Thomas an Apa Fitz Maurice of
Desmond:
Survival, restoration and missed
opportunities
Niall C.E.J. O’Brien
Introduction
The Fitzgerald house of
Desmond has produced many notable persons. The first and last Earls of Desmond
seem to command the most published print. This is understandable considering
the impact both people had on their family and in their region. Recent studies
have moved outwards from these two giants to explore other members of the
family.
Towards the Battle of Callann
By the 1240s the expansion
westwards by the Normans and English had reached its apparently furthest limit.
Yet still some in the government wished to go onwards. In 1249 the justiciar
led a seaborne attack on the coast line of south-west
Cork and south Kerry with Fingen McCarthy and
thirteen other Irish chiefs as the target. The attack weakened Fingen
McCarthy’s hold on his kingdom and he was subsequently murdered by his uncle Domhnall
(supported by the Dublin government) who took the throne. In 1252 Domhnall was
murdered by John Fitz Thomas Fitzgerald who was acting in support of his own
ambitions. Domhnall’s son Fingen became king and sought revenge.
It
is said that the royal charter which John Fitz Thomas got from Prince Edward to
have all the lands of Desmond instigated this warfare but London was far from
the local power play in south-west Munster.
Fingen ravaged the Norman settlements of south
Munster over the following few years. By
1261 the Dublin government was called in to help as the war that John Fitz
Thomas started went beyond his ability to control.
Shanid Castle, Co. Limerick - original chief castle of the Munster Fitzgeralds
A royal service was declared
and a loan was borrowed from some merchants which the barons of Desmond
guaranteed. William de Dene was justiciar of Ireland at the time and was a
cousin of John Fitz Thomas Fitzgerald. If anybody else was justiciar it is
unlikely that any troops or money would have entered Desmond. It appears the
army mustered at
Waterford
as the provision stores were located there. The army made good progress into
south-west
Cork
and over the mountains into Kerry. This seemed to be organised by the McCarthys
to lead the English deep into their territory and far from their natural battle
ground. In a valley called Callann, near Kenmare in south Kerry and as far from
an English castle as you could get the McCarthys made their attack. The English
horses were of no use in the boggy terrain and the lightly armoured Irish could
cross the ground faster than the heavy armoured foot soldiers of the English
could react. The annals record that not only did John Fitz Thomas of Shanid
lose his life, but his son Maurice was also killed along with eight barons and
twenty-five knights not to mention the ordinary soldiers. William de Dene
escaped from the battle but died shortly from his wounds.
Baby Thomas Fitz Maurice gets a
nickname
The story of how Thomas got
his nickname of “The Ape” – An Apa – is said to have come from shortly after
the battle of Callann. When news of the major defeat came and more the deaths
of the two Fitzgeralds, father and son, reached Tralee,
the garrison there went into panic. People ran in all directions and none, with
no sense of what to do or where to go. The McCarthy forces would surely follow
up on their victory and seek to wipe out the Norman settlements of Kerry. Fingen
McCarthy did advance northwards but only as far as Killorglin which he
destroyed. From there he turned eastward towards Cork taking the castles of Macroom, Dunnamark
and Dunlo along the way.
Yet it was not this turn of
direction which claimed the people of
Tralee
but a pet ape. While the panic was in full swing the baby boy and heir, Thomas
Fitz Maurice Fitzgerald (about nine months old) was left in his room with the
pet ape. This animal then followed the custom of his own land when danger was
approaching and went for high ground with his young. Thus he carried the baby
up to the highest turret of the castle in the hope of a passing storm. From
here the large ape, as he was described, carried the young Fitzgerald around
the battlements. When the headless people below saw the ape with baby Thomas in
his arms, the panic eased. With the fear of danger abating the ape returned the
baby to its cradle. Soon order came and the scene of the ape was regarded as a
good omen. The people rallied around the heir and prepared to defend the Norman
part of north Kerry.
The reliability of this story
as a true account is in doubt chiefly because the Kildare Fitzgeralds also have
an ape story. In this example the boy is John Fitz Thomas Fitzgerald who would
later become first Earl of Kildare.
The coat of arms of the Kildare Fitzgeralds has an ape but the arms of the
Desmond Fitzgeralds does not have any ape. This would suggest that the ape
story was taken by the Desmonds from their Kildare cousins.
