Biography of Gylle de Burgh -1332

Annals of Ulster. 6th June 1333. William Burke, Earl of Ulster [aged 20]², was killed by the English of Ulster. The Englishmen who committed this deed were put to death, in divers ways, by the people of the King of England; some were hanged, others killed, and others torn asunder², in revenge of his death.

Note 1. Earl of Ulster. There is a much more circumstantial account of the death of this Earl of Ulster given by Pembridge and Grace under this year. Lodge gives the following particulars of it: "He was murdered on Sunday, June 6, 1333, by [her husband] Robert Fitz-Richard Mandeville (who gave him his first wound), and others his servants, near to the Fords, in going towards Carrickfergus, in the 21st year of his age, at the instigation, as was said, of Gyle de Burgh, wife of Sir Richard Mandeville, in revenge for his having imprisoned her brother Walter and others."

This young earl left an only child, Elizabeth, who was married in the year 1352 to Lionel, third son of King Edward III., and this prince was then created, in her right, Earl of Ulster and Lord of Connaught, and these titles were enjoyed through marriage or descent by different princes of the royal blood, until at length, in the person of Edward IV, they became the special inheritance and revenue of the crown of England. Immediately on the Earl's death the chiefs of the junior branches of the family of Burke or De Burgo, then seated in Connaught, fearing the transfer of his possessions into strange hands by the marriage of the heiress, seized upon his estates in Connaught. The two most powerful of these were Sir William or Ulick, the ancestor of the Earls of Clanrickard, and Sir Edmund Albanagh the progenitor of the Viscounts of Mayo. These having confederated together and declared themselves independent, renounced the English dress and language, and adopted Irish names, Sir William taking the name of Mac William Oughter, or the Upper, and Sir Edmund that of Mac William Eighter, or the Lower. Under these names these two powerful chieftains tyranized over the entire province of Counaught, and though Lionel Duke of Clai'ence, in right of his wife, laid claim to their usurped possessions, the government apears to have been too weak to assert, the authority of the English laws, so that the territories of the Burkes were allowed to descend in course of tanistry and gavelkind. See Hardiman's History of Galway, pp. 56, 57.

Note 2. Torn asunder, i.e. torn limb from limb. Mageoghegan renders it "hanged, drawn, and quartered."