Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 19.djvu/120

Fitzgerald FITZGERALD, GEORGE, sixteenth (1611–1660), was son of Thomas, second son of William Fitzgerald, thirteenth earl of Kildare, by Frances, daughter of Thomas Randolph, postmaster-general in England under Queen Elizabeth. George Fitzgerald was in his ninth year when, in 1620, he inherited the Kildare peerage, on the death of Gerald, the fifteenth earl, at the age of eight years and ten months. Earl George was given in wardship by the king to the Duke of Lennox. On the decease of the latter his widow transferred the wardship of the minor and his estates to Richard Boyle, earl of Cork, for 6,600l. Kildare studied for a time at Christ Church, Oxford, and in his eighteenth year married Joan, fourth daughter of Lord Cork. He appears to have been much under the influence of that astute adventurer; but occasional differences occurred between them, for the settlement of which the intervention of the lord deputy, Wentworth, was obtained. A portrait of Kildare, painted in 1632, in which he is represented as of diminutive stature, is extant at Carton, the residence of the Duke of Leinster. There is also preserved at Carton a transcript, made in 1633 for Kildare, of an ancient volume known as the 'Red Book of the Earls of Kildare.' Kildare sat for the first time in the House of Peers, Ireland, in 1634, and was appointed colonel of a foot regiment in the English army in Ireland. With pecuniary advances from Lord Cork Kildare rebuilt the decayed castle of his ancestors at Maynooth in the county of Kildare. James Shirley, the dramatist, during his visit to Dublin in 1637-8, was befriended by Kildare, and dedicated to him his tragi-comedy entitled 'The Royal Master,' acted at the castle and the theatre, Dublin, in 1638. Kildare was about that time committed to prison for having disobeyed an order made by the lord deputy for the delivery of documents connected with a suit at law with Lord Digby. In 1641 Kildare was appointed governor of the county of Kildare, and subsequently took part with the leaders of the protestant party in Ireland in opposing the movements of the Irish catholics to obtain from Charles I redress of their grievances. Correspondence between Kildare and the viceroy, Ormonde, in 1644 appears in the third and fourth volumes of the 'History of the Irish Confederation and War.' In January 1645-6 Kildare and the Marquis of Clanricarde became sureties to the extent of 10,000l. each for the Earl of Glamorgan, on the occasion of his liberation from prison at Dublin. Kildare acted as governor of Dublin under the parliamentarian colonel, Michael Jones, in 1647, and in 1649 he received a pension of 46s. weekly from the government. In a subsequent petition to the chief justice of Munster Kildare stated that during eleven years he and his family had been driven to great extremities and endured much hardship in England and Ireland through his constant adherence and faithful affection to the parliament of England; that he was then, for debt, under restraint in London, and had despatched his wife and some of his servants to Ireland in hopes to raise a considerable sum out of his estate for his enlargement and subsistence. By his wife, who died in 1656, he had three sons and six daughters. Kildare died early in 1660. He was buried at Kildare. His second son, Wentworth Fitzgerald, succeeded him as seventeenth earl of Kildare. [Archives of the Duke of Leinster; Ormonde Archives (Kilkenny Castle); Diaries of the Earl of Cork; Carte Papers (Bodleian Library), vol. xvi.; History of the Irish Confederation and War, 1643-6 (Dublin, 1885-9); Works of James Shirley, 1833; History of the City of Dublin, 1854; Hist. MSS. Comm. 9th Rep. 1884; The Earls of Kildare, by the Marquis of Kildare, 1858-62.]  FITZGERALD, GEORGE ROBERT (1748?–1786), known as 'Fighting Fitzgerald,' was a descendant of the Desmond branch of the great Geraldine family, anciently settled in Waterford, but removed in the time of Cromwell to county Mayo. He was the eldest son of George Fitzgerald, who was for some time an officer in the Austrian service, by Lady Mary Hervey, formerly maid of honour to the Princess Amelia, and sister to the Earl of Bristol, bishop of Deny. He was educated at Eton, which he left to join the army, his first quarters being at Galway. He soon became noted for his gallantry, his recklessness, and his duels. Having at Dublin made the acquaintance of the sister of the Right Hon. Thomas Conolly of Castletown, cousin of the Duke of Leinster, he married her against the wishes of her parents, receiving with her a fortune of 10,000l. Soon afterwards he went to the continent, where his wife died, leaving an only daughter. In 1773 he gained celebrity in connection with a fracas at Vauxhall relating to an actress, Mrs. Hartley. A clergyman, the Rev. Henry Bate [see ], who protected the actress against the familiarities of Fitzgerald and his friends, had, however, much the best of the quarrel (see The Vauxhall Dispute, or the Macaronies Defeated; being a compilation of all the Letters, Squibs, &c., on both sides of the Dispute, 1773). Fitzgerald married a second time the only 