story. Three brothers of that family, Thomas, Gerald and Maurice Gherardini, 'having left Florence on account of the civil dissensions there, accompanied the King of England to the Conquest of Ireland.' This, it will be seen, is wholly discrepant from the version now adopted by the family itself, and is indeed wholly incompatible with the known facts as to its origin. Moreover the 'Gherardini' story originated in Ireland, not in Florence. The story given above is traced to an Irish priest 'called Maurice, who was of the family of the Gherardini settled in that island,' and who, passing through Florence in 1413, claimed the local Gherardini as his kinsmen.[1] Those Florentine magnates appear to have been unaware of the connection; indeed even so late as 1440 the Republic's secretary, writing to James Earl of Desmond, used the expression 'if it be true' (si vera est assertio). But the fame of the great Hibernian house reached and flattered the Gherardini, and in answer to a letter of 'fraternal love,' Gerald, 'Chief in Ireland of the family of the Gherardini; Earl of Kildare; Viceroy of the most serene King of England,' wrote in 1507 'to all the family of the Gherardini, noble in fame and virtue, dwelling in Florence, our beloved brethren in Florence.' The earl informed them that his 'ancestors, after passing from France to England, and having remained there some time, arrived in this island of Ireland in 1140' (!).[2] He was anxious to know the deeds of their common ancestors, 'the origin of our house, and the names of your forefathers,' and he offered them 'hawks, falcons, horses, or dogs for the chase.'[3]
And now from Irish earls panting for Trojan ancestry we will turn to the sober history of a house both ancient and illustrious, a house which not only traces its descent from a Domesday tenant-in-chief, but can make the probably unique boast that, from that day to this, descendants of his have been always numbered among the barons of the realm.
In The Earls of Kildare we read that 'In 1078 Walter FitzOtho is mentioned in Domesday Book as being in possession of his father's estates.' To this statement, which is obstinately repeated in the pages of Burke's Peerage, I reply, as in Peerage
