Richard Burke, 4th Earl of Clanricarde (also Richard de Burgh) (; ; ; ; 1572 – 12 November 1635) was an Irish nobleman and politician. He was the son of

Ulick Burke, 3rd Earl of Clanricarde Ulick Burke, 3rd Earl of Clanricarde (; ; ; ; died 1601), styled Lord Dunkellin (; ) until 1582, was an Irish peer who was the son of Richard Burke, 2nd Earl of Clanricarde and Margaret O'Brien. Career He had long been a rebel against the ...

. Knighted in 1602 for his exploits as leader of the English cavalry during the

Battle of Kinsale The siege of Kinsale, or Battle of Kinsale ( ga, Léigear/Cath Chionn tSáile), was the ultimate battle in England's conquest of Gaelic Ireland, commencing in October 1601, near the end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, and at the climax of t ...

, he would later serve as Governor of Connaught from 1604 to 1616, and as a member of the

Privy Council of Ireland His or Her Majesty's Privy Council in Ireland, commonly called the Privy Council of Ireland, Irish Privy Council, or in earlier centuries the Irish Council, was the institution within the Dublin Castle administration which exercised formal executi ...

. Having established himself as the largest and most influential landowner in

Connacht Connacht ( ; ga, Connachta or ), is one of the provinces of Ireland, in the west of Ireland. Until the ninth century it consisted of several independent major Gaelic kingdoms (Uí Fiachrach, Uí Briúin, Uí Maine, Conmhaícne, and Delbhn ...

, his later life was characterized by animosity between him and an increasingly hostile and acquisitive

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...

government.

Birth and origins

Richard was born in 1572, the second but first surviving son of Ulick Burke and his wife Honora Burke. His father was the 3rd Earl of Clanricarde. His father's family was

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...

and descended from

William de Burgh William de Burgh (; ; ; la, de Burgo; c.1160–winter 1205/06) was the founder of the House of Burgh (later surnamed Burke or Bourke) in Ireland and elder brother of Hubert de Burgh, 1st Earl of Kent and Geoffrey de Burgh, Bishop of Ely. I ...

(died 1206) who arrived in Ireland during the reign of King Henry II, and was the founder of the

House of Burgh The House of Burgh or Burke (; ; ; ga, de Búrca; la, de Burgo) was an ancient Anglo-Norman and later Hiberno-Norman aristocratic dynasty (with the Anglo-Irish branches later adopting the surname Burke and its variants) who held the earldom ...

in Ireland. His mother was a daughter of John Burke of Clogheroka and Tullyra,

County Galway "Righteousness and Justice" , anthem = () , image_map = Island of Ireland location map Galway.svg , map_caption = Location in Ireland , area_footnotes = , area_total_km2 = ...

. Her family was a cadet branch of his father's line. Richard had brothers and sisters who are listed in his father's article.

Early life

Burke studied at

Christ Church, Oxford Christ Church ( la, Ædes Christi, the temple or house, '' ædēs'', of Christ, and thus sometimes known as "The House") is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, the college is uniqu ...

from 1584 to 1598 and completed an M.A. degree. Burke fought for Queen

Elizabeth I Elizabeth I (7 September 153324 March 1603) was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. Elizabeth was the last of the five House of Tudor monarchs and is sometimes referred to as the "Virgin Queen". El ...

against the rebel Irish lordships and their Spanish allies during the

Nine Years' War The Nine Years' War (1688–1697), often called the War of the Grand Alliance or the War of the League of Augsburg, was a conflict between France and a European coalition which mainly included the Holy Roman Empire (led by the Habsburg monarch ...

Clanricarde

On 20 May 1601 Burke succeeded his father as the 4th Earl of Clanricarde.

Marriage and children

In 1603, Clanricarde married

Frances Walsingham Frances Burke, Countess of Clanricarde, Dowager Countess of Essex ( Walsingham, formerly Devereux and Sidney; 1567 – 17 February 1633) was an English noblewoman. The daughter of Sir Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth I's Secretary of State, ...

, the widow of

Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, KG, PC (; 10 November 1565 – 25 February 1601) was an English nobleman and a favourite of Queen Elizabeth I. Politically ambitious, and a committed general, he was placed under house arrest following a ...

, daughter of

Francis Walsingham Sir Francis Walsingham ( – 6 April 1590) was principal secretary to Queen Elizabeth I of England from 20 December 1573 until his death and is popularly remembered as her "spymaster". Born to a well-connected family of gentry, Wals ...

. Richard and Frances had one son: # Ulick, his successor —and two daughters: #Mary, married Edward Butler of Ballinahinch, 6th son of

James Butler, 9th Earl of Ormond James Butler, 9th Earl of Ormond and 2nd Earl of Ossory ( – 1546), known as the Lame (Irish: ''Bacach''), was in 1541 confirmed as Earl of Ormond thereby ending the dispute over the Ormond earldom between his father, Piers Butler, 8th Earl o ...

as his 2nd wife #Honora (d. 1661), married 1st Garrat McCloghlan and 2ndly

John Paulet, 5th Marquis of Winchester John Paulet, 5th Marquess of Winchester (c. 1598 – 5 March 1675), styled Lord John Paulet until 1621 and Lord St John from 1621 to 1628, was the third but eldest surviving son of William Paulet and his successor as 5th Marquess of Winchester. ...

Later life

By 1633 he was not only one of the principal landowners in Ireland, but virtually all-powerful in

County Galway "Righteousness and Justice" , anthem = () , image_map = Island of Ireland location map Galway.svg , map_caption = Location in Ireland , area_footnotes = , area_total_km2 = ...

. This aroused the resentment of the

Government, which decided to use the method of empanelling juries to "find" defective titles, in order to recover the lands in question for the

English Crown This list of kings and reigning queens of the Kingdom of England begins with Alfred the Great, who initially ruled Wessex, one of the seven Anglo-Saxon kingdoms which later made up modern England. Alfred styled himself King of the Anglo-Sax ...

. In 1634 Strafford held such a jury in Portumna Castle. However the jury refused to deliver the desired verdict.

Death

The treatment that Clanricarde experienced from the

Lord Deputy of Ireland The Lord Deputy was the representative of the monarch and head of the Irish executive (government), executive under English rule, during the Lordship of Ireland and then the Kingdom of Ireland. He deputised prior to 1523 for the Viceroy of Ireland ...

, Thomas Wentworth, was said to have hastened his death in November 1635. Wentworth, however, pointed to the Earl's advancing years as the obvious cause, and asked sarcastically whether he was to blame for a man being over sixty. The feud, which was continued by Clanricarde's son and heir, was in the long run very damaging to Strafford, who apparently did not reflect on the close connections that Clanricarde, through his wife, had with just that faction of the English nobility, the Rich-Devereux clan, who were most hostile to Strafford.

Birth and origins

Early life

Clanricarde

Marriage and children

Later life

Death

Arms

Notes and references

Notes

Citation

Sources

Further reading