrate, which was acted upon with revolting cruelty in several parts of the country, precipitated the crisis.

The government had now no choice but to secure if possible the person of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, whose social position more than his abilities made him the most important factor in the conspiracy. On the 11th of May a reward of L1000 was offered for his apprehension. The 23rd of May was the date fixed for the general rising. Since the arrest at Bond's, Fitzgerald had been in hiding, latterly at the house of one Murphy, a feather dealer, in Thomas Street, Dublin. He twice visited his wife in disguise; was himself visited by his stepfather, Ogilvie, and generally observed less caution than his situation required. The conspiracy was honeycombed with treachery, and it was long a matter of dispute to whose information the government were indebted for Fitzgerald's arrest; but it is no longer open to doubt that the secret of his hiding place was disclosed by a Catholic barrister named Magan, to whom the stipulated reward was ultimately paid through Francis Higgins, another informer. On the 19th of May Major Swan and a Mr. Ryan proceeded to Murphy's house with Major H.C. Sirr and a few soldiers. Lord Edward was discovered in bed. A desperate scuffle took place, Ryan being mortally wounded by Fitzgerald with a dagger, while Lord Edward himself was only secured after Sirr had disabled him with a pistol bullet in the shoulder. He was conveyed to Newgate gaol, where by the kindness of Lord Clare he was visited by two of his relatives, and where he died of his wound on the 4th of June 1798. An Act of Attainder (repealed in 1819) was passed, confiscating his property; and his wife--against whom the government probably possessed sufficient evidence to secure a conviction for treason--was compelled to leave the country before her husband had actually expired.

Pamela, who was scarcely less celebrated than Lord Edward himself, and whose remarkable beauty made a lasting impression on Robert Southey, repaired to Hamburg, where in 1800 she married J. Pitcairn, the American consul. Since her marriage with Lord Edward she had been greatly beloved and esteemed by the whole Fitzgerald family; and although after her second marriage her intimacy with them ceased, there is no sufficient evidence for the tales that represented her subsequent conduct as open to grave censure. She remained to the last passionately devoted to the memory of her first husband; and she died in Paris in November 1831. A portrait of Pamela is in the Louvre. She had three children by Lord Edward Fitzgerald: Edward Fox (1794-1863); Pamela, afterwards wife of General Sir Guy Campbell; and Lucy Louisa, who married Captain Lyon, R.N.

Lord Edward Fitzgerald was of small stature and handsome features. His character and career have been made the subject of eulogies much beyond their merits. He had, indeed, a winning personality, and a warm, affectionate and generous nature, which made him greatly beloved by his family and friends; he was humorous, light-hearted, sympathetic, adventurous. But he was entirely without the weightier qualities requisite for such a part as he undertook to play in public affairs. Hotheaded and impulsive, he lacked judgment. He was as conspicuously deficient in the statesmanship as he was in the oratorical genius of such men as Flood, Plunket or Grattan. One of his associates in conspiracy described him as "weak and not fit to command a sergeant's guard, but very zealous." Reinhard, who considered Arthur O'Connor "a far abler man," accurately read the character of Lord Edward Fitzgerald as that of a young man "incapable of falsehood or perfidy, frank, energetic, and likely to be a useful and devoted instrument; but with no experience or extraordinary talent, and entirely unfit to be chief of a great party or leader in a difficult enterprise."

See Thomas Moore, _Life and Death of Lord Edward Fitzgerald_ (2 vols.,
London, 1832), also a revised edition entitled _The Memoirs of Lord
Edward Fitzgerald_, edited with supplementary particulars by Martin
MacDermott (London, 1897); R.R. Madden, _The United Irishmen_ (7
vols., Dublin, 1842-1846); C.H. Teeling, _Personal Narrative of the
Irish Rebellion of 1798_ (Belfast, 1832); W.J. Fitzpatrick, _The Sham
Squire, The Rebellion of Ireland and the Informers of 1798_ (Dublin,
1866), and _Secret Service under Pitt_ (London, 1892); J.A. Froude,
_The English in Ireland in the Eighteenth Century_ (3 vols., London,
1872-1874); W.E.H. Lecky, _History of England in the Eighteenth
Century_, vols. vii. and viii. (London, 1896); Thomas Reynolds the
younger, _The Life of Thomas Reynolds_ (London, 1839); _The Life and
Letters of Lady Sarah Lennox_, edited by the countess of Ilchester and
Lord Stavordale (London, 1901); Ida A. Taylor, _The Life of Lord
Edward Fitzgerald_ (London, 1903), which gives a prejudiced and
distorted picture of Pamela. For particulars of Pamela, and especially
as to the question of her parentage, see Gerald Campbell, _Edward and
Pamela Fitzgerald_ (London, 1904); _Memoirs of Madame de Genlis_
(London, 1825); Georgette Ducrest, _Chroniques populaires_ (Paris,
1855); Thomas Moore, _Memoirs of the Life of R.B. Sheridan_ (London,
1825). (R. J. M.)

