(_Continued from_ Vol. iv., p. 426.)
I feel much obliged to J. H. M., who writes from Bath, and has directed
my attention to Horace Walpole's "minute inquiry" respecting the "Old
Countess of Desmond," as also to "Pennant's Tours," all which I have had
opportunity of examining since I wrote to you last. The references do
not incline me to alter one word of the opinion I have ventured as to
the identity of this lady; on the contrary, with the utmost respect for
his name and services to the cause of antiquarian research, I propose to
show that Horace Walpole (whose interest in the question was, by his own
confession, but incidental, and ancillary to his historic inquiries into
the case of Richard III., and who had no direct data to go on) knew
nothing of the matter, and was quite mistaken as to the individual.
Before I proceed on this daring undertaking, I beg to say, that an
inspection of Pennant's print, called "The Old Countess of Desmond,"
_satisfies_ me that it is _not_ taken from a duplicate picture of that
in possession of the Knight of Kerry: though there certainly is a
resemblance in the faces of the two portraits, yet the differences are
many and decisive. Pennant says that there are "four other pictures in
Great Britain in the same dress, and without any difference of feature,"
besides that at Dupplin Castle, from which his print was copied; but
that of the Knight of Kerry must be reckoned as a sixth portrait, taken
at a _much more advanced period_ of life: in it the wrinkles and
features denote _extreme_ old age. The head-dresses are markedly
different, that of Pennant being a _cloth_ hood lying back from the face
in folds; in the Knight of Kerry's, the head-dress is more like a beaver
bonnet standing forward from the head, and throwing the face somewhat
into shade. In Pennant's, the cloak is plainly fastened by leathern
strap, somewhat after the manner of a laced shoe; in the other, the
fastening is a single button: but the difference most marked is this,
that the persons originally sitting for these pictures, looked opposite
ways, and, of course, presented different sides to the painter. So that,
in Pennant's plate, the _right side-face_ is forward; and in the other,
the left: therefore, these pictures are markedly and manifestly neither
the same, nor copies either of the other.
It does not concern us, in order to maintain the authority of our
_Irish_ picture, to follow up the question at issue between Pennant and
Walpole but I may here observe, that either must be wrong in an
important matter of fact. Walpole, in a note to his "Fugitive Pieces"
(Lord Orford's _Works_, vol. i. p. 210-17.), writes thus: "_Having by
permission of the Lord Chamberlain obtained a copy of the picture at
Windsor Castle, called The Countess of Desmond, I discovered that it is
not her portrait; on the back is written in an old hand, 'The Mother of
Rembrandt.'_" He then proceeds to prove the identity of this picture
with one given to King Charles I. by Sir Robert Car, "My Lord Ankrom"
(after Duke of Roxburg), and set down in the Windsor Catalogue as
"_Portrait of an old woman, with a great scarf on her head, by
Rembrandt_." Pennant's note differs from this in an essential
particular; he mentions this picture at Windsor Castle thus: "_This was
a present from Sir Robert Car, Earl of Roxburg, as is signified on the
back; above it is written with a pen,_ 'REMBRANDT' (not a word of his
_mother_), _which must be a mistake, for Rembrandt was not fourteen
years of age in 1614_, at a time when _it is certain (?) that the
Countess was not living, and ... it does not appear that he ever visited
England_."
The discrepancy of these two accounts is obvious--if it "_be written in
an old hand, 'The Mother of Rembrandt,'_" on the back of the picture, it
seems strange that Pennant should _omit_ the first three words; if they
be not so written, it seems equally strange that Walpole should venture
to _add_ them. I presume the picture at Windsor is still extant; and
probably some reader of "N. & Q." having access to it, will be so good
as to settle the question of accuracy and veracity between two
gentlemen, of whom one must be guilty of _suppressio veri_, or the other
of _suggestio falsi_.
Horace Walpole, or his editor, must have corrected his "Fugitive Pieces"
since the "Strawberry Hill edition," to which J. H. M. refers, was
printed; for in the edition I have consulted, instead of saying "I can
make no sense of the word _noie_," the meaning is correctly given in a
foot-note to the inscription; and the passage given by J. H. M. is
altogether omitted from the text.
I must now proceed in my bold attempt to show that Horace Walpole knew
nothing of a matter, into which he made a "minute inquiry." This may
seem presumptuous in a tyro towards one of the old masters of
antiquarian lore and research; but I plead in apology the great advance
of the science since Horace Walpole's days, and the greater plenty of
materials for forming or correcting a judgement. It has been well said,
that a single chapter of Mr. Charles Knight's _Old England_ would full
furnish and set up an antiquarian of the last century; and this is true,
such and so many are the advantages for obtaining information, which we
modern antiquaries possess over those who are gone before us; and
lastly, to quote old Fuller's quaintness, I would say that "a dwarf on a
giant's shoulders can see farther than he who carries him:" thus do I
explain and excuse my attempt to impugn the conclusion of Horace
Walpole.
