Abstract
The historiography of women and gender in late medieval and early modern Ireland has advanced significantly in recent years. The Boydell Press has played a big part in this development, as its Irish Historical Monographs series is now home to a number of books by emerging scholars in the field. This includes Damien Duffy's Aristocratic Women in Ireland, 1450–1660, a cross-generational study of the female members of the powerful Ormond dynasty.
The application of a long lens to a single family is richly rewarding, as it provides significant insight into the roles and activities of aristocratic women in a period of profound political, religious, social and economic change. Duffy's work robustly substantiates Mary O’Dowd's contention that the cooperation of aristocratic women in dynastic politics was fundamentally important in sixteenth-century Ireland. Indeed, ‘far from remaining secluded in the private world of the home, elite women were compelled to participate in political affairs and responded to that imperative in a variety of ways’ (p. 3). That participation was not limited to local affairs, but extended to the epicentres of English authority in Dublin and London. Margaret Fitzgerald (wife of Piers Butler, eighth earl of Ormond) and Joan Fitzgerald (wife of James Butler, ninth earl of Ormond) serve as ‘outstanding’ but not ‘exceptional’ examples of aristocratic women's political influence and control in late medieval and early modern Ireland. They are but two among a total of twenty-one Ormond women, spanning six generations, who form the basis of Duffy's study.
From the outset, Duffy carefully situates the Ormond women within the wider context, as he ably demonstrates that ‘their ambitions, achievements, activities and failures were no different to their contemporaries in England’, with ‘their life cycles and lifestyles in many ways also mirroring those of their counterparts on the Continent’ (p. 1). Invoking the outward-looking scholarship of medievalists Christine Meek and Katherine Simms, Duffy's first chapter focuses on aristocratic women's lives in medieval and early modern Western Europe. This provides a solid contextual foundation, as Duffy traces the development of – and identifies similarities in – women's political, social, religious and economic functions; their legal status; their life cycles and attendant roles within their families; and their lived experiences. Duffy also builds a cultural bridge between the Ormond women and their European counterparts, noting that the library of Gearóid Óg Fitzgerald, the brother of Margaret Fitzgerald, countess of Ormond, contained an unnamed volume by Christine de Pisan.
Chapter two focuses on the Ormond women during and immediately following the Wars of the Roses, exploring a series of strategic marriage alliances that significantly advanced the family's position in England, while demonstrating the negative impact of prolonged absenteeism on their position in Ireland. In chapter three, Duffy deals with the crisis that resulted from the inheritance of the Ormond estate by Margaret Boleyn and Anne St Leger – the English-born and English-bred daughters of Thomas Butler, seventh earl of Ormond – in 1515. As Duffy points out, female inheritance in late medieval and early modern Ireland was unusual, but it was not unheard of (indeed, the Ormond entail had been changed in 1475 to permit heiresses). Anne and Margaret's gender made them vulnerable to usurpation by their distant relative, Piers Butler, but – as Duffy demonstrates – their claim was also weakened by their family's prolonged absence from Ireland, before being fatally wounded by the fall of Anne Boleyn.
Chapter four examines the role of Piers Butler's wife, Margaret Fitzgerald, in exercising ‘the first home-based control of the dynasty in seventy years’. Duffy emphasises the importance of Margaret's ‘physical presence’ in Kilkenny, as she was ‘resident in the heart of the earldom’ and ‘assumed a higher profile than any of her predecessors’ (p. 76). This allowed the politically astute Margaret to consolidate her husband's position and enhance the security of the dynasty. Chapter five follows the fortunes of Margaret's six daughters, whose strategic marriages to powerful Old English and Gaelic Irish families (mostly) helped to secure and advance the Ormond dynasty in Ireland, while their brothers made alliances in England.
Chapter six centres on Margaret's daughter-in-law, Joan Fitzgerald, who acted as an advocate and agent for her eldest son, Thomas (‘Black Tom’), the eventual tenth earl of Ormond. Duffy carefully traces Joan's political formation and motivation, particularly after the poisoning of her first husband, the ninth earl of Ormond. She is presented as an astute and ambitious actor, working to protect and advance her own position; to secure the earldom of Ormond; and to establish peace between her affinal family and her natal family, the Fitzgeralds’ of Desmond. As Duffy points out, Joan's success as a mediator between her son, Black Tom, and her third husband, Gerald Fitzgerald, fourteenth earl of Desmond, was evidenced by the quick unmaking of their truce after her death in 1565.
The final chapter examines ‘Black Tom's women’; that is the wives, daughter and granddaughter of the tenth earl. Amid a period of dynastic and wider political instability, these women were often compelled to act in circumstances that were largely beyond their control. Duffy highlights in particular the political dexterity of Black Tom's daughter, Elizabeth Butler, who navigated the succession crisis triggered by her father's death to claim her inheritance ‘in monetary if not in titular terms’ (p. 230). The book concludes with the marriage of Elizabeth's daughter, Elizabeth Preston, to her cousin, James Butler, twelfth earl of Ormond, and their elevation to the dukedom in 1660. The couple's ascent followed a remarkable period of political instability, but it could only be realised because the Ormond dynasty and the earldom had endured across time – in taking the ‘long perspective’, Duffy recognises the indispensable role of women in ensuring ‘the prosperity and stability of both’ (p. 230).
Duffy has produced a fascinating study of six generations of aristocratic women, which carefully considers and thus enriches understandings of the wider historical context. The comparative focus on England and Continental Europe adds a dimensionality that was previously underdeveloped and this is to be commended, although there might have been room for a deeper examination of the Ormond women's lived experience in comparison with (or contrast to) their Gaelic contemporaries. Given the cross-generational aspect of the work, it would also benefit from the provision of a family tree.
Overall, however, this is a well-researched, absorbing and important contribution to the field and it will be a valuable resource to students and scholars of late medieval and early modern Ireland for some time to come.