FITZGERALD, RAYMOND, or REDMOND (d. ca. 1182), surnamed Le Gros, was the son of William Fitzgerald and brother of Odo de Carew. He was sent by Strongbow to Ireland in 1170, and landed at Dundunnolf, near Waterford, where he was besieged in his entrenchments by the combined Irish and Ostmen, whom he repulsed. He was Strongbow's second in command, and had the chief share in the capture of Waterford and in the successful assault on Dublin. He was sent to Aquitaine to hand over Strongbow's conquests to Henry II., but was back in Dublin in July 1171, when he led one of the sallies from the town. Strongbow offended him later by refusing him the marriage of his sister Basilea, widow of Robert de Quenci, constable of Leinster. Raymond then retired to Wales, and Hervey de Mountmaurice became constable in his place. At the outbreak of a general rebellion against the earl in 1174 Raymond returned with his uncle Meiler Fitz Henry, after receiving a promise of marriage with Basilea. Reinstated as constable he secured a series of successes, and with the fall of Limerick in October 1175 order was restored. Mountmaurice meanwhile obtained Raymond's recall on the ground that his power threatened the royal authority, but the constable was delayed by a fresh outbreak at Limerick, the earl's troops refusing to march without him. On the death of Strongbow he was acting governor until the arrival of William Fitz Aldhelm, to whom he handed over the royal fortresses. He was deprived of his estates near Dublin and Wexford, but the Geraldines secured the recall of Fitz Aldhelm early in 1183, and regained their power and influence. In 1182 he relieved his uncle Robert Fitzstephen, who was besieged in Cork. The date of his death, sometimes stated to be 1182, is not known.

FITZGERALD, LORD THOMAS (10th earl of Kildare), (1513-1537), the eldest son of Gerald Fitzgerald, 9th earl of Kildare, was born in London in 1513. He spent much of his youth in England, but in 1534 when his father was for the third time summoned to England to answer for his maladministration as lord deputy of Ireland, Thomas, at the council held at Drogheda, in February was made vice-deputy. In June the Ormond faction spread a report in Ireland that the earl had been executed in the Tower, and that his son's life was to be attempted. Inflamed with rage at this apparent treachery, Thomas rode at the head of his retainers[1] into Dublin, and before the council for Ireland (the 11th of June 1534) formally renounced his allegiance to the king and proclaimed a rebellion. His enemies, including Archbishop John Allen (of Dublin), who had been set by Henry VIII. to watch Fitzgerald, took refuge in Dublin Castle. In attempting to escape to England, Allen was taken by the rebels, and on the 28th of July 1534, was murdered by Fitzgerald's servants in his presence, but whether actually by his orders is uncertain. In any case he sent to the pope for absolution, but was solemnly excommunicated by the Irish Church. Leaving part of his army (with the consent of the citizens) to besiege Dublin Castle, Fitzgerald himself went against Piers Butler, earl of Ossory, and succeeded at first in making a truce with him. But the citizens of Dublin now rose against him, Ossory invaded Kildare, and the approach of an English army forced Fitzgerald to raise the siege. Part of the English army landed on the 17th of October, the rest a week later, but taking advantage of the inactivity of the new lord deputy, Sir William Skeffington, Fitzgerald from his stronghold at Maynooth ravaged Kildare and Meath throughout the winter. He had now succeeded to the earldom of Kildare, his father having died in the Tower on the 13th of December 1534, but he does not seem to have been known by that title. In March Skeffington stormed the castle, the stronghold of the Geraldines, which was defended, and some said betrayed, by Christopher Parese, Fitzgerald's foster-brother. It fell on the 23rd of March 1535, and most of the garrison were put to the sword. This proved the final blow to the rebellion. The news of what is known as the "pardon of Maynooth" reached Fitzgerald as he was returning from levying fresh troops in Offaley; his men fell away from him, and he retreated to Thomond, intending to sail for Spain. Changing his mind he spent the next few months in raids against the English and their allies, but his party gradually deserting him, on the 18th of August 1535 he surrendered himself to Lord Leonard Grey (d. 1541). It seems likely that he made some conditions, but what they were is very uncertain. He was taken to England and placed in the Tower. In February 1536 his five uncles were also, some of them with great injustice, seized and brought to England. The six Geraldines were hanged at Tyburn on the 3rd of February 1537. Acts of attainder against them and Gerald the 9th earl were passed by both the Irish and English parliaments; but the family estates were restored by Edward VI. to Gerald, 11th earl of Kildare (stepbrother of Thomas), and the attainder was repealed by Queen Elizabeth. Lord Thomas Fitzgerald married Frances, youngest daughter of Sir Adrian Fortescue, but had no children.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Richard Stanihurst, _Chronicles of Ireland_ (vol. ii.
of _Holinshed's Chronicles_); Sir James Ware, _Rerum Hibernicarum
annales_ (Dublin, 1664); _The Earls of Kildare_, by C.W. Fitzgerald,
duke of Leinster (3rd ed., 1858); Richard Bagwell, _Ireland under the
Tudors_ (3 vols., 1885, vol. i. passim); _Calendar State Papers, Hen.
VIII., Irish_; G. E. C.'s _Peerage_; John Lodge, _Peerage of Ireland_,
ed. M. Archdall (1789), vol. i.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] Fitzgerald was known by the sobriquet of "Silken Thomas," either
from the silken fringes on his helmet, or from his distinguished
manners.

