Page:A Compendium of Irish Biography.djvu/225

 FIT

and Carter followed. [See Desmond, 1 5th Earl.] Before long the Spaniards, who had been led to expect a general rising of the people, were much disheartened. Eight days after landing their vessels were cap- tured by English cruisers, the O'Flahertys returned home, and to avoid starvation the Spaniards left their fort and marched inland under the three Desmonds. On 1 7th Au- gust they separated into small parties. Sir John retired to the fastness of Lynamore ; Sir James to that of Glenflesk; whilst FitzMaurice, accompanied by a few horse- men and kerns, proceeded towards Tip- perary (on pretence of making a pilgrimage to Holycross Abbey), to rally the disaffected in Connaught and the north. In the dis- trict of Clanwilliam their horses gave out, and they seized some from the plough. These horses belonged to William Burke of Castleconnell, whose sons Theobald and Ulick, with Mac-I-Brian Ara, pursued the party, and came up with them a few miles east of Limerick, near the present Barrington's Bridge, i8th August 1579. FitzMaurice remonstrated with his assail- ants, but was fired at and mortally wound- ed. Even after this he rushed into the thick of the melee that ensued, with one blow cleft the head of Theobald Burke, and with another that of his brother. FitzMaurice expired in a few hours, the rites of religion being administered to him by Dr. Allan, who was in his company, "After that he was thus dead," says Holin- shed, " and the same made known to the lord iustice, he gaue order that he should be hanged in the open market of Killmal- locke, and be beheaded and quartered, and the quarters to be set upon the towne gates of Kilmallocke, for a perpetuall me- moriall to his reproch for his tresons and periuries, contrarie to his solemne oth taken in that errour." '*■• FitzMaurice left two sons, one of whom was shortly afterwards slain in the Irish wars, and the other is said to have perished by ship- wreck on the Irish coast in one of the vessels of the Spanish Armada. His widow andyoungerchildren died miserably shortly afterwards at the hands of the Anglo-Irish soldiers who were ravaging Desmond. [See Desmond, 15th Earl.] 5= 'oo 134 140 147 170. FitzMaurice, William, Earl of Shelburne, Marqiiis of Lansdowne, a distinguished statesman, was born in Dublin, 20th May 1737. [His father, on the decease of a maternal uncle, inherited the large Irish estates of his grandfather. Sir William Petty, and was in 1 753 created Earl of Shelburne.] His early years were spent in Munster with his grandfather, the Earl of Kerry. There he was allowed

FIT

to run wild. He owed his first steps in learning to the care of his aunt, Lady Arabella Denny. At sixteen he was sent to Christ Church, Oxford. Afterwards, entering the army, he served in Germany, and gave signal proof of personal valour at the battles of Kampen and Minden. At the accession of George III. he was appointed aide-de-camp to the King, with the rank of colonel. In 1761 he was elected member for Wycombe, a seat he held but for a few weeks, as upon his father's death on loth May of that year, he passed to the House of Lords as Earl of Shelburne in the Irish and Baron Wy- combe in the British peerage. In April 1763 he was, though not then twenty-six years of age, appointed to the head of the Board of Trade, and sworn of the Privy Council. In these official positions he re- ported upon the organization of the govern- ment and the settlement of boundaries of the newly-acquired Canadian territories. His strongly-worded representations as to the danger attending the proposed plans for the taxation of the American colonies, caused him to be regarded with disfavour by George III. On Grenville's modifi- cation of his cabinet in the following September, Shelburne resigned his office, and thenceforth remained closely united with Pitt, against whom, at the outset of his career, he had been strongly preju- diced. For more than a year he lived in retirement at Bowood, adding to his library and improving his estate. In 1766 Pitt, then Earl of Chatham, formed his second administration, and the Earl of Shelburne accepted the post of Secretary of State for the Southern Department, which included the colonies. As might have been expected from his previously declared opinions, he endeavoured to gain the good- will of the American colonies — putting himself in communication with their several agents in England, and seeking full information on the points in which the colonists regarded themselves aggrieved. In these good offices he was to some extent thwarted by his colleagues, and when illness obliged Lord Chatham to withdraw from an active share in the Government, the influence of Graf- ton, Townshend and others became para- mount, and Shelburne's conciliatory policy was cast to the winds. After the passage of the Import Duties Act, he would pro- bably have resigned, were it not that he considered himself bound to Chatham, then too ill to see any of his coadju- tors even on the most important affairs. The management of the colonies was shortly afterwards transferred to Lord Hillsborough, the other secretary, and