Yet the monkey legend is not
to be totally dismissed. The use of nick names is something more to do with
Irish than with the English. It would appear that as Thomas Fitz Maurice was
growing up he mixed with the Irish people of Kerry or Limerick. Yet these
people knew that it was the Irish who killed Thomas’s father and grandfather
and they laughed at this fool playing with his enemies. The monkey was often
associated with the court jester and the comedian. By this action Thomas got
the nick name of the ape or monkey.
The later chroniclers of the
Fitzgeralds didn't like this possible way that Thomas got his name and so they
adopted the Kildare story. As both occurred about the same time it was easy for
the Munster
people to use the Kildare story. Legends often hide some element of truth
within their stories but also legend stories are often changed over time to
make the story sound better. It seems to be the latter scenario in this case.
Life after the Battle
The loss of two generations of
Fitzgerald in north Kerry was compounded by bad weather in the following year.
The
Annals of Clonmacnoise record
1262 as a year of great drought with a very hot summer.
Yet
the disparate situation soon settled itself. Fingen McCarthy was killed in a
raid on Kinsale and his successor Cormac McCarthy was defeated by a royal army
in 1262.
The
battle of Callann marked the end of English expansion into south Kerry. In
future years the River Maine would divide English north Kerry from Gaelic south
Kerry. No side was strong enough to dislodge the other and so it remained until
the seventeenth century.
The defeat was disastrous for
the Desmond Fitzgeralds. The infant Thomas Fitz Maurice could not provide any
much needed leadership and the Fitzgerald’s old ally Domhnall Ruadh McCarthy,
now king of Desmond, took opportunity to attack the Fitzgerald lands until his
death in 1302. Many of Fitzgerald’s southern property lost its value or
disappeared. The half cantred of Dunlo fell from a value of £40 to £13 6s 8d by
1282. That of the half cantred of Corkely fell from 40 marks to 10 marks while
the district of Ogenathy Donechud was worth nothing by 1282 as it lay “wholly
in the power of the Irish.
Yet the defeat at Callann and
the loss of so many leaders did not signal the end of Norman north Kerry. Some
fifty years later, in 1318 at a skirmish at Disert O’Dea the chief English lord
of Thomond, Richard de Clare was killed. Richard left a minor as heir like with
the Fitzgeralds. Three years later the minor died leaving his estates to two
aunts. Although the escheator placed a garrison in
Bunratty Castle,
de Clare’s chief castle, the English position in Thomond quickly became unattainable.
The English did not return to Thomond until the late Tudor period.
Bunratty Castle as later rebuilt by the O Brien Kings of Thomond
Why did north Kerry not fall
apart like what happened in Thomond? At first the two places appear to be the
same in terms of a battle leaving a minor as heir. But we see Kerry through the
eyes of following centuries when the Fitzgeralds dominated the county which was
created into a county palatine (1329) for their greater glory.
Kerry
had other important people in the second half of the thirteenth century to hold
the colony against the Gaelic revival in south Kerry. Thomas Fitz Robert, head
of the family later to become known as Fitzmaurice, was not just an important
local lord but during the 1260s he expanded his estates by acquisitions around
Listowel. Further southwest, Maurice Fitz Maurice of the Kildare Fitzgeralds
acquired by purchase from his cousin, Christiana de Marcis the area around
Killorglin.
Maurice
was justiciar of
Ireland
in 1272.
The minority of Thomas Fitz
Maurice
In the accounting term of
Michaelmas 1276 to Michaelmas 1277 Geoffrey de Geneville received £299 19s 12d
for the marriage of Thomas Fitz Maurice.
Instead of marriage Thomas Fitz Maurice had to try to keep his estates intact. In about 1279 Thomas Fitz
Maurice was forced by the king or by pressure from those around him to
surrender land and churches to the king. This property comprised of the cantred
of Occassin, the half cantred of Oblyc (also called Drochedoblic, Co. Clare) with
the advowsons of the churches and chapels within along with thirteen vills in
the
land of Corcumroch (Corcomroe, Co. Clare). The
transaction was witnessed by Robert, Bishop of Bath and Wells, then chancellor
of
England,
William de Valence, John de Vescy, Otto de Grandison, Robert Tybetot, Roger
Andreu, Gerald Fitz Maurice, John de Barry and John Cogan.
