478 



ing rise to these observations, he frankly informed me that he had re- 

 tired from the printing office, and requested that I would communicate 

 the nature of them to the Eoyal Irish Academy for publication. 



I esteem the permission thus given so nearly allied to a command, if 

 not a challenge, that I feel I have no other resource than to comply 

 with the request of Mr. Eichard Sainthill. 



The publication of that gentleman in 1863, dedicated to Miss Saun- 

 ders Forster, and the publication in the " Quarterly Keview"* for March, 

 1853, both on the subject of the Old Countess, appear to me conclu- 

 sively to prove, " that Catherine Eitz Gerald, a daughter of the Lord 

 of Decies, was born in the reign of Edward TV. ; was married to Sir 

 Thomas EitzGerald about the close of that, or the commencement of the 

 reign of Henry YII. ; became Countess of Desmond in the year 1529, 

 when her husband succeeded to the earldom ; became Countess Dowager 

 in the year 1534, when he died ; and from that period to the time of her 

 death in the year 1604, at the patriarchal age of 140 years, she resided 

 in the Castle of Inchiquin, which, together with the manor of that name 

 situated in the county of Cork, had been at an early period settled upon 

 her in dowry." 



In the memoir publications referred to, there are two suggestions of a 

 very remote and pertinent character discussed. The one originates in the 

 note-book of the Earl of Leicester, when ambassador at Paris, in the year 

 1640, which contains a statement, that the Old Countess and her aged 

 and decrepit daughter went over to Bristol, and from thence, the Coun- 

 tess on foot and the daughter in some rude and humble conveyance, tra- 

 velled up to London, where the Countess was introduced at the court of 

 Queen Elizabeth (about the year 1586), represented her necessitous con- 

 dition, and was graciously received by the Queen, who redressed her 

 wrongs." The suggestion leaves the reader to imagine what the nature 

 and extent of these wrongs were, what was the nature of the redress 

 granted, and how the noble supplicants returned to their native land — 

 points of information which appear to me more worthy of note and com- 

 ment than those dwelt upon by the Earl of Leicester. 



The other suggestion is that of Sir William Temple, who postpones 

 the visit to the reign of King James I., but supplies no particulars 

 whatsoever of its cause or consequence. 



The paper of of Mr. Sainthill, read before this Academy on 8th April, 

 1861, and published in its "Proceedings" under that date, with great 

 force and perspicuity combats and disposes of the visit of the Old Coun- 

 tess to Queen Elizabeth, suggested by Lord Leicester. He, however, 

 does not touch upon that which, upon the authority of Sir William Tem- 

 ple, she is said to have made to King James I. — concluding, I presume, 

 that if the Countess Dowager Catherine of Desmond was proved, by his 

 (Mr. Sainthill' s) arguments, to have been raised by her jointure provision 

 to such an independent position in the year 1586, as not to need any aid or 



* Vol. xcii., p. 329. 