FITZHERBERT, SIR ANTHONY (1470-1538), English jurist, was born at Norbury, Derbyshire. After studying at Oxford, he was called to the English bar, and in 1523 became justice of the Court of Common Pleas, the duties of which office he continued to discharge till within a short time of his death in 1538. As a judge he left behind him a high reputation for fairness and integrity, and his legal learning is sufficiently attested by his published works.

He is the author of _La Graunde Abridgement_, a digest of important
legal cases written in Old French, first printed in 1514; _The Office
and Authority of Justices of the Peace_, first printed in 1538 (last
ed. 1794); the _New Natura Brevium_ (1534, last ed. 1794), with a
commentary ascribed to Sir Matthew Hale. To Fitzherbert are sometimes
attributed the _Book of Husbandry_ (1523), the first published work on
agriculture in the English language, and the _Book of Surveying and
Improvements_ (1523) (see AGRICULTURE).

FITZHERBERT, THOMAS (1552-1640), English Jesuit, was the eldest son and heir of William Fitzherbert of Swynnerton in Staffordshire, and grandson of Sir Anthony Fitzherbert, judge of the common pleas. He was educated at Oxford, where, at the age of twenty, he was imprisoned for recusancy. On his release he went to London, where he was a member of the association of young men founded in 1580 to assist the Jesuits Edmund Campion and Robert Parsons. In 1582 he withdrew to the continent, where he was active in the cause of Mary, queen of Scots. He married in this year Dorothy, daughter of Edward East of Bledlow in Buckinghamshire. After the death of his wife (1588) he went to Spain, where on the recommendation of the duke of Feria he received a pension from the king. He continued his intrigues against the English government, and in 1598 he was charged with complicity in a plot to poison Queen Elizabeth. After this he was for a short while in the service of the duke of Feria at Milan, then went to Rome, where he was ordained priest (1601-1602) and became agent for the English clergy. He was unpopular with them, however, owing to his subserviency to the Jesuits, and resigned the agency in 1607 owing to the remonstrances of the English arch-priest George Birkhead. In 1613 he joined the Society of Jesus, and was appointed superior of the English mission at Brussels in 1616, and in 1618 rector of the English college at Rome. He held this post to within a year of his death, which occurred at Rome on the 7th of August (O.S.) 1640.

Father Fitzherbert, who is described as "a person of excellent parts,
a notable politician, and of graceful behaviour and generous spirit,"
wrote many controversial works, a list of which is given in the
article on him by Mr Thompson Cooper in the _Dictionary of National
Biography_, together with authorities for his life.

