William FitzMaurice
1633 – 1697
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William FitzMaurice, Lord Kerry, was born in 1633 and was a Jacobite: he fought for James the Second at the Boyne and followed him into exile in France, where he died in the spring of 1697. His daughter Honora had meanwhile married into the Piers family, whose head had been knighted by Henry Cromwell, so that the two halves of this family's Irish inheritance had by then taken opposite sides in every war of the century.
Research notes
✓ DOCUMENTED (Burke's Peerage LANSDOWNE lineage pp.2238-39, photographed 21 Jul 2026; also PIERS articles): WILLIAM FITZMAURICE, 18TH BARON OF KERRY AND LIXNAW (so numbered in modern Burke's; the Victorian LGI/Cokayne style him "20th Lord Kerry" - NUMBERING VARIES BY EDITION, same man); b. 1633; A JACOBITE - "fought for JAMES II at the Battle of the Boyne 1690 and went with JAMES to France afterwards"; m. c. 1665 CONSTANCE LONG; d. March 1696/7. Children per the Lansdowne lineage: Thomas 1st EARL of Kerry, William of Gallane, James of Kilmihill, "1a HONORA; m SIR WILLIAM PIERS, BT, OF TRISTERNAGH" (OUR LINE - the Piers marriage confirmed from the Kerry side, closing the triangle), and Constance (m. John Odell of Ballingarry). Head of the ancient Geraldine FitzMaurice line; his later descendants incl. the Petty-Fitzmaurice Marquesses of Lansdowne (collateral). Story: Honora's father was a Jacobite exile while her husband's family owed knighthood to Henry Cromwell. BURIED (Bourke, JCHAS 26, 1920, which styles him '20th Lord') UNDER THE MAUSOLEUM 'erected on a wooded height to the north east of Lixnaw village' - a visitable direct-ancestor grave; the article's claim that the family 'escaped the confiscations' of 1690-91 sits awkwardly with his documented Boyne/France Jacobite service - reconciled presumably by his son Thomas's peace with William III; flagged, not resolved. Direct ancestor. Added 21 Jul 2026; extended same day; JCHAS material 22 Jul 2026.