In the days of his grandfather
these Thomond lands were worth 270 marks per year but by 1270 generated nothing
as they were controlled by the Irish.
To add further bad news to the situation a debt of 2,000 marks was owed by John
Fitz Thomas (grandfather of Thomas) to the king for these three areas in
Thomond. This debt was not written off by the transfer of ownership as the debt
was still listed among those of John Fitz Thomas in 1283.
King Edward I lost little time in trying to get people presented to various
churches in Occassin in December 1279 and February 1280.
As much of the property was situated deep into O’Brien territory it is unlikely
that the agents of Thomas Fitz Maurice’s estate derived much in the way of
income from there.
Consideration also has to be
given to the on-going disturbances and war in Thomond (Co. Clare) since 1257. It
began in that year when Tadhg O’Brien lost his patience with the English
expansion of settlements and over-lordship in Thomond. In 1258 Tadhg’s father
ravaged the Geraldine manors of north Thomond and
Galway.
By 1268 the new king of Thomond Brian O’Brien was attacking the settlements
along the north side of the
Shannon. Yet his
nephew, Toirdelbach opposed this policy and civil war began. In 1276 the king
granted the whole of Thomond to Richard de Clare, brother of the Earl of
Gloucester and friend of
the king. Soon de Clare aided Brian O’Brien while the de Burgh family of
Connacht supported Toirdelbach.
The surrender by Thomas Fitz Maurice of his Thomond lands was part of the
king’s effort to get control of the situation.
Thomas Fitz Maurice comes of age
Thomas Fitz Maurice came of
age in 1282 and his scattered inheritance was his own.
Having waited all his life for this hour he lost no time in establishing his
authority. Up to the battle of Callann the Fitzgerald’s had increased their
small initial holdings with large grants from the king, purchases and
inheritances. Yet much of their property was scattered across
Munster
and into Leinster and
Connacht. Some of it was
substantial like the Decies area of Co. Waterford but you also had small
properties. There was little in the way of a strategic policy on land acquisition,
just simple expansion in any and all directions.
Thomas Fitz Maurice changed
this uncoordinated policy. From 1282, and through many generations of future
Fitzgeralds (created Earls of Desmond in 1329), consolidation and strategic
acquisitions became the policy.
Thomas
was not the only landlord to adopt such consolidation. The family of his future
in laws (Berkeley) adopted such in about 1280. From that date the
Berkeley generations
developed the core of their estate while at the same time selling outside
lands. Thomas de Berkeley II (the father-in-law of Thomas Fitz Maurice),
succeeded his father in 1281 and began the policy of consolidation even though
he got land in outreach areas from his wife. The son and grandson of Thomas
also got outside lands from their wives but all three developed the core estate
and acquired land around outlying manors to expand the size of the property
adjacent to those lands which was then given to a cadet branch of the family.
Other distant land was simply sold.
Another English landlord who
followed consolidation after he came of age and had Irish connections was John
de Mohun of
Dunster Castle in
Somerset.
From his grandmother and her elder sister, John inherited part of the Marshal
lands in Kilkenny and Kildare as well as numerous scattered lands across the
west of
England.
In 1299 he gave his Irish lands to the king in exchange for the manor of Long
Compron in Warwickshire which adjoined his own manor of Whichford. John de
Mohun also exchanged the manor of Ile Brewer, some twenty-four miles from
Dunster (his chief seat), for that of Goring in Oxfordshire which was separated
by the
Thames from his own manor of Streatley.
Affairs of
Munster were not the only news to
concentrate Fitz Maurice. In his first year of lordship he wrote to the Robert,
Bishop of Bath and Wells about news that “because of the war in Wales the Irish
in parts of Ireland are more elated than is their custom and some are stirred
by the war, others are prompted to make war”.
The Irish were very much seen by Fitz Maurice as those people who killed his
father and grandfather. Yet the letter also shows us that the later notion,
popular among the Irish Republican Brotherhood, of
England’s
difficulties were
Ireland’s
opportunity was an old idea and not some new nineteenth century invention.
His marriage to Margaret de
Berkeley
In the year 1284 Thomas Fitz
Maurice came to concentrate on marriage. In that year Thomas de Berkeley II
purchased the right of marriage to Fitz Maurice for his daughter Margaret.
