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Lettice FitzGerald, 1st Baroness Offaly (c.1580〔http://www.thePeerage.com, retrieved 26 May 2010〕- 1 December 1658) was an Irish noblewoman and a member of the FitzGerald dynasty. Heiress-general to the Earls of Kildare on the death of her father,〔Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, retrieved 28 May 2010〕 the title instead went to the next FitzGerald male heir when her grandfather, the 11th Earl of Kildare died in 1585. In 1620 she was created ''suo jure'' Baroness Offaly by King James I of England. She was the wife of Sir Robert Digby, a landed English aristocrat by whom she had ten children. In early 1642, at the age of about sixty-two, her castle of Geashill was besieged by a force of insurgents from the O'Dempsey clan; she managed to hold out against them until October 1642.〔LibraryIreland.com, ''A Compendium of Irish Biography, by Alfred Webb, 1878, retrieved 26 May 2010〕 Her defence has been described as having been the "most spirited episode in the history of the Irish Rebellion of 1641".〔British Isle Genealogy, ''Lettice Digby, Lady Offaley'', retrieved 26 May 2010〕 ==Family== Lettice was born in about 1580, the only child and heir of Gerald FitzGerald, Lord Offaly by Catherine Knollys, who was a younger daughter of Catherine Carey and Sir Francis Knollys. Lettice's maternal great-grandmother was Mary Boleyn, elder sister of Anne Boleyn, the second queen consort of King Henry VIII of England, who had been the lover of Mary prior to his courtship of Anne and possibly the biological father of her daughter Catherine. Her paternal grandparents were Gerald FitzGerald, 11th Earl of Kildare and Mabel Browne. One of her aunts, and after whom she was likely named, was Lettice Knollys, the celebrated rival of Queen Elizabeth I, who was also a distant cousin. Her father died in June 1580, around the time of her birth, so Lettice never knew him. He was nineteen years of age. Upon his death, Lettice became heiress-general to the Earls of Kildare; however, the earldom passed to her uncle, Henry. Her mother married secondly Sir Philip Butler, but it is not known whether she had additional children. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Lettice Digby, 1st Baroness Offaly」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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