Page:The Complete Peerage Ed 2 Vol 1.djvu/447

 BALTiNGLAss COMPLETE PEERAGE 397 After his death nothing very definite is known as to any assumption ot the title. He had 4 yr. brothers of whom one or possibly two surv. him. They all took part in the rebellion of 1581, and were attainted, and all apparently d. unm. They were (i) Thomas, 3rd s. of the 2nd Viscount, executed 1582. (2) William, (") 4th s., slain in rebellion, 21 Apr. liSi.C) (3) Walter, taken prisoner 1583, and, as some say, then executed, (") although in a list of those slain by the Earl of Kildare's troops i Mar. i599/i'6oo, appears the name of "Walter Eustace, pretended to be Viscount Baltinglass. " f ) (4) Richard, 6th and yst. s., was living in Paris 1580, and was a Priest in Rome in Jan. 1595/6. IV. 1627. I. Thomas Roper, (') Knighted at Christchurch, Dub- lin, 16 Sep. 1603, a member of the Privy Council [I.], and a distinguished commander in that Kingdom during the reigns of Elizabeth and James I, obtained, 10 Nov. 1626, a grant of the monastery and Lordship of Baltinglass, and was, on 27 June 1627, cr. BARON OF 1596, reports — " In an Irish ship called The Sonday, cast away, were lost 14 Irish of name, capital rebels. Among the Irish lost is Edmund Eustace, called the Lord Baltinglass. " The above two entries show either that the report of Edmund's death in 1594, as in the text, was incorrect, or that they refer to another Edmund, possibly hiss., who assumed the title after his death. V.G. (*) The petition, in 1839, of the Rev. Charles Eustace {d. 5 Jan. 1856, at a great age) claiming to be the h. male of the body of this William, who, he alleged, was living in London and styling himself" Viscount Baltinglass" in 1610, (a state- ment which, though possibly true of some William Eustace, was not true of this William, who, moreover, was not as alleged in the petition, next surv. br. of the 3rd Viscount) seeking for the acknowledgement of his right to the title, was favourably reported upon by the law officers of Ireland and England, subject to the reversal of the attainder. See an account of these proceedings as also of the then state of the family in Burke's Extinct Peerage, 1 883, p. 191. C) " The head of William Eustace, another of Baltinglass's brethren taken this morning. " (L. Bryskett to Walsingham, Cal. State Papers [I.]). V.G. O'G.D.Burtchaell writes to G.E.C. in May 1907, — "There can be no doubt, I think, that Walter, 4th s. of the 2nd Viscount was executed in 1583. He was apprehended in that year, and the Government would never have let him escape. Had he done so, there would surely have been some reference to it. Walter Eustace, slain I 599/1600, is evidently the Viscount referred to by the Lord Deputy, 19 Aug. 1596, as "set up " by the O'Neills, and does not appear to have been a son of any of the attainted brethren. He was probably a grandson of the 1st Viscount, who had, besides his successor, Richard E., of Little Bouley, Alexander E., of Colbins- town, and Robert E., of Tulloghgowrey. " V.G. C) Hist. MSS. Com., App';, 9th Rep., p. 292. V.G. f) It is difficult to suppose that he belonged to the Derbyshire family of Roper of Heanor, whose arms {Sa., an eagle, or) differ so entirely from his own, which were " Erm., 2 chevronels, paly of six or and gu. " Yet in the Heraldic Visitation of Derbyshire, in 1634, at the College of Arms (C. 33, pt. i, p. 27), some ground is given for such (the generally received) conjecture.