John FitzGerald (abt. 1455 - abt. 1533)

Born about 1455 in Dromana, County Waterford, Ireland

Ancestors

Descendants

Died about 1533 at about age 78 in Dromana, County Waterford, Ireland

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John FitzGerald was a member of the aristocracy in British Isles.

Discrepancy over year of death: The generally reliable Cracroft's Peerage indicates a 1524 death year, but Sir John's letter to King Henry VIII (below) was signed in 1527-8 (year XIX of Henry VIII's reign). Sir John is also mentioned below in a land transaction (1529) involving the new Earl of Desmond.^[1]

Biography

John FitzGerald, of Dromana, County Waterford, Lord of the Decies (d. 17 Apr 1524), married Ellen FitzGibbon, daughter of Sir John Maurice FitzGibbon, the 9th White Knight, by the White Knight's 2nd wife Joan Barrymore.

Children:^[2]

• An only son, Gerald, who became 3rd Lord Decies until 1554. He married Ellice Butler -- who was the daughter of Pierce, 8th Earl of Ormond, and his wife Margaret FitzGerald (daughter of Gerald, 8th Earl of Kildare).

• A daughter Katherine,^[3] the famous Countess of Desmond who married the much older Thomas FitzThomas FitzGerald, "11th Earl of Desmond". She was widowed young and never re-married, living well into her 90s, with no known issue.

Excerpts from the Dictionary of Irish Biography profile for Thomas FitzGerald, 11th Earl of Desmond:

• In October 1529 Thomas granted in fee all his possessions in Co. Waterford to John, 2nd Lord Decies, and John's son Gerald MacShane, 3rd Lord Decies, partly in repayment for their support (1520s) against the James FitzMaurice FitzGerald, 10th Earl, and partly to ensure their future support for his grandson.^[4]

• Thomas's second wife was Katherine, daughter of the same John Fitzgerald (2nd Lord Decies). Katherine was to become the legendary ‘old countess of Desmond’.

Excerpts from the book Dromana: The Memoirs of an Irish Family, edited for context and clarity:^[5]

• Of John ... we do not know much. He lived in very troubled times and had some difficulty in keeping his patrimony out of the rapacious clutches of his kinsmen, the Earls of Desmond, who always kept an envious eye on the rich property owned by a collateral branch of the family. The condition under which Dromana was held led to many abuses and disagreements. The condition was that the head of the Desmond family should always have the right of quartering himself and his men-at-arms in Dromana for 6 weeks every year, and it was particularly stipulated that he was to quarter himself in the Chief's house and not in those of the tenants.

• It was easy to picture that this condition would lead to many quarrels, and that it did is shown by John's letter to King Henry VIII in 1528 [see image]. The letter, preserved in the Irish Correspondence Public Record Office, London, begins thus:
  • "To the King my Sovereign Lord, right high and mighty and my singular and gracious prince. I humbly recommend myself unto your noble grace. [Since] your gracious last letter send unto me, I have ... suffered great harms done by the Earl of Desmond [James FitzMaurice] unto my tenants ...
  • John also makes reference to two other nobleman who were suffering at the hand of the Earl of Desmond: James Butler, son of 8th Earl of Ormond, (James was highly regarded by Henry VIII, having spent much of the 1520s at court) and Cormac MacCarthy, 9th Lord of Muscry (who was married to the Earl of Desmond's sister Joan).^[6]
  • Written at the Manor of Dromana the 23rd of February in the 19th year (1528) of your noble reign. Your faithful subject, Sir John FitzGerald, Knight.

• This letter gives one an insight into the warlike state of Ireland in those days, and in truth it must have been an unpleasant place to live in. It was described as a cave of robbers "where is neither peace, love, nor concord, but only treasons and the foulest deeds." The heads of the House of Desmond had a good deal to do with keeping the South of Ireland in a ferment, for besides the hereditary quarrels with the Ormonds, they as often as not took up arms against the Crown of England. The Dromana branch of the family on the contrary nearly always remained loyal to England from which policy they benefited not a little.

• After much fighting, Desmond thought it prudent to take to the sea with 40 men and so sailed to Youghal upon the flood tide. This Earl had certainly an adventurous spirit for he collected 20,000 Irishmen who, under his auspices, landed in Pembrokeshire, and spread themselves about the country between St. David's and Tenby, living chiefly by trade and piracy. Desmond also sought to ally himself with Spain and France with a view of flouting England, but his efforts did not have much result. Desmond's death, which took place in 1529, put an end to all John FitzGerald's troubles, for the next Earl of Desmond was no less a person than Thomas, the husband of the long-lived Katherine ["Old Countess of Desmond"] and therefore son-in-law to John, and it is not surprising to learn ... that one of the first uses Thomas made of his power, as head of the family, was to confirm the grant of the Decies property to his father-in-law and his heirs afterwards.

History of the Dromana Fitzgeralds

The title "Decies" continues to the present, although the family surname became FitzGerald-Villiers in the late 1600s (merger of 2 families) and finally the more simplified Villiers.^[7]

The following overview of the Lords of Decies (Dromana Fitzgeralds) is condensed from "History of Kinsalebeg: Landlords and Land Ownership", Cracroft's Peerage, and various issues of the Journal of the County Kildare Archaeological Society:^[8]

• The FitzGerald Dromana ancestry begins with the Earls of Desmond who owned large parts of Munster until their defeat in the Desmond rebellions ca.1583. After the rebellion, most of the Desmond land was confiscated but the Dromana estate was left largely untouched.

