Citizen Lord: Edward Fitzgerald, 1763-1798

by Stella Tillyard

From personal letters and other sources, Stella Tillyard has re-created the life of a headstrong young aristocrat who died
a martyred rebel for the cause of Irish independence. Lord Edward Fitzgerald joined the British army as a teenager, but radical sentiments soon prevailed over loyalty to the Crown. In North America in 1787, he spent time with the Iroquois; back in Europe, he became a disciple of Thomas Paine and joined the Irish underground. Even his love life was political-from his tragic affair with the wife of Richard Brinsley Sheridan to his marriage to the daughter of a French republican. Lord Edward was plotting for Ireland's independence when, as the bloody rebellion of 1798 raged around him, he was mortally wounded by British soldiers.

Genres: History, Ireland, Biography, Nonfiction, 18th Century, Politics, British Literature

352 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Stella Tillyard is a British novelist and historian. She was educated at Oxford and Harvard Universities and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Her bestselling book Aristocrats was made into a miniseries for BBC1/Masterpiece Theatre, and sold to over twenty countries. Winner of the Meilleur Livre Etranger, the Longman-History Today Prize, and the Fawcett Prize, Tillyard has taught at Harvard University, the University of California, Los Angeles, and the Centre for Editing Lives and Letters at Queen Mary, London. She is currently a Visiting Professor in the Department of History, Classics and Archaeology at Birkbeck, University of London. Her latest novel is Call Upon the Water (published in the UK under the title The Great Level).

Reviews

[Mathieu · Rating 2 out of 5]

I will have to be harsh on this book. Stella Tillyard had a wonderful project with this biography of Edward Fitzgerald -- writing a political biography of the most charismatic and romantic figure of the 1798 Rebellion in Ireland in a style that was relevant and consistent with Fitzgerald's character, i.e. a radical, republican, leveller revolutionary from an aristocratic background whose Rousseauist ideals were embodied in his everyday life and commitments.

Alas, if this is a fascinating endeavour, Tillyard fell short of this ambition and her style often succumbs to the merely anecdotal or even the fictitious embezzlements of one who wants to attract as large an audience as possible. The fact that there are no critical apparatus per se, that her bibliography is very short demonstrates that Tillyard (while educated at some of the highest names in the academic field) sacrificed scientific rigour for the lure of a "romantic" and "Anthonya Fraser"-like biography (who liked Tillyard's work by the way).

In other words, while reading this book was very interesting since Fitzgerald is at the heart of my own researches and while the book's title is really good (but it would have been more accurate if it was "Lord Citizen" since in this way it would have shown Fitzgerald's commitment to the Republican cause), it was on the whole a disappointing reading.

[Nick Garbutt · Rating 1 out of 5]

This read more like a Mills and Boon novel than a serious study of an interesting figure and his role in the rebellion of 1798.
I should have noticed the blurb which contained a glowing quote from that other “romantic” historian Antonia Fraser.
It contains passages of description and peoples’ feelings which are clearly made up all written in a cloying, simpering tone.
I’m not sure what its value is but it might come in useful one day should we run out of kindling for the fire.

[Grey Wolf · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating look at several often-overlooked areas of history, including the Irish aristocracy in the late 18th century and the troubles in Ireland during the era of the French Revolution

[Willy Walsh · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have studied Irish history after a fashion, specifically by reading any books about it I thought looked promising. This is a good one, because Lord Edward is one of the most attractive and tragic characters in a story full of them. He was born to the highest privilege, the the favorite child of the Duchess of Leinster of her five with the Duke. He was mostly raised by the Scottish tutor his mother hired, also her lover and eventually her husband, Thomas Oglivie. He and his siblings were raised after the manner recommended by Jean-Jacque Rousseau, albeit not including that part about sending them away. Taught to believe in the natural goodness of men, and raised by doting privileged ladies, Edward was a charming, attractive, adventurous and generous spirited young man, naïve perhaps but purer of heart than most assuredly. He fought for the British Army in the Revolutionary War where he was wounded in the Battle of Eutaw Springs outside Charleston, SC. An escaped black slave named Tony Smalls saved his life. Lord Edward employed Smalls the rest of his life as his servant. They would be close friends for the remaining 18 years of Edward Fitzgerald's life and Smalls was said to have died of a broken heart after Fitzgerald deal in prison, believing he had failed Lord Edward.

There were certainly some good times. They travelled in Spain. After being disappointed in love Lord Edward and Tony crossed back over the Atlantic and travelled in the wilderness of North America circling over the Great Lakes to the Mississippi and on it to New Orleans in the late 1780s in the company of Joseph Brandt the Iroquois chief and other native Americans for much of that adventure. Fitzgerald was a republican idealist, a follower and personal friend of Tom Paine who he met in London upon his return from his second time in America. He became the lover of Elizabeth Ann Linley, the wife of the writer and liberal politician Thomas Sheridan and a singer and great beauty. She died of tuberculosis in 1792 shortly after giving birth to Lord Edward's first child. He was a supporter of the French Revolution and he and Tony accordingly went to Paris after her death. There the beautiful illegitimate daughter of the Duc Orleans and his mistress Madame de Genlis--probably--Pamela caught his eye and they married. They would have a son and two daughters who survived him.

I have long known of Lord Edward as a hero of the Irish saga. He shocked his contemporaries when he returned to Ireland with Pamela by preferring the company of common Irish people, eating with them, learning to do their dances and having local musicians play Gaelic music in his home outside Dublin. Inevitably he was drawn into the great United Irish conspiracy with its vision of a free and secular republican Ireland. Though he did not seek to lead, and may not have been suited to do so, his status as a member of the high British nobility awed many and his natural charm and military background made it inevitable that when the United Irish central committee was betrayed to Dublin Castle on March 12, 1798 leaving only Fitzgerald and Thomas Neilson at large he would become the leader. He would have been permitted to escape, and when it became apparent the French were not returning soon after the aborted landing at Bantry Bay in 1796, he knew the cause was like lost. The repressive measures employed by Lords Camden and Castelreagh were so brutal however that Fitzgerald could not abandon his poor followers. He planned a rising for May 23, and for two months succeeded in avoiding arrest by living among Irish people he would in ordinary life not have known but who were by and large fiercely loyal and revered his obvious good heart and willingness to sacrifice a life of privilege and cast his lot with the Irish poor. However, he was betrayed by a Dublin lawyer and captured a week before May 23, as was Neilson while plotting to break him out because he could not imagine the rebellion succeeding without Fitzgerald not long after. He killed one of those seeking to arrest him but was also shot twice. Because they feared a trial of so winning a young man, his wounds were permitted to go septic and he died with the rebellion raging outside after great suffering. His sister Lucy wrote a letter to his Irish followers saying that her brother had done no more than his duty and wanted nothing more than to be a Paddy rather than an aristocrat. With Wolfe Tone he is one of the great Protestant patriots and martyrs for Ireland. Its quite a story.

[Sarah W. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't know much about Edward Fitzgerald until I picked up this book, other than he lived during an era I find fascinating. As I delved into this biography, I learned a lot about the culture of the 18th-century British aristocracy and Fitzgerald's unique family. Still, it was until the later chapters, when Fitzgerald matured, married, and started plotting an uprising that I really became interested. I knew that France had encouraged Irish rebellions at various points in history, but I was unfamiliar with this case and it was fascinating to see the story unfold, even if it did not end well for Fitzgerald.

[Nicky Rossiter · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting look at a character from the United Irishmen from a different perspective.
His letters to his mammy did tend to grate on me after a while.