The Countess of Desmond

She was Katherine/Catherine FitzGerald, it seems.

Here's a link to an article about her.

http://members.aol.com/desmondearls/oldcountess4.htm

Katy

--- In , oregonkaty
<no_reply@y...> wrote:
> She was Katherine/Catherine FitzGerald, it seems.
>
> Here's a link to an article about her.
>
> http://members.aol.com/desmondearls/oldcountess4.htm
>
> Katy

An interesting article.

The one thing that's fairly clear is that this particular countess
didn't live to be 140, and wouldn't have danced with the Duke of
Gloucester.
Possibly a predecessor had (either a previous countess or a direct
ancestress - Katherine was a FitzGerald by birth, and her grandfather
was a brother of the Earl executed in Drogheda in 1468 on Tiptoft's
orders). Analogy with Eleanor who really did all that walking.

Or maybe, given her supposed age, the dancing with Richard story just
developed as pure whimsy along with dying by falling out ofd the
cherry tree (reminds me of Sir Marmaduke Constable, one of Richard
III's knights, whose age when he excelled himself at Flodden seems
also to have been exaggerated, and who is reputed to have finally
died (when old age couldn't kill him) choking on a frog which had
jumped into his drink of water.
Even as whimsy, though, does the dancing story suggest that the
family were known for having maintained a favourable opinion of
Richard III?
Isn't oral tradition tantalising?

Marie

On Jun 13, 2005, at 23:08, mariewalsh2003 wrote:

> Even as whimsy, though, does the dancing story suggest that the
> family were known for having maintained a favourable opinion of
> Richard III?
> Isn't oral tradition tantalising?
>

Bad press for Richard?
Here are some of the things said about one of my other heroes,
Maximilien Robespierre, whose reputation has surely to be even worse
than our Richard's.

This is what AIMÉE DE COIGNY, DUCHESSE DE FLEURY, ROYALIST, AGENT OF
BRITISH SECRET SERVICE said about him.
"During his(Robespierre) ascendancy I suffered prison, was almost
guillotined, and saw many friends and relations dispatched to the
scaffold. If I have so little hatred for his memory, this is due to
my conviction that all the enormities enacted by his forerunners, his
associates, betrayers and destroyers have been heaped on his
reputation. His most obsequious flunkeys were his loudest killers,
burdening him with the entire mass of blood enveloping the Terror,
which he might have ended by disposing of them.
In beheading Robespierre, these curs finished off their own Jacobin
revolution and the methods on which they relied so as to grab the
succession; they lacked time to keep pace with the legend they were
establishing. In human memory the defeated are always malodorous. At
least I am prepared to grant M. de Robespierre the fine title of
'Incorruptible'."

Another said "He has become the scapegoat of the revolutionists; but
he was the best man of them all. I still treasure the memory of him
and the lively affection he inspired."

Affection for that monster, who sent countless thousands to their
deaths?
How could anyone feel affection for such a man? His admirers,
Napoleon Bonaparte amongst them, describe him as
"the saint of democracy, whose one desire was that liberty should
triumph."

Salut et Fraternité
Paul