Chambers - Eleanor, Countess of Desmond: Captivating Tale of the Forgotten Heroine of the Tudor Wars in Ireland

Eleanor,
Countess of Desmond

Anne Chambers

Gill & Macmillan

Contents

Chronology

1545Eleanor born at Kiltinan castle

1547Death of Henry VIII

1558Accession of Elizabeth I

1558Gerald FitzGerald becomes fourteenth Earl of Desmond

1565Eleanor marries Gerald

1565Battle of Affane

1565Gerald taken prisoner to England

1565Sir Henry Sidney appointed Lord Deputy

1565Gerald returns from captivity

1566Birth of Eleanors first daughter

1567Gerald imprisoned in Dublin Castle

1567Gerald and Sir John sent to the Tower

1568Eleanor administers the Desmond estates

1569First Desmond Rebellion

1570Eleanor in Tower of London

1570Eleanor and Gerald under restraint in Kent

1570Sir John Perrot, President of Munster

1570Excommunication of Elizabeth I

1571Birth of Eleanors son, James, in London

1572St Bartholomews Day Massacre, Paris

1573Eleanor and Gerald granted audience with Elizabeth I

1573Eleanor and Gerald return to Ireland

1573Gerald detained in Dublin

1573Gerald escapes to Munster

1573Eleanor and Gerald welcomed at Lough Gur

1574Gerald re-captures Castlemaine and Castlemartyr

1574Meeting of Eleanor and Gerald with Earl of Essex at Waterford

1574Signing of Combination Document

1574Ormond destroys Derrinlaur Castle

1575Eleanor writes to Queen Elizabeth

1575James FitzMaurice departs for St Malo

1575Eleanor seeks the return of her son

1575Sidney re-appointed Lord Deputy

1576Sir William Drury appointed President of Munster

1577Eleanor intervenes with Drury

1577Eleanor and Gerald take refuge in Kerry

1578Tentative peace accord with Drury

1578Eleanor and Gerald bid farewell to Sidney in Dublin

1578Eleanor sends Elizabeth a gift of marten skins

1579Eleanor re-united with her son

1579FitzMaurice and Papal Force land at Smerwick Harbour

1579Second Desmond Rebellion

1579Murder of Davells and Carter

1579Death of James FitzMaurice

1579Eleanor entrusts her son to Drury

1579Askeaton Abbey desecrated by Sir Nicholas Malby

1579William Pelham, Lord Justice

1579Eleanor intercedes with Pelham

1579Earl of Desmond proclaimed traitor

1579Third Desmond Rebellion

1580Eleanor thwarted in her efforts to go to Queen Elizabeth

1580Gerald sacks Youghal

1580Destruction of Carraigafoyle and Askeaton

1580Eleanor and Gerald on the run in Munster

1580Eleanor entrusts her daughters to her sisters

1580Pelham and Ormond combine against the Desmond forces

1580Eleanor and Gerald hunted by English

1580Winter delivers Eleanors letter to Court

1580Execution of Sir James Fitzgerald at Cork

1580Sir Arthur Grey de Wilton, Lord Deputy

1580Massacre of Spanish at Dn-an-ir

1581Death of Dr Sanders

1582Death of Sir John of Desmond

1582Eleanor intercedes with Grey at Maryborough

1582Eleanor rejoins Gerald on the run

1583Ormond leads the final push against Gerald

1583Gerald tries to negotiate

1583Eleanor and Gerald part

1583Eleanor submits to Ormond

1583Gerald killed near Tralee

1584Sir John Perrot, Lord Deputy

1584Eleanor and her daughters in Dublin Castle

1584Eleanors son sent to the Tower of London

1585Formal attainder of Desmond estate

1585Eleanor attempts to salvage part of estate

1586Eleanor and her daughters reduced to penury

1587Eleanor petitions Elizabeth

1588Eleanor makes her way to the English Court

1588Spanish Armada

1588Eleanor received by Elizabeth in St Jamess Palace

1588Elizabeth authorises pardon and pension for Eleanor and her daughters

1588Eleanor visits her son in the Tower. Petitions the Queen for further support

1592Red Hugh ODonnell escapes from Dublin Castle

1595Hugh ONeill and ODonnell conspire with Spain

1597Eleanor marries Sir Donogh OConnor Sligo

1597Eleanor and Donogh settle in Collooney Castle

1597Sir Conyers Clifford, President of Connaught

1597Battle of the Yellow Ford

1597Earl of Essex, Lord Deputy

1599Siege of Collooney Castle by ODonnell

1599Battle of Curlew Mountains

1599Donogh submits to ODonnell

1600Lord Mountjoy, Lord Deputy

1600Return of Eleanors son to Munster

1601Death of Eleanors son in Tower of London