FITZ NEAL or (FITZ NIGEL), RICHARD (d. 1198), treasurer of Henry II. and Richard I. of England, and bishop of London, belonged to a great administrative family whose fortunes were closely linked with those of Henry I., Henry II. and Richard I. The founder of the family was Roger, bishop of Salisbury, the great minister of Henry I. Before the death of that sovereign (1135) the care of the treasury passed from Roger to his nephew, Nigel, bishop of Ely (d. 1169), who held that office until the whole family were disgraced by Stephen (1139). Becoming a partisan of the empress, Nigel reaped his reward at the accession of her son, Henry II., who made him at first chancellor and then treasurer. Nigel's son, Richard, who was born before his father's elevation to the episcopate (1133), succeeded to the office of treasurer in 1158, and held it continuously for forty years. His name appears in the lists of itinerant justices for 1179 and 1194, but these are the only occasions on which he exercised that office. Before 1184 he became dean of Lincoln, and was in that year presented by the chapter of Lincoln among three select candidates for the vacant see. The king passed him over in favour of Hugh of Avalon, having resolved on this occasion to make a disinterested appointment. Richard I., however, rewarded the treasurer's services with the see of London (1189).

Richard Fitz Neal is best remembered as an author. He lacked the broad statesmanship of his father and great-uncle; he avoided any connexion with political parties; he is only once mentioned as taking part in a debate of the Great Council (1193), and then spoke, in his character as a bishop, to support a royal demand for a special aid. But his work _De necessariis observantiis Scaccarii dialogus_, commonly called the _Dialogus de Scaccario_, is of unique interest to the historian. It is an account, in two books, of the procedure followed by the exchequer in the author's time. Richard handles his subject with the more enthusiasm because, as he explains, the "course" of the exchequer was largely the creation of his own family. When read in connexion with the Pipe Rolls the _Dialogus_ furnishes a most faithful and detailed picture of English fiscal arrangements under Henry II. The speakers in the dialogue are Richard himself and an anonymous pupil. The latter puts leading questions which Richard answers in elaborate fashion. The date of the conversation is given in the prologue as 1176-1177. This probably marks the date at which the book was begun; it was not completed before 1178 or 1179. Soon after the author's death we find it already recognized as the standard manual for exchequer officials. It was frequently transcribed and has been used by English antiquarians of every period. Hence it is the more necessary to insist that the historical statements which the treatise contains are sometimes demonstrably erroneous; the author appears to have relied excessively upon oral tradition. But, as the work is only known to us through transcripts, it is possible that some of the blunders which it now contains are due to the misdirected zeal of editors. Richard Fitz Neal also compiled in his earlier years a register or chronicle of contemporary affairs, arranged in three parallel columns. This was preserved in the exchequer at the time when he wrote the _Dialogus_, but has since disappeared. Stubbs' conjectural identification of this _Liber tricolumnis_ with the first part of the _Gesta Henrici_ (formerly attributed to Benedictus Abbas) is now abandoned as untenable.

See Madox's edition in his _History of the Exchequer_ (1769); and that
of A. Hughes, C.G. Crump and C. Johnson (Oxford, 1902). F.
Liebermann's _Einleitung in den Dialogus de Scaccario_ (Gottingen,
1875) contains the fullest account of the author. (H. W. C. D.)

FITZ-OSBERN, ROGER (fl. 1070), succeeded to the earldom of Hereford and the English estate of William Fitz-Osbern in 1071. He did not keep on good terms with William the Conqueror, and in 1075, disregarding the king's prohibition, married his sister Emma to Ralph Guader, earl of Norfolk, at the famous bridal of Norwich. Immediately afterwards the two earls rebelled. But Roger, who was to bring his force from the west to join the earl of Norfolk, was held in check at the Severn by the Worcestershire fyrd which the English bishop Wulfstan brought into the field against him. On the collapse of his confederate's rising, Roger was tried before the Great Council, deprived of his lands and earldom, and sentenced to perpetual imprisonment; but he was released, with other political prisoners, at the death of William I. in 1087.