The
fine to the king was 700 marks but because of Berkeley’s previous good service
to Edward I, he got a pardon to reduce this by 200 marks in December 1284.
Further allowance was made in January 1285 allowing Thomas to pay 100 marks per
year to the Exchequer until the 500 marks is fully paid.
Margaret’s mother was Joan de
Ferrers, a daughter of William de Ferrers, fifth Earl of Derby by his second
wife Margaret, daughter of Roger de Quincy, second Earl of Winchester. The Earl
of Derby’s first wife was Sibyl Marshal, heiress of lands in Kildare, with
portions in Kilkenny and Wexford.
We
saw above how the de Ferrers family was married to that of de Mohun by which
Thomas Fitz Maurice was connected with a number of heirs to the Marshal lands
in Leinster.
This connection by marriage
with England was something
different for the Desmond Fitzgeralds who on coming to Ireland seem to favour fellow settlers in Ireland. The
marriage also raises a few maybes about the subsequent history of the Desmond
Fitzgeralds. We see in other places how the Butler family of Kilkenny took English wives
and acquired property in that country. This connection with England furthered their own attachment to England such that they became one of England’s chief supporters in Ireland.
In
County Clare
from 1571 onwards successive Earls of Thomond began to admire and embrace
English culture and civilisation. They took English wives and acquired property
there. By 1741 the O’Briens had gone from Gaelic warlords to English country
gentlemen.
If this
transformation had happened to the Desmond Fitzgeralds in the thirteenth
century or at some later time then history would have been very much different.
Establishing his authority across
Munster
Towards the end of 1284 Thomas
Fitz Maurice toured County Waterford where he displayed his authority. It seems
that many were pleased with the new lord and he was entrusted with 113s 4d as
debts due by various people to the
Dublin
exchequer.
In the spring of 1285 Thomas Fitz Maurice was
rumoured to be preparing to cross over to England. This action caused anxiety
among certain people who had encroached upon the ancient rights of Thomas
during his long minority. One of these people was Stephen, Bishop of Waterford.
During the minority the custody of counties
Cork
and
Waterford
were seized by the king. Using his authority as a royal official Bishop Stephen
granted the shrievalty of
County
Waterford to Robert de
Stapleton. When later Robert took up the shrievalty of Connacht, Bishop Stephen
appointed Robert’s son Roger de Stapleton to have
Cork
and
Waterford.
A series of letters were sent to the Bishop of Bath and Wells in the spring of
1285 which were successful as the king issued a patent on February 23
rd
accepting the commission of the two counties to Robert de Stapleton. This
success arrived just on time as Thomas Fitz Maurice was in England by February
28.
Dungarvan Castle - chief castle of the Fitzgeralds in County Waterford in 1280s
Thomas Fitz Maurice remained
in England for all of 1285. In January 1286 he got letters of attorney for one
year for Nicolas de Waleys and William Ermy to continue to represent his
interests in
Ireland.
We are not fully aware what Thomas Fitz Maurice was doing in England for such a
long time but fully recovering his ancient property seems to have taken up much
of his time.
Back in Ireland Thomas Fitz
Maurice’s influence and authority was growing in some parts. In October 1285 he
conveyed £50 of Limerick debts from John Fitz Thomas to the Dublin exchequer
which was repeated on subsequent occasions. At the same time he began to pay
some of the crown rents due for
County
Waterford (Decies) to the
amount of £90. Others such as Maurice Russell also paid Decies rent to the
amount of £10.
It would appear that Thomas Fitz
Maurice experienced difficulties in paying the Decies rent or collecting the
money to pay same. We find £10 paid in October 1286 was followed a few days
later by another payment of £50 while £40 was paid in April 1287. In October
1287 Thomas paid two instalments amounting to £60 while in April 1288 he paid
over £77 in Decies rent. This was followed in October 1288 with a payment of
over £88 in rent.
In June 1286 Thomas Fitz
Maurice was entrusted by some people of Kerry to pay their debts due to the
Dublin exchequer.
Clearly he was regarded as a solid person and an important lord in Norman north
Kerry.
