The Petty Fitzmaurices.

HIS family, which, had the late Lord Lansdowne survived another year, would probably have been ducal, despite its plebeian name, is of the very bluest blood, being a younger branch of the great house of which the Fitzgeralds are the elder. The brains of a clothier's son brought them their great wealth, but they are traceable by lineal male descent to the time of Edward the Confessor. In Domesday Survey occurs the name of Walter Fitz-Other, Castellan of Windsor and Warden of the Forests in Berkshire, being then possessed of two lordships in that county, three in Surrey, three in Bucks, three in Dorsetshire, four in Middlesex, nine in Wiltshire, one in Somerset, and ten in Hampshireall which "Dominus Otherus" his father held in the time of King Edward the Confessor. This OTHER, or ОTHо, as he is sometimes called, is said to have been one of the family of the Gherardini of Florencewhence Gheraldine, Geraldine-and it is conjectured by his descendant, the present Marquess of Kildare, that, having settled in Normandy, he was one of the foreign favourites who accompanied Edward the Confessor to England, and created such jealousy among

his Saxon subjects. His son Walter, at any rate, was treated as a fellow-countryman by the Normans after the Conquest. This Walter Fitz-Other is said to have married a daughter of the Prince of North Wales, and to have had three sons, the eldest of whom, Gerald, assumed, according to the custom of that day with eldest sons, the name of Fitz-Walter; was made Constable of Pembroke Castle by Henry I., commanded the English forces against the Welsh, was made President of the county of Pembroke, and married Nesta, the beautiful daughter of Rhys-ap-Griffith, Prince of South Wales, mistress of Henry I., called from her adventures "the Helen of Wales." When Gerald Fitz-Walter married her she was, according to one authority, widow of the Constable of Cardigan; according to another, Gerald was her first husband and the Constable her second. This Nesta was afterwards carried off, with two of her sons, by Owen, her cousin, who set fire to Pembroke Castle to cover his attack, Gerald escaping by a ladder. The boys were sent back, and Owen fled to Ireland; but, returning afterwards, Gerald surprised and slew him in 1116. By Nesta, Gerald Fitz-Walter had three sons and one daughter. The eldest son, Maurice, was the ancestor of the Fitzgerald family, the head of which is the Duke of Leinster; the third, David, became Bishop of St David's; and the second, William, was the ancestor of the present Marquess of Lansdowne. The daughter, Angareth, married William de Barri, and became the mother of the historian Giraldus Cambrensis. William, the second son of Gerald Fitz-Walter, inherited his mother's property, the castle of Karrin, Carrio, or Carew, in Carmarthen

shire, and assumed that name. In the 12th Henry II. he held two knights' fees in the county of Bucks, and the manor of Spersholt and Hermitage in Berkshire. He was sent by Earl Strongbow to Ireland in 1171, along with his son Raymond, but returned to England, and died in 1173. His eldest son, Otho, who succeeded to Carew Castle, took that name, and transmitted it to his descendants, one of whom became Earl of Totness in 1626, but leaving no male issue, the title died out in 1629. The numerous Carews of Devon and Cornwall claim descent from the same ancestor. Raymond (called Le Grosse), the second son of William of Carew, remained in Ireland, became Strongbow's right-hand man there; and, for relieving him when in extremity at Waterford, received in 1175 the hand of his sister, with the lands of Idrone, Fothard, and Glas-carrigg, and the Constableship of Leinster. Assisting Macarthy, King of Cork, against the King of Limerick, Raymond obtained as his reward a large tract of land in the county of Kerry, where he settled his eldest son, MAURICE, from whom, according to some, the family name is derived, as well as the name of the district, Clanmaurice; but it does not seem easy to fix the exact time when the name Fitzmaurice became hereditary, and we give the following pedigree with some reserve on account of that circumstance, though it is probably substantially correct-He left no legitimate son, but his natural son, already mentioned, Maurice Fitz-Raymond, succeeded him in his estates, which took the name of Clanmaurice. Maurice had a grant of five knights' fees from King Richard in Desmond, and was succeeded in his principal property by his eldest son, Thomas, called

Fitzmaurice. He had a grant from King John in the first year of his reign of ten knights' fees in Kerry, and a rent out of that territory of fourpence per acre from Bealtra to Grabane, which is called the rent of the acres. He is said to have died in 1280; but, taken in connection with the grant from John, this date looks rather doubtful. He is called the first Lord of Kerry. His eldest son, Maurice, called FitzThomas of Kerry, served in the Scotch wars of Edward I., and died at his house of Lixmaw in 1303. He married the heiress of Sir John M'Leod, of Galway. His eldest son, Nicholas, third Lord of Kerry, built a stone bridge at Lixmaw, and was the first who made causeways to that place. He served against the Irish and in the Scotch wars, was knighted, and married a daughter of O'Brien, Prince of Thomond. His eldest son and successor, Maurice Fitz-Nicholas, had an unlucky career. Having killed a personal enemy on the bench in the presence of the judge of assize at Tralee in 1325, he was tried and attainted by the Parliament at Dublin; but not put to death, forfeiting, however, his lands in Desmond. He afterwards associated with the Irish in their risings, and being seized by the Earl of Desmond, was kept in prison till his death in 1339. His brother John, to whom the lordship was restored, became fifth Lord of Kerry, and died in 1348. Maurice, his successor, was a Lord of Parliament in the 48th Edward III., served against the Irish, and died in 1398 at Lixmaw. His descendant Edmond, tenth Lord of Kerry, who regained some of the lands in Desmond, eventually died a Franciscan friar in 1543, and was succeeded by his son Edmond, whom Henry VIII. had in 1537 created

Baron of Odorney and Viscount Kilmaule. He had a grant of several abbeys with their lands to him and his male issue; but in default these reverted to the Crown, his brother Patrick succeeding as twelfth Lord of Kerry; whose sons, Thomas and Edmond, dying without issue, their uncle Gerard (the red-haired), became eventually the fifteenth Lord, another son of the tenth Lord, Thomas, succeeding as sixteenth Lord. There is a romantic story that this Thomas, having no expectation, as a younger son, of succeeding to the estates, had long served with the Emperors of Germany at Milan, and was there when his last brother died. Another member of the family seized the estates, and held them for a year, when Thomas Fitzmaurice's old nurse, accompanied by her daughter, went in search of him, and acquainted him with the news-the nurse dying on her return home. In about two years Thomas Fitzmaurice recovered his estates, and they were regranted and confirmed to him by Queen Mary, and settled by him on his son Patrick. He sat in the Irish Parliaments 3d and 4th Philip and Mary and 2d Elizabeth, under the title of Thomas Fitzmaurice, Baron of Licksmaway, vulgariter dictus Baron de Kerry, being placed in the former as first Baron of Ireland, in the other as second. In 1578 he made a tender of allegiance to the Lord Deputy in his camp; but, in 1581, the English army being reduced to 400 foot and 50 horse, he, for some or no cause, rose in rebellion, took the castles of Adare and Lisconell, and ravaged the lands of Tipperary, Ormond, and Waterford, till the Governor Zouche marched against him, when he abandoned Adare, took refuge in his castle of Lixmaw, and was defeated by the