• The Dromana branch started in the 15th century when James FitzGerald, 6th Earl of Desmond (d.1463) left extensive lands in West Waterford to his youngest son Gerald FitzGerald (d.1488), considered to be the 1st Lord Decies. Gerald made his base in Dromana, and Dromana Castle became a cliff-top home for generations of FitzGeralds and subsequently Villiers and Villiers-Stuarts.

• The title then passed in the typical fashion, to Gerald's son John, 2nd Lord (d.1524) and then to John's son Gerald, 3rd Lord (d.1554).

• In turn Gerald's 2 sons Maurice (d.1572) and James (d.1580) served respectively as 1st Viscount Decies (a provisional title which Maurice had to petition the Crown for, given the turbulence of the times) and 5th Lord Decies.

• After James died, the title went to his son Gerald, 6th Lord, who died with no heir in 1598. The title thus reverted to a first cousin John, 7th Lord (d.1608), who was the son of another Gerald (1530-1599) who had never held the title himself.

• From John, 7th Lord, the title passed to his son John Oge (d.1626) and in turn to John Oge's son Gerald (d.1643), who married Mabel Digby, daughter of Sir Robert Digby MP.

• According to the Civil Survey of 1654-1656, this same Gerrott fzt Gerrald of Dromanny Esq [Gerald FitzGerald of Dromana], who was described as an “Irish Protestant deceased” [since 1643], held about 21,500 acres of land in West Waterford at that time.^[9]

Sources

1. ↑ "In Burke’s Extinct Peerages it is stated that he died on the 17th April 1533, and and was buried at Youghal on the 24th April following.
   • Gabriel O'C. Redmond, Journal of the Waterford & South-East of Ireland Archaeological Society, Vol.1, 1894-5, Note 1 to Pedigree Chart of the Lords of Decies (between pp.122-3),
     • http://snap.waterfordcoco.ie/collections/ejournals/100575/100575.pdf
2. ↑ Burke, A Genealogical History of the Dormant, Abeyant, Forfeited, and Extinct Peerages of the British Empire (1866), p.561:
   • https://books.google.nl/books?id=1ysWkXKSrpIC&vq
3. ↑ Wikipedia: Katherine FitzGerald, Countess of Desmond
4. ↑ Thomas' grandson was another James FitzMaurice, raised in the court of Henry VIII, and who served briefly as de jure 12th Earl until his murder in 1540 by a relative known as Black Maurice.
5. ↑ Dromana: The Memoirs of an Irish Family, by Therese Muir MacKenzie (Therese Villiers Stuart), published 1907 (Dublin: Sealy, Bryers & Walker), pp.45-48:
   • https://www.ebooksread.com/authors-eng/thrse-mackenzie/dromana--the-memoirs-of-an-irish-family-ala.shtml
6. ↑ As a side note, the afore-mentioned James Butler killed the same Earl of Desmond in battle (Dingle, Co. Kerry) in 1529.
7. ↑ Notes on the family, from the Journal of the Waterford & South-East of Ireland Archaeological Society, Vol.1, 1894-5, pp.263-264:
   • http://snap.waterfordcoco.ie/collections/ejournals/100575/100575.pdf
     • Sir Gerald Fitzgerald, of Dromany (2nd son of James, 6th Earl of Desmond) died seized of the lands in question on August 16th, 1488; after whose death the possessions descended to his son and heir, John Fitzgerald, who died at Dromany on December 18th, 1524, when his son and heir, Gerald, entered into possession of the premises.
8. ↑ Journal of the County Kildare Archaeological Society
9. ↑ The land was spread over 17 parishes including Lisgenan (4060 acres), Kinsalebeg (203), Dungarvan (1050), Abbeyside (34), Colligan (660), Affane (800), Rynegonagh (950), Whitechurch (629), Seskinane (1600), Kilmolash (330), Ardmore (1650), Modeligo (820), Aglish (2557), Kilgobinet (700), Clashmore (3070), Stradbally (140) and Fewes (2000). There were other land owners in these parishes so they were not exclusively in the ownership of the FitzGeralds. The FitzGeralds however owned the greater part of the land in the parishes of Aglish, Clashmore, Lisgenan (Grange), Rynegonagh (Ring), Seskinane and Fewes. Land belonging to the FitzGeralds of Dromana in the proximity of Kinsalebeg included some in Ballyheeny, Knocknageragh (Summerhill), Grange, Ardsallagh, Tinnabinna, Ticknock, Shanacoole, Ballycrompane and Coolbagh. Gerald FitzGerald of Dromana is recorded as having 1030 acres in the townlands of Ardsallagh, Tinnabinna, Ticknock, Shanacoole and Ballycrompane. He also had 203 acres in the townland of Ballyheeny and 4060 acres in the parish of Lisgenan [Grange] which included 230 acres in Knocknageragh [Summerhill] bordering Pilltown.

• Desmond, Earl of (I, 1329 - 1582) Cracroft's Peerage