FITZ-OSBERN, WILLIAM, Earl of Hereford (d. 1071), was an intimate friend of William the Conqueror, and the principal agent in preparing for the invasion of England. He received the earldom of Hereford with the special duty of pushing into Wales. During William's absence in 1067, Fitz-Osbern was left as his deputy in central England, to guard it from the Welsh on one side, and the Danes on the other. He also acted as William's lieutenant during the rebellions of 1069. In 1070 William sent him to assist Queen Matilda in the government of Normandy. But Richilde, widow of Baldwin VI. of Flanders, having offered to marry him if he would protect her son Arnulf against Robert the Frisian, Fitz-Osbern accepted the proposal and joined Richilde in Flanders. He was killed, fighting against Robert, at Cassel in 1071.

See Freeman, _Norman Conquest_, vols. iii. and iv.; Sir James Ramsay,
_Foundations of England_, vol. ii.

FITZ OSBERT, WILLIAM (d. 1196), was a Londoner of good position who had served in the Third Crusade, and on his return took up the cause of the poorer citizens against the magnates who monopolized the government of London and assessed the taxes, as he alleged, with gross partiality. It is affirmed that he entered on this course of action through a quarrel with his elder brother who had refused him money. But this appears to be mere scandal; the chronicler Roger of Hoveden gives Fitz Osbert a high character, and he was implicitly trusted by the poorer citizens. He attempted to procure redress for them from the king; but the city magistrates persuaded the justiciar Hubert Walter that Fitz Osbert and his followers meditated plundering the houses of the rich. Troops were sent to seize the demagogue. He was smoked out of the sanctuary of St Mary le Bow, in which he had taken refuge, and summarily dragged to execution at Tyburn.

FITZ PETER, GEOFFREY (d. 1213), earl of Essex and chief justiciar of England, began his official career in the later years of Henry II., whom he served as a sheriff, a justice itinerant and a justice of the forest. During Richard's absence on Crusade he was one of the five justices of the king's court who stood next in authority to the regent, Longchamp. It was at this time (1190) that Fitz Peter succeeded to the earldom of Essex, in the right of his wife, who was descended from the famous Geoffrey de Mandeville. In attempting to assert his hereditary rights over Walden priory Fitz Peter came into conflict with Longchamp, and revenged himself by taking an active part in the baronial agitation through which the regent was expelled from his office. The king, however, forgave Fitz Peter for his share in these proceedings; and, though refusing to give him formal investiture of the Essex earldom, appointed him justiciar in succession to Hubert Walter (1198). In this capacity Fitz Peter continued his predecessor's policy of encouraging foreign trade and the development of the towns; many of the latter received, during his administration, charters of self-government. He was continued in his office by John, who found him a useful instrument and described him in an official letter as "indispensable to the king and kingdom." He proved himself an able instrument of extortion, and profited to no small extent by the spoliation of church lands in the period of the interdict. But he was too closely connected with the baronage to be altogether trusted by the king. The contemporary _Histoire des ducs_ describes Fitz Peter as living in constant dread of disgrace and confiscation. In the last years of his life he endeavoured to act as a mediator between the king and the opposition. It was by his mouth that the king promised to the nation the laws of Henry I. (at the council of St Albans, August 4th, 1213). But Fitz Peter died a few weeks later (Oct. 2), and his great office passed to Peter des Roches, one of the unpopular foreign favourites. Fitz Peter was neither a far-sighted nor a disinterested statesman; but he was the ablest pupil of Hubert Walter, and maintained the traditions of the great bureaucracy which the first and second Henries had founded.

See the original authorities specified for the reigns of Richard I.
and John. Also Miss K. Norgate's _Angevin England_, vol. ii. (1887),
and _John Lackland_ (1902); A. Ballard in _English Historical Review_,
xiv. p. 93; H.W.C. Davis' _England under the Normans and Angevins_
(1905). (H. W. C. D.)