Recovery and development of his
lands
Thomas Fitz Maurice was also
interested in the further development of his estates and getting government
licences to assist. On April 28, 1286 Thomas secured a murage grant for the
towns of Tralee, Mallow and Ard for the ensuring seven years. A long list of products
and services were included in the murage custom including fish, salt, onions,
and garlic, iron, cheese, butter, honey, cloth and cat skins. Trade with the
Irish was also allowed but at a price as each hundred of Irish cloth paid one
penny while other cloth only paid a half penny or less .
In April 1286 Thomas Fitz
Maurice began proceedings in England to recover the lands of Decies and Desmond
(Counties Waterford and Cork). For this purpose he appointed Matthew de
Snawedon and Thomas le Gurney as his attorneys.
Sometime in 1286 Thomas Fitz Maurice returned
to Ireland as the military situation there was getting the better of the
English interest. Thomas wrote to the bishop of
Bath and Wells that the Irish were coming out
to war because of the resistance of the Welsh to the English was giving them
hope.
In 1287 Thomas Fitz Maurice gave
assurances that he would returned to England to further secure his lands and
his marriage.
In May 1290 Thomas Fitz
Maurice was due to go to England to further his legal cases before the king’s
court. But war in the
province
of Munster threatened his
lands and challenged his authority. John, Archbishop of
Dublin
wrote to the king on behalf of Thomas that the latter would travel to
England in July
if the weather does not impede his sea journey. It would appear that no bad
weather stopped Fitz Maurice in July as on the 16
th of that month he
got one year’s protection in Ireland for remaining in England.
From later documents it would
appear that Fitz Maurice was in no rush to return to Ireland as in May 1291 he
got further legal protection in Ireland for another year while he stayed in
England.
Two
chief factors may be at cause in this extended stay; namely, that his English
born wife wished to spend more of her time in England than out in the furthest
reaches of the universe which Kerry was until people discovered America.
Another reason was that Thomas Fitz Maurice still had not fully recovered all
his ancient inheritance and judgement of the king was the best way of achieving
recovery.
The protracted legal route of
recovery may have had a strong influence upon Thomas’s son, Maurice Fitz Thomas
who decided that military might and warfare in Ireland was a more sure way of
recovery the family’s ancient lands. This show of military might was something
that the Irish chieftains understood and appreciated.
This absence of the chief lord of
County Kerry
must have unsettled some in the county. Two estates had become vacant at that
time because of deceased lords (John de Courcy and Thomas de Clare). Both
estates were granted to Hugh de Bruges in June 1291 and he was to hold them
until the heirs to both came of age. Yet it was November before Hugh got legal
protection in
England while
he was still only departing for
Ireland.
In addition the same Hugh got custody of two manors in south Kilkenny to
further distract him from affairs in Kerry.
These concerns seem not to
have overly disturbed Thomas Fitz Maurice in England. In June 1291 Thomas Fitz
Maurice nominated John Tintaged and Philip Bifort as his Irish attorneys for
the ensuing year. In August 1291 Thomas Fitz Maurice did change one of his
Irish attorneys as Philip Bifort was replaced by William Fitz Robert.
The ancient Waterford inheritance
Early in the Anglo-Norman
invasion of
Ireland the
crown acquired much of the
County
of Waterford as crown
land. When the greater portion of the county was granted to Thomas Fitz Anthony
and his heirs an annual rent of 250 marks was charged upon the land to
compensate the Dublin exchequer for loss of direct revenue. Over time parts of
the Decies, as the county was often described in the medieval documents, were
granted by Thomas Fitz Anthony and his heirs to various people. Part of the
crown rent passed with these grants and became payable by the new owners. By
this means in 1290 we note that John de Weyland was charge for 26 marks of the
Decies rent upon his lands at Ballyconner.
The
other people charged with paying some of the Decies rent were Walter de la
Haye, Jordan de Exeter and the heirs of Robert de Stapleton.
Sometime before October 1291
Thomas Fitz Maurice granted to King Edward a fifteenth charge upon his men and
tenants within his liberty in Ireland. In turn King Edward declared on October
26, 1291 that this grant would in no way be converted into a precedent.
On February 6, 1292 Thomas Fitz
Maurice recovered his lawful lands in Decies and Desmond for himself and his
wife Margaret. The annual rent which began as 250 marks and increased to 500
marks was reduced to 200 marks. The king reserved the episcopal and abbatial
appointments while all the tenants of Decies and Desmond were to be in
obedience to Thomas Fitz Maurice.
