Jacobite Peerage - Creations of 1689

Creations of 1689

The seven Irish peerages (the Duke of Tyrconnell, Viscount Kenmare, Viscount Mountcashell, Viscount Mount Leinster, Baron Bourke, Baron Nugent, Baron Fitton of Gawsworth- and their subordinate peerages) created by James II in 1689 are in an anomalous legal position, even from the Hanoverian viewpoint. He was held to have abdicated the English (and Scottish) thrones in December 1688; but the Government of Ireland was carried on solely in his name until August 1689. The creations were recorded in the Irish Patent Roll, and have never been struck out.

It is the usual British maxim that the actions of a King in possession are valid, even when his title is unsound; but there was also a law of the Kingdom of Ireland that the King of England is automatically King of Ireland - and William and Mary were crowned in England on 11 April 1689. (Similar considerations may apply to the Scottish Countess of Almond, who was elevated before James's abdication was proclaimed in Edinburgh.)

Four of the seven grantees died without male heirs; two peerages (if valid) have merged with pre-existing Irish Earldoms; and the heir of the 1st Viscount Kenmare was granted the same titles by George III in 1798 - and then raised to an Irish Earldom. The first Jacobite Earldom of Almond was also a life peerage, and is therefore extinct. Even if the Irish House of Lords still met, the questions here would be moot.