454 
Fynes Moryson is at Youghal in 1613, nine years only. after her 
death ; but no one there knew anything of her ever having been evicted 
from her castle and lands, or of her having gone to England to recover 
them. ; 
Any person conversant with business in public offices is aware that 
all transactions go through certain forms of writing, which become 
official records; and if the Countess Katherin had been driven to seek 
redress at the English court, there must have been documentary records 
of her application and its results. Yet in the search we have made at 
the State Paper Office in London, we cannot find a single paper. But 
of the Countess Ellynor, an abundance turned up, some of which, as in- 
teresting historic matter, will follow, though no ways connected with my 
inquiry, unless as adding their negative evidence that the old Countess 
could not have been a suppliant to Elizabeth ; for had she, similar proof 
would have been forthcoming. 
I submit I have shown that the Earl of Leycester’s story respecting 
the old Countess of Desmond is a tissue of absurd improbabilities in 
itself, and that it is disproved by the most conclusive evidence, positive 
and negative. 
We now come to the consideration of the paintings, assuming or as- 
sumed to be portraits of the old Countess of Desmond. * 
Rembrandt was born 1606, Gerard Dow 1618; consequently, any 
portraits painted by these great artists are at once put out of court. 
At Muckross Abbey, Killarney, the seat of the Right Hon. Henry 
Arthur Herbert, M. P. for the county of Kerry, there is a portrait which 
asserts itself, by an inscription under it, to have been painted from 
the living original; and of which, as a portrait of the old Countess, the 
‘‘Quarterly”’ pronounces, ‘‘ the vraisemblance is at Muckross”’ (p. 358). 
The difficulty of the painter’s own date the ‘‘ Quarterly”’ easily disposes 
of, thus: ‘‘the date 1614 must be an error for 1604” (p. 343). The 
inscription is in these words, in modern English print letters (as distin- 
guished from old black letter) :—‘‘ Catherine, Countesse of Desmonde, 
as she appeared at y° Court of our Soureigne Lord King James, in thys 
preasant A. D. 1614, and in y® 140 yeare of her age. Thither she 
came from Bristol to seek relief, y° house of Desmond having been 
ruined by attainder. She was married in y° reigne of King Edward IV., 
and, in y* course of her longe pilgrimage, renewed her teeth twice. Her 
principal residence is at Inchiquin, in Munster, whither she undaunt- 
edlye .proposeth (her purpose accomplished) incontinentlie to return. 
Laus Deo.” j 
It does not appear so clear to me as to the *‘ Quarterly”’ that a pic- 
ture dated by the painter 1614 must have been painted by him in 1604. 
Let us suppose Mrs. Herbert, of Muckross, to have been at the Draw- 
ing-room and St. Patrick’s Ball, at Dublin Castle, this present A. D. 
1860; and, while in Dublin, having sat for her portrait, that Mr. Her- 
bert, wishing to have Mrs. Herbert’s participation of the Earl of Car- 
lisle’s viceregal festivities recorded on its canvas, thus—‘‘ Mrs. Herbert, 
as she appeared at the Court of his Excellency the Lord Lieutenant of 