Walpole's first conjectures applied to a Countess of Desmond, whose tomb
is at Sligo in Ireland, and who was widow to that _Gerald_, the
sixteenth earl, _ingens rebellibus exemplar_, who was outlawed, and
killed in the wood of _Glanagynty_, in the county of Kerry, A.D. 1583.
Walpole applied to an Irish correspondent for copies of the inscriptions
on her tomb; but we need not follow or discuss the supposition of her
identity with "the old Countess" further, for he himself abandons it,
and writes to his Irish correspondent thus:--"_The inscriptions you have
sent me have not cleared away the difficulties relating to the Countess
of Desmond; on the contrary, they make me doubt whether the lady
interred at Sligo was the person reported to have lived to such an
immense age._"
Well might he doubt it, for in no one particular could they be
identified: _e.g._ the lady buried at Sligo made her will in 1636, and
survived to 1656,--a date long beyond the latest assigned for the demise
of "the old Countess." Sir Walter Raleigh expressly says, "the old
Countess had _held her jointure from all the Earls of Desmond since the
time of Edward IV._," a description which could not apply to the widow
of a person who did not die until 1583, in the reign of Elizabeth. There
are many other _impossibilities_ in the case, discussed by Walpole, into
which it is unnecessary to follow him.
Walpole then reverts to the issue of Thomas, the sixth Earl of Desmond,
who was compelled to surrender his earldom, A.D. 1418, for making an
"inferior marriage;" and conjectures that "the old Countess" might have
been the wife of a grandson of his born 1452, or thereabouts, who would
be, as Walpole states, "a titular earl:" but this absurd supposition is
met by the fact of our "old Countess" enjoying a jointure from all the
earls _de facto_ in another line; a provision which the widow of an
adverse claimant to the earldom could hardly have made good.
Walpole's last conjecture, following the suggestion of Smith's _History
of Cork_, fixes on the widow of Thomas (_the twelfth earl_, according to
the careful pedigree of Sir William Betham, though Smith erroneously
calls him the thirteenth earl), and asserts the identity of the "old
Countess" with a _second_ wife, called "Catherine Fitzgerald of Dromana"
(the Dacres branch of the Geraldines): for this assertion Smith, in a
footnote, quotes "the Russel MSS.," and Walpole calls this "the most
positive evidence we have." Of the MSS. referred to, I can find no
further trace, and this "positive evidence" is weakened by the silence
of Lodge's _Peerage_ as to any second marriage of the earl in question,
while, on the contrary, he gives many probabilities against it. Thomas
(moyle, or bald), twelfth earl, succeeded to his nephew, James, the
eleventh earl, in 1529, being then in extreme age, and died in five
years after; he was the second brother of James, ninth earl, murdered in
1587--whose widow I affirm the old Countess to have been. Let us not
lose sight of the fact, that the "old Countess," by general consent, was
married in the reign of Edward IV., who died 1483. And I would ask, what
probability is there that a younger brother would be already married to
a _second wife_, in the lifetime of his elder brother, who is described
as murdered "while flourishing in wealth and power at the age of
twenty-nine years?" The supposition carries improbability on the face of
it; none of the genealogies mention this second marriage at all; and Dr.
Smith, whose county histories I have had particular occasion to examine,
was, though a diligent collector of _reports_, no antiquarian authority
to rely on. Above all, it is to be remembered, that Sir Walter Raleigh
calls her "_The old Countess of Desmond of_ INCHEQUIN:" this is in
itself proof, all but positive, that the lady was an _O'Bryen_, for none
other could have "part or lot" in the hereditary designation of that
family: hence I have no hesitation in adhering to the conclusion, which,
with slight correction of dates, I have adopted from accurate
authorities, that "MARGARET O'BRIEN, WIFE OF JAMES, NINTH EARL OF
DESMOND, WHO WAS MURDERED IN 1587, WAS THE GENUINE AND ONLY 'OLD
COUNTESS.'" Upon the only point on which I venture to correct my
authority, namely, as to the date of the earl's death, I find, on
reference to an older authority than any to which we have hitherto
referred, that my emendation is confirmed. In the Annals of the Four
Masters, compiled from more ancient documents still, in the year 1636, I
find, under the date 1487, the following: "The Earl of Desmond, James
Fitzgerald, was treacherously killed by his own people at Rathgeola
(Rathkeale, co. Limerick), at the instigation of his brother John."