Yet there was still the
possibility of successful legal claimants not to mention the re-conquests of
Irish chieftains which could reduce the family estate at some future time. On
February 25, 1292 Thomas Fitz Maurice indemnified the king against the other heirs
of Thomas Fitz Anthony who could lodge claims upon Decies and Desmond.
But
the descendants of Thomas Fitz Maurice kept the Decies against any counter
claims and descendants of the Fitzgerald family still hold onto the area around
Dromana House to this day. In July 2015 the family celebrate 800 years of a
connection with County Waterford.
Dromana House, present home of the descendants of Thomas Fitz Maurice
Killorglin and the courts
The long minority of Thomas Fitz Maurice had created a vacuum into which
others had entered by lawful and unlawful means. Towards the end of 1289 Thomas
Fitz Maurice tried to recover the manor of Killorglin from Emelina de
Longespee. But Emelina was too fast for Thomas Fitz Maurice and it was she who
began legal proceedings. The first court case was held in Limerick in January
1290 where Emelina de Longespee demanded the manor of Killorglin, except the
advowson of its church, from Thomas Fitz Maurice as her right that she received
from Christina de Mariscis. The latter had enfeoffed the manor to Maurice Fitz
Maurice and his wife Emelina and they had only allowed Thomas de Clare to have
entry into the manor. Thomas said the writ was defective and had the case
adjourned for a month.
Emelina de Longespee used her
court influence between the two sittings to get a royal writ that the case
should be heard in February regardless of the defective writ. At the February
sitting Thomas Fitz Maurice produced a charter he got from Thomas de Clare
through the latter’s son and heir Gilbert de Clare. This charter granted the
manor and castle of Killorglin to Thomas Fitz Maurice and his heirs. Further
lands were granted by de Clare to Thomas in the same charter included the
cantreds of Moyconchyn and Orathath, the
island of Darfy
along with other unspecified lands. The case was adjourned to April 10
th
but without a decision. After this latter sitting a royal writ was issued that
the case would transfer from Limerick to
Dublin
for May 1
st, 1290. Yet this was further adjourned until July because
of disputes over the legal process. Further points of legal process dragged the
case slowly through the courts to the end of 1293.
The new year of 1294 saw
little change with lawyers again arguing points of law, the legal bills rising
and the end no way nearer. Easter of 1295 came and went as the road show
dragged on into 1296 and went onwards again into 1297 with still no conclusion.
On February 6, 1292 Thomas Fitz
Maurice appointed Thomas de Swenhangre and John Attechurch as his English
attorneys for the following three years. We are told that Thomas Fitz Maurice
was at that time about to proceed back to Ireland.
The heavy legal bills in
Ireland
and in
England
must have had an impact upon his fragile estates. Despite these commitments
Thomas Fitz Maurice was still able to contribute financial support when the
Dublin government called out the troops. At Michaelmas 1293 Thomas Fitz Maurice
gave 4s to support the army of Roscrea.
In June 1294 he was asked with a number of other Irish landowners to come to
London with horses and arms for a planned army campaign by
King Edward in
Gascony.
Justiciar of Ireland
William D’Odingeseles had been
appointed justiciar on October 18, 1294 and was paid his salary from then until
April 19, 1295 but others would suggest that William had died previous to that
date.
The
two senior magnates of Ireland, Richard de Burgo, Earl of Ulster and John Fitz
Thomas Fitzgerald of Kildare, were in a state of war for a few years past.
Indeed Fitzgerald had imprisoned De Burgo at the former’s
castle of Lea
in December 1294 and did not release him until after the council meeting held
at Kilkenny in March 1295.
Neither of these people could be appointed as head of the government. The council
decided to appoint Thomas Fitz Maurice as justiciar.
Thomas Fitz Maurice was
pressed to deal with the war in Leinster which erupted because of the
infighting between the Anglo-Irish magnates. The war continued over the winter
of 1294/5 and on into the late spring of 1295. Eventually Fitz Maurice got
Maurice MacMurrough to come to the king’s peace. Hostages were given by the
MacMurrough, O’Byrne and O’Toole to keep the peace. MacMurrough further pledged
to make war on any member of his nation that broke the peace and made war on
the English. They also pledge to give six hundred cows for depredations done by
them.
