Early life

FitzWilliam was born at Milton

Milton Malsor

Milton Malsor is a village and civil parish in South Northamptonshire, England. It is south of Northampton, south-east of Birmingham, and north of central London; junction 15 of the M1 motorway is east by road...

, Northamptonshire

Northamptonshire

Northamptonshire is a landlocked county in the English East Midlands, with a population of 629,676 as at the 2001 census. It has boundaries with the ceremonial counties of Warwickshire to the west, Leicestershire and Rutland to the north, Cambridgeshire to the east, Bedfordshire to the south-east,...

, the eldest son of Sir William (d. 1576) and grandson of William Fitzwilliam (1460?-1534), alderman

Alderman

An alderman is a member of a municipal assembly or council in many jurisdictions founded upon English law. The term may be titular, denoting a high-ranking member of a borough or county council, a council member chosen by the elected members themselves rather than by popular vote, or a council...

 and sheriff

Sheriff

A sheriff is in principle a legal official with responsibility for a county. In practice, the specific combination of legal, political, and ceremonial duties of a sheriff varies greatly from country to country....

 of London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, who had been treasurer and chamberlain to Cardinal Wolsey and who purchased Milton in 1506. On his mother's side FitzWilliam was related to the Earl of Bedford

John Russell, 1st Earl of Bedford

John Russell, 1st Earl of Bedford, KG, PC, JP was an English royal minister in the Tudor era. He served variously as Lord High Admiral and Lord Privy Seal....

, to whom he owed his introduction to King Edward VI

Edward VI of England

Edward VI was the King of England and Ireland from 28 January 1547 until his death. He was crowned on 20 February at the age of nine. The son of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour, Edward was the third monarch of the Tudor dynasty and England's first monarch who was raised as a Protestant...

.

Irish career

In 1559 FitzWilliam was appointed Vice-Treasurer of Ireland and elected a member of the Irish House of Commons

Irish House of Commons

The Irish House of Commons was the lower house of the Parliament of Ireland, that existed from 1297 until 1800. The upper house was the House of Lords...

. His conduct as treasurer provoked allegations of corruption against him and, although these were never proven, they dogged him throughout his career. Between 1559 and 1571 he served five times as Lord Justice of Ireland (during the absences of the Earl of Sussex

Thomas Radclyffe, 3rd Earl of Sussex

Thomas Radclyffe 3rd Earl of Sussex was Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland during the Tudor period of English history, and a leading courtier during the reign of Elizabeth I.- Family:...

, and of his successor, Sir Henry Sidney

Henry Sidney

Sir Henry Sidney , Lord Deputy of Ireland was the eldest son of Sir William Sidney of Penshurst, a prominent politician and courtier during the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI, from both of whom he received extensive grants of land, including the manor of Penshurst in Kent, which became the...

). In 1571 he was appointed to the office of Lord Deputy

Lord Deputy of Ireland

The Lord Deputy was the King's representative and head of the Irish executive under English rule, during the Lordship of Ireland and later the Kingdom of Ireland...

 itself, but like Queen Elizabeth

Elizabeth I of England

Elizabeth I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty...

's other servants he received scant and infrequent allotments from the Treasury. His government was thus marked by penury and its attendant evils, inefficiency, mutiny and general lawlessness.

FitzWilliam quarrelled with the Lord President of Connaught

Lord President of Connaught

The Lord President of Connaught was a military leader with wide-ranging powers, reaching into the civil sphere, in the English government of Connaught in Ireland, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.*1569-1572 Sir Edward Fitton...

, Sir Edward Fitton (1527-1579), but he did manage to compel the troublesome Earl of Desmond

Gerald FitzGerald, 15th Earl of Desmond

Gerald FitzGerald, 15th Earl of Desmond was an Irish nobleman and leader of the Desmond Rebellions of 1579.-Life:...

 in to submission in 1574. He disliked the colonial expedition in Ulster of the Earl of Essex

Walter Devereux, 1st Earl of Essex

Walter Devereux, 1st Earl of Essex, KG , an English nobleman and general. From 1573 until his death he fought in Ireland in connection with the Plantation of Ulster, where he ordered the massacre of Rathlin Island...

