But the lady herself remains a "great fact," and a physiological curiosity; and there is yet a subject for inquiry respecting her. We may identify her on the herald's tree, if not on the painter's board or canvas. Who was she? In attempting to discuss this question, I must not take a merit which does not belong to me in any thing. I may say I am but following out the original research of an accurate and accomplished antiquary, Mr. Samthell of Cork, of whose curious Olla Podrida (privately printed) I possess, by his favour, a copy, which contains a paper on this subject originally read before "The Cork Cuvierian Society." This paper, together with some MSS. notes of Sir William Betham, Ulster king-at-arms, furnish my text-book; and I have little more to do than correct some mistakes, which appear to me so obvious, that I think they must arise from slips of the pen, or slops of that most teasing confounder of dates and figures, the printer,—who can so often, by merely dipping into a wrong cell of type, set us wrong by a century or two in a calculation.
All authorities are agreed in fixing on "Margret O'Bryen, wife of James, 9th Earl of Desmond," as the long-lived individual in question. Sir Walter Raleigh, by calling her "The old Countess of Desmond, of Inchiquin," determines the fact of her being of the O'Bryen race,—Inchiquin being the feudal territory of the O'Bryens. There was more than one intermarriage between the Desmond earls and the O'Bryen family; but none of them include all the conditions for identifying the "old Countess," except that I have specified.
We now come to dates: and here it is that I have the presumption to question the conclusions of the two eminent antiquaries on whose researches I am remarking.
"James Fitzgerald, ninth Earl of Desmond, was murdered by John Montagh Fitzgerald, of Clenglish, A.D. 1467, ætat 29," says one of my authorities. "The old Countess bore the title only for a few months, for she became dowager on the murder of her husband in 1467 (not 1487)," adds my second authority. These are formidable dicta, coming from such sources; and if I venture to question them, it is only under pressure of such circumstances and authorities, as at least demand a hearing.
I think both these gentlemen confound the murder of James, the ninth Earl of Desmond, with the execution of his father, Thomas, the eighth Earl, who, according to all annals and authorities, was beheaded at Drogheda in the year 1467. Of this fact there can be no question. Ware gives it in his Annals, stating that "John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, called a parliament at Drogheda, and passed a certain enactment, in virtue of which "the great Earl of Desmond was beheaded, 15th of February, 1467." We find the very act itself (in the Cotton MSS. Titus, B. xi. 373.) headed and running as follows:—"VII. Edw. Quarti" (1467). "Pur diverses causes, horribles treisons et felonies prepensez, et faitez per Thomas Count de Desmond, et Thomas Count de Kildar," &c. &c.
We now proceed with Ware to the date 1487, and he writes thus:—"On the 7th of December, James Fitz-Thomas, a Geraldine, and Earl of Desmond, who, for almost twenty-eight (?) years flourished in wealth and power, was suddenly and cruelly murdered by his servants in his house at Rathkeale in the county of Limerick." "This James dying without issue, at least issue male, his brother Morrish succeeded him; by whom, John Mantagh, the chief contriver of that murder, was soon after taken and slain." Here is a distinct statement from an annalist which may be contradicted by facts, but cannot be misunderstood as to meaning.
The more I look at Mr. Samthell's account, the more I am disposed to consider the date he gives as a slip of the pen, or the result of that kind of confusion into which the most accurate mind will sometimes fall, from too long and intense consideration of the same point. I say this, because his own statements furnish at every step matter to confute his own conclusions: thus, he says, "Supposing the old Countess to have been eighteen at her husband's death (and the Irish marry young), she would have been 140 years old in 1589." This calculation plainly assumes the death to have taken place in 1467; but in a passage further on he says, "It will be remembered, that Thomas, eighth Earl of Desmond, father to Margret O'Bryen's husband, was Lord Deputy of Ireland for the Duke Clarence, brother to Edw. IV., from 1462 to 1467!" And again, giving some brief notices of the earls from "A Pedigree of Sir William Betham's," he sets down, "8th earl, Thomas, beheaded A.D. 1467; 9th earl, James (son of Thomas), murdered A.D. 1467;"—overlooking the fact, which would have been in itself memorable, that he makes the beheading of the father, and the murder of the son, to have taken place in the same year! Although I cannot ascertain whence Mr. Pelham took the dates which he has given in his print, I have no hesitation in adopting them, as agreeing best with all the probable circumstances of the case; he places Margret O'Bryen's birth in 1464, her death somewhere from 1620 to 1626; this would sufficiently tally with the opinion, that she was left a young widow at her husband's death in 1487, and agree with Sir Walter Raleigh's statement, that she "was living in 1589," and "many years afterwards." Lord Bacon's express words are, "Certainly they report that within these few years the Countess of Desmond lived to an hundred and forty years of age." These words occur in his History of Life and Death, published in 1623, and add to the probability that the old lady was either lately dead, or that possibly, in the little intercourse between London and remote parts of the empire at that period, she might be even then alive, without his knowledge.
I submit these speculations to correction; and in venturing to dispute the conclusions of the authorities I have named, I feel myself somewhat in the position of a dwarf, who, climbing on the shoulder of a giant, should assume the airs of a tall man; but for the encouragement and assistance of the gentlemen I have named, I should probably never have known how even to state a genealogical or antiquarian question. I shall conclude by committing myself to your printer's mercy, trusting that he will be too magnanimous to take notice of my remarks on the "slip-slop" printing of figures, which will sometimes occur in the best offices; if he should misprint my figures, all my facts will fall to the ground.
A. B. R.
Belmont.