Desmond, Maurice fitz Thomas, 1st earl of

Desmond, Maurice fitz Thomas, 1st earl of (d. 1356), the most turbulent noble of his time. In 1332 Munster juries accused him of conspiracies with Anglo‐Irish and Gaelic lords to become king of Ireland. In 1346 he was indicted of treasonable correspondence with Scotland and France, and of offering to rule Ireland as papal deputy. He was imprisoned in 1331–3, and was outlawed again from 1345 to 1349, before being restored by Edward III and becoming justiciar in 1355. Historians have presented him variously as leader of a colonial ‘patriot party’, as the archetypal over‐mighty magnate, and as an example of Gaelicization. The more lurid accusations came from those he had oppressed, when Dublin officials were busily justifying their actions against him. They possibly arose from bardic verse praising him as kingworthy. Edward III seems not to have taken them seriously. While Desmond pushed his power well beyond its legal limits, he was a frontier magnate who had to strike a difficult balance—maintaining regional dominance through a combination of military force and the cultivation of political links with those outside the peace, while at the same time keeping royal favour. He served the crown during the Bruce invasion, received his earldom and the liberty of Kerry in England in 1329, fought in Scotland in 1335, and in 1346–8 lodged with his mother's family, the Berkeleys, in Gloucestershire while negotiating his restoration. The problems he had in reconciling the two aspects of his career arose largely from conflicts over land in Thomond and Cork, in which royal ministers upheld the interests of absentees.

Robin Frame