Second paragraph of third chapter (a long ‘un, again):

The Normans were at this time the foremost race in Christendom. Their courage and ruthlessness had made them conspicuous among the rovers from Scandinavia who ravaged Western Europe. Their sails had been the terror of both coasts of the Channel, long before they conquered and settled in Gaul. But – unlike the previous Scandinavian warriors – the Normans were not content to remain seafarers. They became landsmen. And in land warfare, they cast aside the weapons of their forefathers and learnt to handle the weapons of their newly-won land with greater prowess than they had ever been handled before. They had archers with bows carrying death at a distance; they had cavalry clad in mail armour, and armed with long lances and glittering kite-shaped shields. In the province of Normandy they founded a mighty state, which gradually extended its influence over the neighbouring provinces of Brittany and Maine. And, without laying aside that dauntless valour which terrorized every land from the Elbe to the Pyrences, the Normans rapidly acquired all, and more than all, the knowledge and refinement which they found in the country where they settled. They established internal order. They adopted the French tongue, in which Latin was the main element, and raised it to a dignity and importance which it has never lost. French literature became the glory of the civilized world. They embraced Christianity and adopted the feudal doctrines of France which they worked into some sort of a system. They adopted their own form of architecture, the romanesque. They were chivalrous, these Normans; indeed, with them began the age of chivalry. Unlike other Germanic peoples, they renounced brutish intemperance; their polite luxury presented a striking contrast to the coarse voracity and drunkenness of their Saxon and Danish neighbours. The Norman baron displayed his magnificence, not in huge piles of food and hogsheads of strong drink, but in large and stately edifices, rich armour, gallant horses, choice falcons, well-ordered tournaments, and wines chosen for their flavour rather than for their intoxicating power. They were dignified in their bearing and well-spoken. They were born orators as well as born lawyers, just as they were born soldiers. For before all else they were soldiers. Their conquests extended to Southern Italy and Sicily on the one hand, and to the British Isles on the other.

I have been trying to find out about the author of this book. Thanks to the genealogy websites, I have determined that his full name was Brian Boteler Fitzgerald, that he lived from 21 January 1908 to 20 July 1977, that he was the son of Lord Henry Gordon FitzGerald (1863–1955) and Inez Charlotte Grace Casberd-Boteler (1871-1967) and the grandson of the 4th Duke of Leinster, and that he married Elizabeth Dorotea Maud Brocklebank Fleetwood-Hesketh (1914-1992) on 28 July 1936 when he was 28 and she 22. I don’t find any record that they had children. In addition to this book, published in 1951, he published four other Irish history books in 1949, 1950, 1952 and 1954, and a few more edited volumes of letters later in the 1950s, all relating to the Fitzgerald family, so a rather concentrated period of writing activity in the middle of his adult life. I have no record of anything else that he did at any other time in his career. He was born, married and died in London, but clearly wore his Irish heritage proudly.

This book is the work of a very enthusiastic and energetic romantic, dedicated to proving the proposition that the Fitzgeralds are the key factor in Irish history for more than four centuries. It’s actually a proposition that most would agree with, but by focussing on one family’s history, you can lose sight of what else is going on. In particular I’d have liked to get an understanding of the relationship between the Fitzgerald lands and the Pale/Butler territory on the one hand, and the more Irish districts on the other.

It’s also misleading to suggest that the Fitzgeralds’ rule of Ireland was the basic pattern of Irish government consistently from 1189 to 1603. It was perhaps the default, but there was no automaticity and the right of English kings to intervene was clearly accepted by all concerned. The peak of the Kildare Fitzgeralds’ power comes at the very end of the period, when Henry VII is forced to accept their continued rule in Ireland after Bosworth Field because he has no alternative; but the collapse of that power in the 1530s came very swiftly, which suggests that it did not have such deep foundations after all.

I was surprised to learn that the Fitzgerald family trace their origins to the Gherardini family of Tuscany, based in Florence from 1100, whose most famous member is probably Lisa del Giocondo, to use her married name (though that is not how she is best known). This link seemed really fanciful to me, but the book has documentary evidence from both sides indicating that the Gherardini accepted that the connection was there. To me it’s fairly clear that the mythology of the family begins with Gerald of Wales, who was the son of one of the daughters of Gerald FitzWalter, the best documented originator of the dynasty, and I don’t quite see the timelines adding up.

Still, it’s full of details about the entire period of Irish history from 1170 to 1603, and although it’s partisan, it wears its heart on its jacket and is rather endearing. You can get it here.

This was the very last of the books that I acquired in 2018 which I managed to clear from the unread shelves, ten months after I did the same for the last of my 2017 acquisitions. The full list so far, since I started tallying this way eight years ago, is:

Last book acquired in 2018, read in November 2024 (The Geraldines)
Last book acquired in 2017, read in January 2024 (Rule of Law: A Memoir)
Last book acquired in 2016, read in August 2023 (Autism Spectrum Disorders Through the Lifespan)
Last book acquired in 2015, read in November 2022 (Rauf Denktaş, a Private Portrait)
Last books acquired in 2014, read in October 2021 (The Empire of Time and Crashland)
Last book acquired in 2013, read in October 2020 (Helen Waddell)
Last book acquired in 2012, read in May 2020 (A Sacred Cause: The Inter-Congolese dialogue 2000-2003)
Last book acquired in 2011, read in October 2019 (Luck and the Irish)
Last book acquired in 2010, read in January 2019 (Heartspell)
Last book acquired in 2009, read in December 2016 (Last Exit to Babylon)

There are 26 books on my unread shelves which I acquired in 2019, and 11 of them are by H.G. Wells, so there’s going to be a fair bit of minor Wellsiana coming up. I’m starting with:

• The Roommate of Anne Frank, by Nanda van der Zee (shortest)
• Lost Objects, by Marian Womack (sf that has lingered longest unread and isn’t by Wells)
• What Might Have Been: The Story of a Social War, by Ernest Bramah (top book on LibraryThing which isn’t by Wells)
• Marriage, by H. G. Wells (top book on LibraryThing which is by Wells)
• Authors of Their Lives: The Personal Correspondence of British Immigrants to North America in the Nineteenth Century, by David A. Gerber (non-fiction that has lingered longest unread)
• Collected Plays and Teleplays, by Flann O’Brien (non-genre fiction that has lingered longest unread and isn’t by Wells)