1601Battle of Kinsale

1603Death of Elizabeth I

1603Eleanor at Court of James I

1603Assistance from Robert Cecil

1607Eleanor and Donogh in legal battles with new colonists

1609Death of Sir Donogh OConnor Sligo

1613Eleanor wins legal battle for possession of Sligo estate

1619Desmond title bestowed on Sir Richard Preston and subsequently on the Earl of Denbigh

1638Eleanors will and death

Prologue

Out of every corner of the woods and glens they
came creeping forth upon their hands for their
legs could not bear them, they looked like
anatomies of death, they spoke like ghosts, crying
out of their graves, they did eat the dead carrions,
happy where they could find them, yea, and one
another soon after, insomuch as the very carcasses
they spared not to scrape out of their graves and if
they found a plot of watercresses or shamrocks,
there they flocked as to a feast for a time, yet not
able long to continue there withal, that in short
space there were none almost left, and a most
populous and plentiful country suddenly left void
of man or beast.

EDMUND SPENSER

Edmund Spensers horrific account of starvation, cannibalism and decay described the state of the most fertile province of Ireland in 1582. The celebrated poet and civil servant bore witness to the dreadful spectacle that appalled his eyes and compelled his stern Elizabethan heart to cry out in pity.

A once rich province, the size of modern Holland, Munster lay devastated. Lush green pasturelands were torched to a blackened heath, devoid of crops or animals. Famine stalked rampant through the vales and over the gently sloping hills. Among the smouldering remains the skeletal figures of the surviving peasantry foraged in vain. The castles and keeps of the local aristocracy lay in ruins, open to the unrelenting icy rain that hissed in vengeance on the smoking embers. The people were scattered and hid like wild beasts in the fortresses of Munsters rugged mountain ranges and in her great, dark forests andwild glens. They peered silently through the bare branches and waited. They awaited the return of the great overlord their master to whom, by tradition as ancient as the vast oak forests that sheltered them, they had given their absolute allegiance. They waited for him to lead them once more into battle in the bloody and futile war that for over three years had raged and ravaged the countryside.

But the great overlord shared the same fate as his clansmen. Askeaton castle, the mighty pile on the banks of the River Deel, the symbol of his familys once proud and powerful heritage, lay in ruins. A company of English horse was stabled in its great banqueting hall. Its lord was hunted like a wild animal over the despoiled estates of his Munster lordship. From the lowly wattle huts of his kern, from cold mountain caves to the ruined fortresses of his ancestors, through the marshy recesses of the Glen of Aherlow, into the dark forest of Kylemore and across the tortuous mountain passes to the west, Garrett FitzGerald, the fourteenth earl of the ancient and noble House of Desmond, fled for his life.

He had many impediments in his headlong flight. His once populous army had vanished, decimated more by famine and fear than by actual engagement with the enemy. His erstwhile allies had, one by one, forsaken him. Every friend had become a potential foe as the price on his head increased. His inheritance of over a half million acres of land in Munster provided the incentive and the scent to the eager English greyhounds who leaped from the slips in pursuit. But perhaps the greatest impediment to his safety stemmed from his own physical disabilities. His body had succumbed to the effects of palsy and the Irish ague, the result of lengthy periods of imprisonment and deprivation, aggravated by the dampness that oozed up from the marshes and bogs and by the rain that dripped incessantly from the bushes and undergrowth in which he hid, or from the sodden thatch of the kerns cabins when he managed a fitful nights respite from the elements and the enemy. Yet despite these overwhelming liabilities, the earl had one remaining assethis countess, Eleanor.