Elizabeth de Burghersh, 3rd Baroness Burghersh

Elizabeth Despencer, 3rd Baroness Burghersh (c. 1342 – August 1402) was an English noblewoman born to Bartholomew de Burghersh, 2nd Baron Burghersh and Cicely Weyland.

Some recently constructed genealogies purport that she was first married, some time after 1347, to Maurice FitzGerald, 4th Earl of Kildare (d. 25 August 1390) and by him had at least four children. Yet it is more consistent with known dates of death of the 4th Earl of Kildare that he married instead Margaret, a daughter of the 1st Baron Burghersh.^[1] Otherwise there would be record of Kildare's divorce from Elizabeth and probably a mention in the original records of her 'remarriage' rather than of her 'marriage' to le Despencer.

She was married (it is said for the second time) some time before 1373, to Edward le Despencer, 1st Baron le Despencer (c. 24 March 1335-6 – 11 November 1375) and they had six children. Upon the death of her father on 5 April 1369, she inherited the title of Baroness Burghersh.

Children

By Maurice FitzGerald:

• Gerald FitzGerald, 5th Earl of Kildare
• John FitzGerald, "de jure" 6th Earl of Kildare; on his brother's death he failed to take possession of the Earldom, but was the father of
  • Thomas FitzGerald, 7th Earl of Kildare
• Thomas FitzGerald, High Sheriff of County Limerick
• Joanne, who married Tadhg na Mainistreach Mac Carthaigh Mór, King of Desmond.

By Edward le Despencer:

• Margaret le Despencer (died 3 November 1415), married Robert de Ferrers, 4th Baron Ferrers of Chartley
• Elizabeth le Despenser (died 10 April/11 April 1408)
  married
  (1) John FitzAlan, 2nd Baron Arundel
  (2) William la Zouche, 3rd Baron Zouche
• Thomas le Despencer, 1st Earl of Gloucester (22 September 1373 – 13 January 1400), married Constance of York
• Hugh Despencer
• Cicely Despencer
• Anne Despencer (died 30 October 1426)
  married
  (1) Hugh Hastings
  (2) Thomas de Morley, 4th Baron Morley

Sources

• Burke, John. A General and Heraldic Dictionary of the Peerages of England, Ireland, and Scotland, Extinct, Dormant, and in Abeyance. London: H. Colburn and R. Bentley, 1831, pp. 173–174.^[2]
• Weis, Frederick Lewis, Walter Lee Sheppard, David Faris, and Frederick Lewis Weis. Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America Before 1700: The Lineage of Alfred the Great, Charlemagne, Malcolm of Scotland, Robert the Strong, and Some of Their Descendants (7th edition), Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Publishing, 1992, pp. 73–74, lines:70-35, 70-36, 74-34, 212-34.
• "Fitzgerald, Maurice, 4th Earl of Kildare", Dictionary of National Biography, (Leslie Stephen ed.), Macmillan & Co., London, 1889

References

1. ↑ Dictionary of National Biography: Maurice Fitzthomas FitzGerald (pp. 140-141)
2. ↑ A General and Heraldic Dictionary of the Peerages of England, Ireland, and Scotland, Extinct, Dormant, and in Abeyance, books.google.com; retrieved 30 May 2008.