Tyrconnel set out for Rome with a large party. According to information received by the English privy council, their departure from Belgium was little regretted, ‘having left so good a memory of their barbarous life and drunkenness’ (ib. 8 March 1608). Avoiding France, they went by Namur and Nancy to Lucerne, and over the St. Gothard to Milan, where Fuentes gave them a grand reception, though the Spanish government had promised to discountenance them, and did find money to pass them on. They travelled by Bologna and Rimini to Loretto; but Wotton had them watched, and they were excluded from Venetian territory. They reached the Milvian bridge on 29 April, and had a great escort of cardinals and others into Rome. The pope received them at the Quirinal next day. We have a glimpse of Tyrconnel habitually driving in the same coach with Tyrone and Peter Lombard [q. v.], the titular archbishop of Armagh. On the Thursday before Trinity the earls occupied places of honour at the canonisation of S. Francesca Romana in St. Peter's, and at Corpus Christi they carried the canopy over the pope's head. In June Tyrconnel was attacked by intermittent fever, received no benefit from a trip to Ostia, and died in Rome on 28 July. He was attended by Lady Tyrone, by his sister-in-law Rose, and by Florence Conry, titular archbishop of Tuam, who had been with Hugh Roe when he died. He was buried on the Janiculum in the Spanish church of S. Pietro in Montorio, wrapped in the garb of St. Francis, the customary winding-sheet of his family since they had founded the convent at Donegal. His brother Cathbhar and Tyrone's eldest son died in September, and were buried in the same place, where their joint epitaphs may still be read (Meehan, p. 477). A proposal to kill Tyrone or Tyrconnel had been made to Wotton in April, and he had some suspicion that the jesuits distrusted Tyrconnel and had him put out of the way; but there can be no doubt that he really died of Roman fever. He was outlawed and attainted after his flight, and the attainder was confirmed by the Irish parliament in 1614. The settlement of Ulster resulted from the flight of the earls and the rising of Sir Cahir O'Dogherty [q. v.], and the statesmen of that day were evidently very glad to have the ground thus cleared for them.
Tyrconnel married Lady Bridget Fitzgerald, daughter of the twelfth Earl of Kildare. Her husband did not take her with him in his flight, and on her presentation at court James wondered how he could leave so fair a face behind him. Tyrconnel made some ineffectual attempts to communicate with her afterwards. She had a pension of 200l. from the Irish government, and was remarried to Nicholas Barnewall, first viscount Kingsland [q. v.] By Tyrconnel she had a son Hugh, who took the title of earl, or count, on the continent, and was in favour at the Spanish court. His death is announced in an Irish letter written at Louvain (facsimile in Gilbert, vol. i.) 16 Sept. 1642 by his aunt Rose, who signs with her maiden name, although then married for the second time. Lady Tyrone had a daughter, Mary Stuart [see below]. Another daughter, Elizabeth, is often given to her; but on a comparison of dates it seems doubtful whether the lady in question was not her sister, who married Luke, first earl of Fingal (pedigree in Earls of Kildare, Addenda).
Mary Stuart O'Donnell (fl. 1632) was born in England after her father's flight, and the royal name was given to her by James I. She was brought up by her mother in Ireland until her twelfth year, and then went to live in England with her grandmother, Lady Kildare, who proposed to leave her all she had and to provide a husband for her. Mary objected to the favoured suitor as a protestant; perhaps also because she had formed a previous attachment, and escaped during the latter months of 1626. Dressed in male attire, and wearing a sword, she got clear of London, and after many wanderings arrived in Bristol. She was accompanied by a maid similarly disguised, and by a young ‘gentilhomme son parent,’ who may have been the Don John O'Gallagher whom she afterwards married. At Bristol her sex was suspected; but, if we believe the Spanish panegyrist, who likens her to various saints, she bribed a magistrate, offered to fight a duel, and made fierce love to another girl. Two attempts were made to reach Ireland, but the ship was beaten back into the Severn. At last Mary Stuart got off in a Dutch vessel, and was carried, with her two companions, to Rochelle. She retained her doublet, boots, and sword, and at Poitiers made love to another lady. On her arrival at Brussels Urban VIII wrote a special congratulatory letter; but she soon estranged her brother by continuing to seek adventures in man's clothes. She married an O'Gallagher, had one child at Genoa, and in February 1632 wrote to Cardinal Barberini, saying that another was expected, and that she was in great misery. After that day nothing further seems to be recorded of her (Earls of Kildare, Addenda, p. 321).