, and then had a further quarrel with Fitton. After a serious illness, he was allowed to resign his office.

After his return to England in 1575 FitzWilliam was appointed governor of Fotheringhay Castle

Fotheringhay Castle

Fotheringhay Castle was in the village of Fotheringhay 3½ miles to the north of the market town of Oundle, Northamptonshire .King Richard III was born here in 1452 and it was also where Mary, Queen of Scots, was tried and executed in 1587....

, where he supervised the execution of the death sentence on Mary, Queen of Scots.

Final tour in Ireland

In 1588 FitzWilliam was again in Ireland as Lord Deputy, and although old and ill he displayed great activity in leading expeditions, and found time to quarrel with Sir Richard Bingham (1528-1599), the new President of Connaught.

His predecessor in office had been Sir John Perrot

John Perrot

Sir John Perrot served as Lord Deputy of Ireland under Queen Elizabeth I of England during the Tudor conquest of Ireland...

. FitzWilliam immediately seized on an opportunity to discredit him by giving countenance to the allegations by a renegade priest that Perrot had plotted with King Philip II

Philip II of Spain

Philip II was King of Spain, Portugal, Naples, Sicily, and, while married to Mary I, King of England and Ireland. He was lord of the Seventeen Provinces from 1556 until 1581, holding various titles for the individual territories such as duke or count....

 of Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

 to overthrow the Queen. The allegations were wild, but such was the momentum of criticism that came Perrot's way that he was convicted of treason at Westminster, and died while awaiting sentence of death in 1591.

FitzWilliam had pursued aggressive policies in Connaught and Ulster from the start. These policies upset the accommodations that had delivered an unusual peace to much of the island in the preceding years. In 1588 a large portion of the Spanish Armada

Spanish Armada in Ireland

The Spanish Armada in Ireland refers to the landfall made upon the coast of Ireland in September 1588 of a large portion of the 130-strong fleet sent by Philip II to invade England....

 was wrecked on the Irish coast, and FitzWilliam was responsible for ordering the executions of up to 2,000 survivors.

The Spanish threat was readily dealt with, and FitzWilliam turned up the pressure on those Ulster lords who owed their allegiance to the Earl of Tyrone

Hugh O'Neill, 3rd Earl of Tyrone

Aodh Mór Ó Néill, anglicised as Hugh The Great O'Neill , was the 2nd or 3rd Earl of Tyrone and was later created The Ó Néill...

. One of these lords, the MacMahon

MacMahon

-People:*Aline MacMahon, an American actress*Bernard MacMahon, an Irish bishop*Brian MacMahon, a British-American epidemiologist*Bryan MacMahon, a Judge of the Irish Circuit Court*Hugh MacMahon, an Irish bishop...

, was put to death by royal authority in Monaghan

Monaghan

Monaghan is the county town of County Monaghan in Ireland. Its population at the 2006 census stood at 7,811 . The town is located on the main road, the N2 road, from Dublin north to both Derry and Letterkenny.-Toponym:...

 town in 1591, and it became clear that the Dublin government was set on thoroughly curbing the power of the Gaelic leaders of Ulster. Although Tyrone continued to display his loyalty to the crown, the course had been set for a showdown and he went in to rebellion in 1595, at the start of the Nine Years War.

In 1594 FitzWilliam left Ireland for good, and five years later he died at Milton.

Legacy

FitzWilliam married Anne, daughter of Sir William Sidney

Sir William Sidney

Sir William Sidney was an English courtier under Henry VIII and Edward VI.-Life:He was eldest son of Nicholas Sidney, by Anne, sister of Sir William Brandon...

. Their grandson William was the first Baron FitzWilliam

Earl FitzWilliam

Earl Fitzwilliam was a title in both the Peerage of Ireland and the Peerage of Great Britain held by the head of the Fitzwilliam family. This family claim descent from William the Conqueror. The Fitzwilliams acquired extensive holdings in South Yorkshire, largely through strategic alliances through...

.