Charles MacCarty, Viscount Muskerry

Charles was born in 1633 or 1634,[1] [2][lower-alpha 1] probably at Blarney Castle, County Cork, Ireland. He was the third child and eldest son of Donough MacCarty and his wife Eleanor (or Ellen) Butler. His father belonged to the MacCarthy of Muskerry dynasty, an ancient Gaelic Irish family that descended from the kings of Desmond. At the time of Charles's birth his father was the Viscount Muskerry, but he would later become the Earl of Clancarty. Charles's mother was the eldest sister of James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormond.[3] The Butlers were an Old English family that played an important role in south-eastern Ireland since the Norman invasion of that country. Charles's parents were both Catholic. They had married before 1641.[4]

Charles heads the list of his brothers below as the eldest:

1. Charles (1633 or 1634 – 1665);
2. Callaghan (c. 1638 – 1676), succeeded his brother's son as the 3rd Earl of Clancarty;[5] and
3. Justin (c. 1643 – 1694), fought for the Jacobites and became Viscount Mountcashel.[6][7]

He also had sisters:

1. Helen (died 1722), became Countess of Clanricarde;[8]
2. Margaret (died 1703), became Countess of Fingal;[9]

His father, Lord Muskerry, commanded the Confederates' Munster army and fought the Parliamentarians during the Cromwellian Conquest of Ireland. Muskerry fought to the bitter end and surrendered Ross Castle near Killarney to Englishman Edmund Ludlow on 27 June 1652, disbanding his 5000-strong army.[10][11] Charles was with him in Ross Castle and was given to Ludlow as hostage to guarantee his father's compliance with the terms.[12]

His mother and his siblings had fled to France already some time before the capture of Ross Castle. His mother lived with her sister Mary Butler, Lady Hamilton, in the convent of the Feuillantines in Paris,[13]

His father was allowed to embark to Spain.[14] The family's estates were lost in the Act of Settlement of 1652,[15] passed by the English Rump Parliament on 12 August. Muskerry found that he was not welcome in Spain and returned to Ireland in 1653, where he was put on trial in Dublin for the murder of English settlers in 1641. However, it was established that he tried to save them and he was acquitted.[16]

At about 1653 he was reunited with his parents and siblings in France. that time France was in the Franco-Spanish War (1635–1659). Charles took French service and commanded an Irish regiment that was part of the garrison of Condé-sur-l'Escaut when the town was taken by the Spanish shortly after the Spanish victory at Valenciennes on 16 July 1656.[17][18] He changed side together with his regiment and served Charles II in Spanish pay. This regiment was then called the Duke of York's regiment after Charles II's brother the Duke of York and furture James II. He commanded this regiment at the Battle of the Dunes on 14 June 1658 where if formed part of the English royalist army under the Duke of York that fought together with the Spanish on the losing side against the victorious French and Protectorate English.[19]

On 27 November 1658 his father was created Earl of Clancarty by Charles II in Brussels, where he was then in exile. By this advancement the title of Viscount of Muskerry became the highest subsidiary title of the family, which was then given as courtesy title to the Earl's heir apparent. In consequence Charles was styled Viscount Muskerry thereafter.[20]

At the Restoration Lord Muskerry, as he now was, did not accompany the King to Dover in May 1660 but stayed with his regiment in Flanders at least until 1661. His father, Earl Clancarty, recovered his estates in the Act of Settlement 1662. In that year Muskerry was summoned to the Irish House of Lords as Viscount Muskerry.[21]

In 1660 or 1661 he married Lady Margaret Bourke, a rich heiress, the only child of Ulick Burke, 1st Marquess of Clanricarde and Lady Anne Compton.[22][23]

They had two children:

1. Frances (1662–1675), died young;[24][25] and
2. Charles (1663–1666), succeeded his grandfather as the 2nd Earl, but died as an infant.[26][27]

Lord and Lady Muskerry frequently attended the court at Whitehall. In July 1663 they went with the court to take the waters at Tunbridge Wells during which visit the Muskerrys as well as Elizabeth Hamilton and Elizabeth Wetenhall stayed at nearby Summerhill House, which had been built by Lady Muskerry's grandfather, Richard Burke, 4th Earl of Clanricarde and had been given back to her at the Restoration.[28] This is described by Antoine Hamilton in his semi-fictional Mémoires du comte de Gramont (written 1704–1710).[29]

In Chapter 7 of the Mémoires du comte de Gramont we are told how Elizabeth Hamilton made fun of Lady Muskerry by making her believe that she had been invited to a masquerade by the King and had to disguise herself as a Babylonian woman.[30] She was however not invited to this masquerade which happened in February 1665.[31][32]

The Second Anglo-Dutch War broke out on 4 March 1665. Muskerry was killed on 3 June 1665 in the Battle of Lowestoft, a naval engagement, on board of the flagship, the Royal Charles, by a cannonball, which also killed Charles Berkeley, 1st Earl of Falmouth.[33][1] He was 31 years old.[2] Muskerry was buried on 19 June with great pomp at Westminster Abbey.[34][35]