No account is given of what
happened to the O’Connor Faly who had attacked de Vescy’s
castle of Kildare
and destroyed the county records held there in 1294.
The
government of Thomas Fitz Maurice also had battles of a financial nature to keep an
army in the field. We find that in 1297 and 1298, over two years after Thomas Fitz
Maurice had retired, that people were still paying their contributions to the
army service of Castledermot that Thomas Fitz Maurice had called for Leinster.
The justiciar’s day was not
totally filled with wars and rumours of war. Various court cases travelling
through the justice system cross his desk. Sometime in 1295 John de Langton,
chancellor of England, asked Fitz Maurice to be aiding and favourable to
Christiana de Mariscis in her court case.
The various wars and the wants
of an administration coupled with the needs of trade and commerce had by the
1290s created a shortage of coined silver. The two Irish mints
Dublin
and
Waterford
had closed in 1283 and 1282 respectively because of a dearth of silver. Yet
about £40,000 worth of coins had been made and these kept the country operating
for a few years. In 1294 the
Dublin and
Waterford mints returned
to production even though silver was still hard to acquire. The
Waterford mint was the brain child of Stephen de
Fulbourne, bishop of
Waterford and later
archbishop of Tuam, during his time as treasurer of
Ireland. His brother Walter de
Fulbourne succeeded to the bishopric of
Waterford
and treasurership of
Ireland.
In 1295 justiciar Thomas Fitz Maurice ordered the closure of the
Waterford mint and a new mint was opened in
Cork. This was a royal
city just like
Waterford but it also was a major
port for the south
Munster
region and new to Fitz Maurice’s lands and commerce.
On October 18, 1295 John Wogan
of Picton in Pembrokeshire was appointed justiciar and remained in office until
June 1308 and was again in office from May 1309 to August 1312. He made Ireland
his home and his descendants were important people in north Kildare until they
died out in co-heiress in the early eighteenth century.
Thomas Fitz Maurice remained
as acting justiciar until Wogan arrived in Ireland in December 1295. During
those two months he completed an eyre in his own south-west, travelling through
the counties of Tipperary, Limerick, Kerry and Cork.
One of the earliest acts of Wogan was to close the
Cork
mint and leave
Dublin
as the only centre of coin production.
After the justiciary
After leaving office Thomas Fitz Maurice returned to Munster to manage
and defend his property and care for his wife and children. His mother, Matilda
de Barry was still alive and had plenty to say to her pride and joy about life
and property.
If
Ireland was allowed to develop at
this period towards the end of the thirteenth century it is said that the
increasingly rapid decline of the English sphere of influence in the fourteenth
century would not have been as dramatic. The many wars of King Edward I in
Scotland,
Wales
and
France drew the surplus
resources out of
Ireland
when there application within the country could have achieved marked results at
little effort. In January 1296 Thomas Fitz Maurice was summoned with other
Irish lords to appear with as strong a military force as possible at the port
of Whitehaven for an attack upon Scotland.
Two
years later at Michaelmas 1298 Thomas contributed £4 to the fifteenth tax
raised for the king.
Death of Thomas; his wife and
children
Thomas Fitz Maurice died on
June 4, 1298 at Knockainy, Co.
Limerick. He
was later buried at the Dominican friary at
Tralee.
This friary was founded by the grandfather of Thomas, John Fitz Thomas, in
1243. It was to here that John and his son Maurice were brought after the
battle of Callann in 1261.
Font from the medieval Dominican Friary at Tralee
On June 26 King Edward
directed a series of instructions to Chancellor John de Langeton concerning the
widow, children and debts of Thomas Fitz Maurice. In the first incidence the
justiciar of Ireland
was to search the records and quickly establish that Margaret de Berkeley had
joint ownership of her late husband’s lands. She was then to have her dower
lands while the king would arrange a fit person to receive her homage.
The heir to the Fitzgerald
property, Thomas Fitz Thomas appears to have been in England at the time of his
father’s death as it is Thomas de Berkeley who is instructed to deliver the boy
into the hands of his mother. This instruction was renewed on July 9.
At the time of Thomas Fitz
Maurice’s death he owed debts to Thomas de Berkeley and the latter was to have
first call on the assets of Thomas Fitz Maurice so as to recover the debts owed
to him.
