within a very short time had reduced to a state of anarchy the province which Perrot thought to have pacified by his severities. Edward Fitzgerald, brother of the earl of Kildare, and lieutenant of the queen’s pensioners in London, was sent to remonstrate with Desmond, but accomplished nothing. Desmond asserted that none but Brehon law should be observed between Geraldines; and Fitzmaurice seized Captain George Bourchier, one of Elizabeth’s officers in the west. Essex met the earl near Waterford in July, and Bourchier was surrendered, but Desmond refused the other demands made in the queen’s name. A document offering £500 for his head, and £1000 to any one who would take him alive, was drawn up but was vetoed by two members of the council. On the 18th of July 1574 the Geraldine chiefs signed the “Combination” promising to support the earl unconditionally; shortly afterwards Ormonde and the lord deputy, Sir William Fitzwilliam, marched on Munster, and put Desmond’s garrison at Derrinlaur Castle to the sword. Desmond submitted at Cork on the 2nd of September, handing over his estates to trustees. Sir Henry Sidney visited Munster in 1575, and affairs seemed to promise an early restoration of order. But Fitzmaurice had fled to Brittany in company with other leading Geraldines, John Fitzgerald, seneschal of Imokilly, who had held Ballymartyr against Sidney in 1567, and Edmund Fitzgibbon, the son of the White Knight who had been attainted in 1571. He intrigued at the French and Spanish courts for a foreign invasion of Ireland, and at Rome met the adventurer Stucley, with whom he projected an expedition which was to make a nephew of Gregory XIII. king of Ireland. In 1579 he landed in Smerwick Bay, where he was joined later by some Spanish soldiers at the Fort del Ore. His ships were captured on the 29th of July and he himself was slain in a skirmish while on his way to Tipperary. Nicholas Sanders, the papal legate who had accompanied Fitzmaurice, worked on Desmond’s weakness, and sought to draw him into open rebellion. Desmond had perhaps been restrained before by jealousy of Fitzmaurice; his indecisions ceased when on the 1st of November Sir William Pelham proclaimed him a traitor. The sack of Youghal and Kinsale by the Geraldines was speedily followed by the successes of Ormonde and Pelham acting in concert with Admiral Winter. In June 1581 Desmond had to take to the woods, but he maintained a considerable following for some time, which, however, in June 1583, when Ormonde set a price on his head, was reduced to four persons. Five months later, on the 11th of November, he was seized and murdered by a small party of soldiers. His brother Sir John of Desmond had been caught and killed in December 1581, and the seneschal of Imokilly had surrendered on the 14th of June 1583. After his submission the seneschal acted loyally, but his lands excited envy; he was arrested in 1587, and died in Dublin Castle two days later.
By his second marriage with Eleanor Butler, the 15th earl left two sons, the elder of whom, James, 16th earl (1570–1601), spent most of his life in prison. After an unsuccessful attempt in 1600–1601 to recover his inheritance he returned to England, where he died, the title becoming extinct.
See G. E. C(okayne,) Complete Peerage; R. Bagwell, Ireland under the Tudors (1885–1890); Annals of Ireland by the Four Masters (ed. J. O’Donovan, 1851); and the article Fitzgerald.
DESMOND (Des-Mumha), an ancient territorial division of Ireland, covering the eastern part of the modern Co. Kerry and the western part of Co. Cork. Its creation as a kingdom is placed in the year 248, when Oliol Olum, king of Munster, divided his territory between his two sons, giving Desmond to Eoghan, and Thomond or North Munster to Cormac. In 1329 Maurice Fitzthomas or Fitzgerald (d. 1356), lord of Decies and Desmond, was created 1st earl of Desmond by Edward III.; like other earls created about that time he ruled his territory as a palatinate, and his family acquired enormous powers and a large measure of independence. Meanwhile native kings continued to reign in a restricted territory until 1596. In 1583 came the attainder of Gerald Fitzgerald, 15th earl of Desmond (q.v.), and in 1586 an act of parliament declared the forfeiture of the Desmond estates to the crown. In 1571 a commission provided for the formation of Desmond into a county, and it was regarded as such for a few years, but by the beginning of the 17th century it was joined to Co. Kerry.
In 1619 the title of earl of Desmond was conferred on Richard Preston, Lord Dingwall, at whose death in 1628 it again became extinct. It was then bestowed on George Feilding, second son of William, earl of Denbigh, who had held the reversion of the earldom from 1622. His son William Feilding succeeded as earl of Denbigh in 1675, and thenceforward the title of Desmond was held in conjunction with that honour.
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| From Cambridge Natural History, vol. ii., “Worms,” &c., by permission of Macmillian & Co. Ltd. |
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Female Desmoscolex elongatus Panceri, ventral view. a, Ovary. (From Panceri.) |
DESMOSCOLECIDA, a group of minute marine worm-like creatures. The body tapers towards each end and is marked by a number of well-defined ridges. These ridges resemble on a small scale those which surround the body of a Porocephalus (Linguatulida), and like them have no segmental significance. Their number varies in the different species. The head bears four setae, and some of the ridges bear a pair either dorsally or ventrally. The setae are movable. Two pigment spots between the fourth and fifth ridges are regarded as eyes. The Desmoscolecida move by looping their bodies like geometrid caterpillars or leeches, as well as by creeping on their setae. The mouth is terminal, and leads into a muscular oesophagus which opens into a straight intestine terminating in an anus, which is said to be dorsal in position. The sexes are distinct. The testis is single, and its duct opens into the intestine and is provided with two chitinous spicules. The ovary is also single, opening independently and anterior to the anus. The nervous system is as yet unknown.
There are several species. D. minutus Clap. has been met with in the English Channel. Others are D. nematoides Greef, D. adelphus Greef, D. chaetogaster Greef, D. elongatus Panceri, D. lanuginosa Panceri. Trichoderma oxycaudatum Greef is 0.3 mm. long, and is also a “ringed creature with long hair-like bristles.” The male has two spicules, and there is some doubt as to whether it should be placed with the Desmoscolecida or with the Nematoda. With regard to the systematic position of the group, it certainly comes nearest—especially in the structure of its reproductive organs—to the Nematoda. We still, however, are very ignorant of the internal anatomy of these forms, and until we know more it is impossible to arrive at a very definite conclusion as to their position in the animal kingdom.
See Panceri, Atti Acc. Napoli. vii. (1878); Greef, Arch. Naturg. 35 (i.) (1869), p. 112. (A. E. S.)
DESMOULINS, LUCIE SIMPLICE CAMILLE BENOIST (1760–1794), French journalist and politician, who played an important part in the French Revolution, was born at Guise, in Picardy, on the 2nd of March 1760. His father was lieutenant-general of the bailliage of Guise, and through the efforts of a friend obtained a bourse for his son, who at the age of fourteen left home for Paris, and entered the college of Louis le Grand. In this school, in which Robespierre was also a bursar and a distinguished student, Camille Desmoulins laid the solid foundation of his learning. Destined by his father for the law, at the completion of his legal studies he was admitted an advocate of the parlement of Paris in 1785. His professional success was not great; his manner was violent, his appearance unattractive, and his speech impaired by a painful stammer. He indulged, however, his love for literature, was closely observant of public affairs, and thus gradually