Muskerry had an infant son, also called Charles, who succeeded him as heir apparent and Viscount of Muskerry. However, the 1st Earl died on 4 August 1665[36] surviving him by only two months, and the younger Charles became the 2nd Earl. Sadly, the 2nd Earl died about a year later, on 22 September 1666, still an infant. Thereupon Callaghan, his uncle, succeeded as the 3rd Earl of Clancarty.[37]

His widow made two further marriages: to Robert Villiers, and to Robert Fielding. She died in 1698 at Somerhill House.[38] Her widower made a scandalous and bigamous marriage to Barbara Palmer, 1st Duchess of Cleveland, former royal mistress of Charles II.[39]

• Butler Dynasty, for his mother's family.
• Earl of Clancarty, for his fathers title
• MacCarthy of Muskerry, for his father's family.

• Carte, Thomas (1851), The Life of James Duke of Ormond, 3 (new ed.), Oxford: Oxford University Press - 1643–1660
• Chester, Joseph Lemuel (1876), Registers of Westminster Abbey, London: Private Edition
• Clark, Ruth (1921), Anthony Hamilton: his Life and Works and his Family, London: John Lane
• Coffey, Diarmid (1914), O'Neill and Ormond - A Chapter of Irish History, Dublin: Maunsel & Company
• Cokayne, George Edward (1893), The complete peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, extant, extinct, or dormant, 5 (1st ed.), London: John Colbran – L to M (for Mountcashel)
• Cokayne, George Edward (1913), Gibbs, Vicary (ed.), The complete peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, extant, extinct, or dormant, 3 (2nd ed.), London: St Catherine Press – Canonteign to Cutts (for Clancarty)
• Cokayne, George Edward (1926), Gibbs, Vicary (ed.), The complete peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, extant, extinct, or dormant, 5 (2nd ed.), London: St Catherine Press - EARDLEY OF SPALDING to GOOJERAT (for Fingall)
• Cunningham, Peter (1888), "Appendix A: On the chronology of the English portion of de Grammont's memoirs", The Story of Nell Gwyn
• D'Alton, Rev. E. A. (1910), History of Ireland from the Earliest Times to the Present Day, 4, London: The Gresham Publishing Company - 1649 to 1782
• Evelyn, John (1901), Bray, William (ed.), The Diary of John Evelyn, 2 (new, in two volumes ed.), New York & London: M. Walter Dunn (1665 – 1706)
• Firth, Charles Harding (1894a), The Memoirs of Henry Ludlow, Oxford, pp. 67–119
• Firth, Charles Harding (1894b), "Royalist and Cromwellian Armiews in Flanders (1657–1662)", Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, New Series, 17
• Hamilton, Anthony (1930), Memoirs of the Comte de Gramont, translated by Quennell, Peter, New York: E. P. Dutton and Company
• Lainé, P. Louis (c. 1830), Histoire généalogique de la maison de Mac-Carthy (in French), Paris?: A. Pinard
• Lodge, John (1789a), The Peerage of Ireland, 1, Dublin: James Moore - Blood royal, dukes, earls (for Clanricarde)
• Lodge, John (1789b), The Peerage of Ireland, 4, Dublin: James Moore - Viscounts (for Thurles)
• Ohlmeyer, Jane (2004), "Maccarthy, Donough, first earl of Clancarty (1594–1665)", in Matthew, Colin; Harrison, Brian (eds.), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 35, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 107–108, ISBN 0-19-861385-7 - Macan–Macpherson
• Pepys, Samuel (1894), Wheatley, Henry Benjamin (ed.), The Diary of Samuel Pepys, 4, London: George Bell and Sons - 1 January 1662/3 – 29/30 June 1665
• Phippen, James (1840), Colbran's New Guide to Tunbridge Wells, London: John Lane
• Turner, David (2004), "Feilding, Robert (1650/51–1712)", in Matthew, Colin; Harrison, Brian (eds.), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 19, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. page/242/ 242–243, ISBN 0-19-861369-5
• Wauchope, Piers (2004), "Maccarthy, Justin, first Viscount Mountcashel (1643–1694)", in Matthew, Colin; Harrison, Brian (eds.), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 35, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 111–112, ISBN 0-19-861385-7
• Webb, Alfred (1878a), "MacCarty, Donough, Viscount Muskerry, Earl of Clancarty", Compendium of Irish Biography, Dublin: M. H. Gill & Son, p. 303, right column, line 35 (for his father)
• Webb, Alfred (1878b), "MacCarty, Charles", Compendium of Irish Biography, Dublin: M. H. Gill & Son, p. 303, right column, line 53
• Wills, Rev. James (1841), "Ulick, fifth Earl of Clanricarde", Lives of Illustrious and Distinguished Irishmen, 3, Glasgow: MacGregor, Polson & Co, pp. 74–78

• Genealogy of Charles MacCarty, Viscount Muskerry on The Peerage website