Thomas
Fitz Maurice also had outstanding debts to the crown. In October 1289 John
Barrett, sheriff of
Waterford, paid £20 in part
payment of these debts and in January 1299 John Barrett paid another £10 to the
Dublin
exchequer.
In County Limerick, Matilda de
Barry (Thomas’s mother) and Nicholas le Deveneys, county sheriff, paid £10 and
£28 respectively out of the chattels of Thomas Fitz Maurice. Later Matilda paid
nearly £3 from more chattel sales. A further £24 was realised from
County Limerick
while over £14 was raised by selling additional chattels in
County Waterford.
Further
debts to the crown were paid over in the succeeding years such as in June 1302
when the sheriff of Kerry paid 55s from the debts at Anach.
An inquisition in March 1300
found that Thomas’s widow, Margaret de Berkeley, held manors and tenements to
the value of £120. Yet she didn’t stay long as the wealthy widow. Sometime
before March 1300 she married Reginald Russell without the king’s permission.
King Edward often noted that she was his cousin but still fined her £500 for
this transgression.
In her new married life
Margaret did not abandoned Ireland.
As a widow she got one third of the Fitzgerald property but that is no reason
for her to stay in Ireland.
She could easily have gone back to England and make arrangements for
her income to be sent over.
In around 1311 Margaret de
Berkeley was the subject of an attempted abduction. Stephen le Poer, a brother
of Eustace le Poer I, was involved in this attempted abduction with a group of
Irishmen. The same Stephen then called on Baron John le Poer to assemble a
military force to help ‘rescue’ Margaret. A short time before many of the
‘kidnappers’ were involved with the violent attack upon the manor of John le
Grant near
Waterford
city.
The abduction and rescue appears therefore to have been put on as a show of how
‘lovely’ some people of the extended le Poer family were.
King Edward lost little time
in using the vast Fitzgerald property to satisfy his friends and servants. In
July 1300 he instructed the justiciar, John Wogan to give custody of 100
librates of Fitzgerald land to Gerard Dorim until the heirs come of age. Gerard
Dorim was the king’s valet for many years and the land was to be located in an
area that would be of greatest advantage to Gerard.
In February 1302 King Edward
granted certain lands from the estate of Thomas Fitz Maurice to John fitz
Thomas of the Kildare Fitzgeralds. John had previously held these lands at a
rent of £100 per year until Thomas’s heir came of age. Now King Edward cancelled
this payment because of the services rendered by John Fitz Thomas in Scotland
and elsewhere. The previous grant to Gerard Dorim was not overlooked and John
was instead to pay the £100 to Gerard for the land granted to the latter.
In August 1304 William de
Burgh was granted custody of fifty marcates a year from the Connacht lands of
Thomas Fitz Maurice until the heir came of age. This grant was also a reward
for services rendered in the English campaigns in
Scotland.
Heirs and legacy
In February 1301 King Edward I
granted to Thomas de Berkeley, senior, the marriage of Thomas, the son of
Thomas Fitz Maurice, who was under age and in the king’s custody at the time.
If young Thomas should die before marriage then Thomas de Berkeley was to have
the marriage of each and subsequent heir until a successful marriage was made.
This
arrangement may have sounded good but Thomas de Berkeley had grown tired of the
Fitzgeralds. The remarriage of his daughter Margaret may have gained an
appreciation in his mind that things could turn out bad. Sometime before
November 1302 Thomas de Berkeley sold the right of marriage for the Fitzgerald
heirs to Edmund de Mortimer.
The
latter had Irish estates around Dunamase in modern
County
Laois and elsewhere whereas
Berkeley had little interest in
Ireland. The right of marriage soon
after returned to the crown as Edmund de Mortimer died in July 1304.
Thomas Fitz Thomas died
sometime before April 2, 1309 and was succeeded by his sixteen year old
brother, Maurice Fitz Thomas. Five years later, on April 5, 1314 Maurice Fitz
Thomas gave fealty to Edward I and received his inheritance. In 1329 after a
stormy first career Maurice became first Earl of Desmond and then became his
second stormy career.
Such is a story for another day of which much has already been written.
Follow other stories and events relating to the Fitzgerald family of Munster as part of the Dromana 800 celebrations at
http://www.dromana800.com/
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