Edmund Fitzgibbon

Edmund Fitzgibbon (c. 1552 – 23 April 1608) was an Irish nobleman of the FitzGerald dynasty, who inherited the Anglo-Norman title of the White Knight and struggled to maintain his loyalty to the crown during the reign of Queen Elizabeth of England.

Fitzgibbon was the son of John Óg Fitzgerald (alias Fitzgibbon) and Ellen Condon. His father was attainted by statute of the Irish parliament in 1571, and much of Fitzgibbon's subsequent conduct stemmed from his desire to recover the family properties in the province of Munster. Following the first of the Desmond Rebellions he accompanied the rebel James Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald to France in March 1575 and returned to Ireland in July. In the following year he leased a large portion of the ancestral lands that had fallen to the crown; these he surrendered in 1579 in return for a fresh lease, which included those same lands as well as lands that had reverted to the crown on his mother's death.

In later years, the government councillor, Sir Henry Wallop, voiced his resentment at the denial of these lands to the Plantation of Munster, which was established after the Second Desmond Rebellion and the attainder of Gerald Fitzgerald, 15th Earl of Desmond. Fitzgibbon was regularly traduced by government officials, and his hereditary enemy Lord Roche accused him of complicity in the late rebellion. He found himself under pressure to display unquestioning loyalty to a crown that was unpopular amongst his followers, and he struggled in these trying circumstances.

In 1584, he accompanied the lord deputy, Sir John Perrot, on the government's campaign in Ulster against Sorley Boy MacDonnell, and was commended for his valour after receiving a wound. In April 1587, after Perrot's departure for England, Fitzgibbon was arrested by the government; the advice of Sir Anthony St Leger, to make him, "shorter by the length of his head" was not taken, and in 1589 he was released on heavy recognizances. On balance, he showed some skill in maintaining his loyalty over a long period and, during a visit to England in 1590, he won a grant in tail male of the ancestral lands.

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