Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Fitzpatrick, Barnaby
FITZPATRICK, Sir BARNABY, Lord of Upper Ossory (1535?–1581), son and heir of Brian Fitzpatrick or MacGillapatrick, first lord of Upper Ossory, was born probably about 1535. Sent at an early age into England as a pledge of his father's loyalty, he was educated at court, where he became a favourite schoolfellow and companion of Prince Edward, whose ‘proxy for correction’ we are informed he was (Fuller, Church Hist. bk. vii. par. 47). On 15 Aug. 1551 he and Sir Robert Dudley were sworn two of the six gentlemen of the king's privy chamber (Edward VI's Diary). Edward VI, who continued to take a kindly interest in him, sent him the same year into France in order to perfect his education, sagely advising him to ‘behave himself honestly, more following the company of gentlemen, than pressing into the company of the ladies there.’ Introduced by the lord admiral, Lord Clinton, to Henry II, he was by him appointed a gentleman of his chamber, in which position he had favourable opportunities for observing the course of French politics. On his departure on 9 Dec. 1552 he was warmly commended for his conduct by Henry himself and the constable Montmorency (Cal. State Papers, For. vol. i.) During his residence in France Edward VI continued to correspond regularly with him, and so much of the correspondence as has survived has been printed in the ‘Literary Remains of Edward VI,’ published by the Roxburghe Club, i. 63–92. (Some of these letters had previously been printed by Fuller in his ‘Worthies,’ Middlesex, and his ‘Church History of Britain;’ by Horace Walpole in 1772, reprinted in the ‘Dublin University Magazine,’ xliv. 535, and by Halliwell in his ‘Letters of the Kings of England,’ vol. ii., and in ‘Gent. Mag.’ lxii. 704.) On his return he took an active part in the suppression of Sir Thomas Wyatt's rebellion (1553). The same year it appears from the ‘Chronicle of Queen Jane’ that ‘the Erle of Ormonde, Sir [blank] Courteney Knight, and Mr. Barnaby fell out in the night with a certayn priest in the streate, whose parte a gentyllman comyng by by chance took, and so they fell by the eares; so that Barnabye was hurte. The morrowe they were ledd by the ii sheryves to the counter in the Pultry, where they remained [blank] daies’ (ed. Camd. Soc. p. 33). Shortly afterwards he went into Ireland with the Earl of Kildare and Brian O'Conor Faly (Annals of Four Masters; Ham. Cal. i. 133). It is stated both by Collins and Lodge that he was in 1558 present at the siege of Leith, and that he was there knighted by the Duke of Norfolk; but for this there appears to be no authority. He sat in the parliament of 1559. In 1566 he was knighted by Sir H. Sidney, who seems to have held him in high estimation (Cal. Carew MSS. ii. 148). His proceedings against Edmund Butler for complicity with James Fitzmaurice were deeply resented by the Earl of Ormonde, and led to a lifelong feud between them (Ham. Cal. i. 457, 466). In 1573 he was the victim of a cruel outrage, owing to the abduction of his wife and daughter by the Graces (ib. i. 502, 510, 525; Carew, i. 438; Bagwell, Ireland, ii. 254). In 1574 the Earl of Ormonde made fresh allegations against his loyalty, and he was summoned to Dublin to answer before the council, where he successfully acquitted himself (Ham. Cal. ii. 23, 24, 31, 33; Carew, i. 472). In 1576 he succeeded his father, who had long been impotent, as Baron of Upper Ossory, and two years afterwards had the satisfaction of killing the great rebel Rory Oge O'More (Collins, Sydney Letters, i. 264; Somers Tracts, i. 603). Owing to a series of charges preferred against him by Ormonde, who declared that there was ‘not a naughtier or more dangerous man in Ireland than the baron of Upper Ossory’ (Ham. Cal. ii. 237; cf. ib. pp. 224, 246, 250), he and Lady Fitzpatrick were on 14 Jan. 1581 committed to Dublin Castle (ib. p. 280). There was, however, ‘nothing to touch him,’ he being in Sir H. Wallop's opinion ‘as sound a man to her majesty as any of his nation’ (ib. p. 300). He, however, seems to have been suddenly taken ill, and on 11 Sept. 1581 he died in the house of William Kelly, surgeon, Dublin, at two o'clock in the afternoon (Lodge (Archdall), vol. ii.; A. F. M. v. 1753). He was, said Sir H. Sidney, ‘the most sufficient man in counsel and action for the war that ever I found of that country birth; great pity it was of his death’ (Carew, ii. 344). He married in 1560 Joan, daughter of Sir Rowland Eustace, viscount Baltinglas, by whom he had an only daughter, Margaret, first wife of James, lord Dunboyne. His estates passed to his brother Florence Fitzpatrick (Lodge, Archdall).
[Authorities as in the text.]