Gerald Fitz-Walter de Windsor), whose services were so conspicuously evident in securing the success of the invasion, that as they exacted from Strongbow, earl of Pembroke, so they certainly deserved, the hand of Basilia de Clare, sister to that aspiring chieftain, at this time become a prince by his own alliance with Eva, daughter and heiress of the king of Leinster.
Raymond Le Gros’s marriage with this illustrious lady was no barren honor. With her he received that great district in Kilkenny, denominated from him the “Cantred of Grace’s country,” for his agnomen of Gros, given to him on account of his prowess, gradually became, first Gras, and then, by English pronunciation, Grace. With this possession was coupled the honor of constable and standard-bearer of Leinster, together with the lands of Fethard, Odrone, and Glascarrig. He was also Lord of Lereton, and Dermod Mac Carthy, king of Desmond, whom he restored to his throne, conferred upon him a noble territorial reward in the county of Kerry, which he settled upon Maurice, his second son, the founder of the Fitz-Maurice family. The evidence of national, official, and domestic records has already stood the test of a patient and uncompromising criticism; and the descent, from Raymond le Gros, to the late Michael Grace, of Gracefield, in the Queen’s county, John Grace, of Mantua House, co. Roscommon, and Richard Grace, of Boley, M.P., has been manifested in a clear and regular series.
The estate forfeited by baron John Grace, of Courtstown, under William III., amounted to 32,870 acres of valuable land, of which about 8,000 acres, and the castle of Courtstown, lay within Tullaroan, or Grace’s parish. At this period, some of the Graces, having followed the fortunes of the abdicated monarch, James, settled in France, and became founders of the family of De Grasse, a member of which commanded the fleet that was opposed to the British, under Sir George B. Rodney, on the glorious 12th of April, 1782. During the terrible civil wars of 1641, the resistance of Gerald Grace, of Ballylinch and Carney castles, to the protectoral government, was followed by his line being dispossessed of a landed inheritance, exceeding 17,000 acres, in the counties of Kilkenny and Tipperary, and the King’s County. The loyalty of the family to the unfortunate house of Stuart, as it had been unimpeachable upon both these memorable occasions, was in each instance attended with most disastrous consequences to its prosperity. The swarm of adventurers led into Ireland by Cromwell were fortified in their acquisitions by the Act of Settlement; and the grantees of William III. have never been disturbed in their possessions. Thus, after a period of nearly five centuries and a half, during which the house of Butler alone (represented by the Marquis of Ormonde,) was paramount to that of Grace, the existence of the latter, as a Kilkenny family, may be said to terminate, as the small estate of Holdenstown is the only property they at present possess there. The representative of the Ballylinch branch was led by circumstances to become seated at Gracefield, in the Queen’s