Mabel (Browne) FitzGerald (abt. 1536 - 1610)

Born about 1536 in Sussex, England

Ancestors

Descendants

Died 25 Aug 1610 at about age 74 in Ireland [uncertain]

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Biography

Mabel Browne was born about 1536, the daughter of Sir Anthony Browne and Alice Gage. ^[1]

She married on 28 May 1554, to Gerald FitzGerald, 1st/11th Earl of Kildare, son of Gerald FitzGerald, 9th Earl of Kildare and Lady Elizabeth Grey. From 28 May 1554, her married name became FitzGerald. As a result of her marriage, Mabel Browne was styled as Countess of Kildare on 28 May 1554.

Kildare settled the Manors of Maynooth and Graney on his Countess in 1566; ^[2]

After the Earl's death in 1585 with the manors of Maynooth and Graney as her dower, she resided in the faire house of Maynooth. ^[2]

She was named in her brother Anthony's 1592 will. ^[3]

Fynes Moryson, the traveller and Lord Deputy Mountjoy's secretary during Tyrone's Rebellion wrote that 10 Jan 1600 / 01 he passed by Menouth, a faire house belonging to the Earles of Kildare, now in the hands of the Countess Mabell an old widdow. ^[4]

She wrote to Lord Salisbury expressing her sorrow that the late great treasons should have been plotted at Maynooth, and strongly asserted her own innocence. Namely that in 1606 Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone and Rory O'Donnell, Earl of Tyrconnel, who had married her grand-daughter Lady Bridget Fitzgerald, unknown to the Countess, and in the Castle garden proposed to Richard Lord Delvin, her grandson to take part in a general insurrection. ^[2]

Mabel was much troubled in her last years by a lawsuit brought by her granddaughter Lettice Digby, claiming that the Earl's will had been fraudulently altered."

She died on 25 August 1610 and was buried beside the Earl at St. Bridget's Cathedral, Kildare.

Children of Mabel Browne and Gerald FitzGerald, 11th Earl of Kildare]]; 3 son & 2 daughters:-

1. Mary Fitzgerald (b.c. 1556 -1610), m. 1584 Christopher Nugent, 6th Baron Delvin, - issue. ^[5]
2. Gerald FitzGerald, (1559 - 1580); Lord Offaly, Lord Garratt (28 December 1559 – June 1580), m. October 1578, Catherine Knollys, a granddaughter of Mary Boleyn. Issue - Lettice Digby, 1st Baroness Offaly who married Sir Robert Digby. ^[6] (These were the direct ancestors of the celebrated 19th-century adventuress Jane Digby).
3. Henry 'Na Tuagh' Fitzgerald 12th Earl of Kildare, (1562–1597), married Lady Frances Howard by whom he had female issue. ^[7]
4. Elizabeth Fitzgerald (b c 1563 - 1617) married Donough MacConnor O'Brien, the 4th Earl of Thomond, by whom she had issue. ^[8]
5. William Fitzgerald 13th Earl of Kildare (d. April 1599), died unmarried.

Sources

1. ↑ Browne, Sir Anthony (c.1500-48), of Battle Abbey and Cowdray Park. Sussex.
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1 2.2} Fitzgerald, Charles William; Duke of Leinster; The Earls of Kildare, and Their Ancestors From 1057 to 1773 pub 1858 pg 225
3. ↑ West Sussex Record Office, ref. SAS-BA/67, catalogue entry
4. ↑ Hore, Herbert Francis, Ed. - The Rental Book of Gerald Ninth Earl of Kildare A D 1518 Continued; in The Journal of the Kilkenny and South-east of Ireland Archaeological Society, Volume 5; Volume 8 pg 516 / 517
5. ↑ Historical sketch of the Nugent family Pub.1853
6. ↑ Dictionary of Irish Biography - Lettice Fitzgerald
7. ↑ A compendium of Irish biography: comprising sketches of distinguished Irishmen, and of eminent persons connected with Ireland by office or by their writings. Alfred Webb pub 1878
8. ↑ Dictionary of NationalBbiography Stephen, Leslie, Sir, pub 1885 pg 314

• GO MS 66. Ireland. Genealogical Office. Funeral Entries, Vol. 3, Containing Armorial and Genealogical Notes Made By Officers of Arms Concerning Deceased Persons, With, in Some Cases, Illustrations of Their Arms and Funeral Processions. 1604. Page 26. (Image 53) Genealogical Office Manuscripts Collection, National Library of Ireland.

See Also

Wikipedia Mabel Browne, Countess of Kildare

The Peerage