FITZROY, ROBERT (1805-1865), English, vice-admiral, distinguished as a hydrographer and meteorologist, was born at Ampton Hall, Suffolk, on the 5th of July 1805, being a grandson, on the father's side, of the third duke of Grafton, and on the mother's, of the first marquis of Londonderry. He entered the navy from the Royal Naval College, then a school for cadets, on the 19th of October 1819, and on the 7th of September 1824 was promoted to the rank of lieutenant. After serving in the "Thetis" frigate in the Mediterranean and on the coast of South America, under the command of Sir John Phillimore and Captain Bingham, he was in August 1828 appointed to the "Ganges," as flag-lieutenant to Rear-Admiral Sir Robert Otway, the commander-in-chief on the South American station; and on the death of Commander Stokes of the "Beagle," on the 13th of November 1828, was promoted to the vacant command. The "Beagle," a small brig of about 240 tons, was then, and had been for the two previous years, employed on the survey of the coasts of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, under the orders of Commander King in the "Adventure," and, together with the "Adventure," returned to England in the autumn of 1830. Fitzroy had brought home with him four Fuegians, one of whom died of smallpox a few weeks after arriving in England; to the others he endeavoured, with but slight success, to impart a rudimentary knowledge of religion and of some useful handicrafts; and, as he had pledged himself to restore them to their native country, he was making preparations in the summer of the following year to carry them back in a merchant ship bound to Valparaiso, when he received his reappointment to the "Beagle," to continue the survey of the same wild coasts. The "Beagle" sailed from Plymouth on the 27th of December 1831, carrying as a supernumerary Charles Darwin, the afterwards famous naturalist. After an absence of nearly five years, and having, in addition to the survey of the Straits of Magellan and a great part of the coast of South America, run a chronometric line round the world, thus fixing the longitude of many secondary meridians with sufficient exactness for all the purposes of ordinary navigation, the "Beagle" anchored at Falmouth on the 2nd of October 1836. In 1835 Fitzroy had been advanced to the rank of captain and was now for the next few years principally employed in reducing and discussing his numerous observations. In 1837 he was awarded the gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society; and in 1839 he published, in two thick 8vo volumes, the narrative of the voyage of the "Adventure" and "Beagle," 1826-1830, and of the "Beagle," 1831-1836, with a third volume by Darwin--a book familiarly known as a record of scientific travel. Of Fitzroy's work as a surveyor, carried on under circumstances of great difficulty, with scanty means, and with an outfit that was semi-officially denounced as "shabby," Sir Francis Beaufort, the Hydrographer to the Admiralty, wrote, in a report to the House of Commons, 10th of February 1848, that "from the equator to Cape Horn, and from thence round to the river Plata on the eastern side of America, all that is _immediately_ wanted has been already achieved by the splendid survey of Captain Robert Fitzroy." This was written before steamships made the Straits of Magellan a high-road to the Pacific. The survey that was sufficient then became afterwards very far from sufficient.

In 1841 Fitzroy unsuccessfully contested the borough of Ipswich, and in the following year was returned to parliament as member for Durham. About the same time he accepted the post of conservator of the Mersey, and in his double capacity obtained leave to bring in a bill for improving the condition and efficiency of officers in the mercantile marine. This was not proceeded with at the time, but gave rise to the "voluntary certificate" instituted by the Board of Trade in 1845, and furnished some important clauses to the Mercantile Marine Act of 1850.

Early in 1843 Fitzroy was appointed governor and commander-in-chief of New Zealand, then recently established as a colony. He arrived in his government in December, whilst the excitement about the Wairau massacre was still fresh, and the questions relating to the purchase of land from the natives were in a very unsatisfactory state. The early settlers were greedy and unscrupulous; Fitzroy, on the other hand, had made no secret of his partiality for the aborigines. Between such discordant elements agreement was impossible: the settlers insulted the governor; the governor did not conciliate the settlers, who denounced his policy as adverse to their interests, as unjust and illegal; colonial feeling against him ran very high; petition after petition for his recall was sent home, and the government was compelled to yield to the pressure brought to bear on it. Fitzroy was relieved by Sir George Grey in November 1845.

In September 1848 he was appointed acting superintendent of the dockyard at Woolwich, and in the following March to the command of the "Arrogant," one of the early screw frigates which had been fitted out under his supervision, and with which it was desired to carry out a series of experiments and trials. When these were finished he applied to be superseded, on account at once of his health and of his private affairs. In February 1850 he was accordingly placed on half-pay; nor did he ever serve again, although advanced in due course by seniority to the ranks of rear-and vice-admiral on the retired list (1857, 1863). In 1851 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, and in 1854, after serving for a few months as private secretary to his uncle, Lord Hardinge, then commander-in-chief of the army, he was appointed to the meteorological department of the Board of Trade, with, in the first instance, the peculiar title of "Meteorological Statist."