The Battle Abbey Roll. Vol. II.
by
The Duchess of Cleveland.

Prepared by Michael A. Linton
-------*--------
Return to Index

Power : "Poher, or Poncaer, descended from the Lords of Poncaer in Brittany. A branch settled in 1066 in Devon, with Alured de Mayenne; and in 1165 Ranulph Poer held three fees of his barony (Liber Niger). Bartholomew Poher, at the same time, was Lord of Blackborough, Devon, and father to Robert Poher, who settled in Ireland."—The Norman People. According to the Peerages it was, however, Roger, not Robert de la Poer, who went with Earl Strongbow to the conquest of Ireland, and received vast grants of territory. "It may be said without offence," writes Giraldus Cambrensis, "that there was not a man who did more valiant acts than Roger le Poer, who, although he were young and beardless, yet showed himself a lusty, valiant, and courageous gentleman, who grew into such good credit, that he had the government of the country about Leighlin, as also in Ossory, where he was traiterously killed; on whose slaughter a conspiracy was formed among the Irish to destroy the English, and many castles were destroyed." The Poer estates were of magnificent dimensions, extending from near Youghal to Cork Harbour, where the celebrated headland guarding its entrance still bears the name of Poor Head. The S. transept of Cloyne Cathedral is also called after them Poor Aisle. Among the most ancient writs to be found in the Irish Rolls Office are those summoning Nicholas le Poer, Baron of Waterford, to parliament in 1378, 1381, and 1383. His great grandson Richard was re-created in 1535 Lord Le Poer, Baron of Curraghmore; and was the father of John, Lord Le Poer, described by Sir Henry Sidney in his account of Munster to the Lords of the Council in 1575, as living "in shew far more honourably and plentifully than any other of his calling that lives in this province. The day I departed from Waterford, I lodged that night at Corragmore, the house that the Lord Power is baron of, where I was so used, and with such plenty and good order entertained (as adding to it the quiet of all the country adjoining, by the people called Power Country, for that surname has been since the beginning of Englishmen's planting inhabitants there) it may be well compared with the best ordered country in the English Pale." It was the boast of the family that "though dwelling in a country continually disturbed by convulsions and civil wars, they never once suffered forfeiture, or engaged in rebellion against the Crown:" and for this reason they received rough treatment at the hands of Cromwell. Two of their castles, Kilmeadon-on-Suir, and Don Isle (an almost impregnable fortress built on a steep crag on the sea coast) were captured and demolished. The lord of Kilmeadon was strung up, without either trial or shrift, on one of his own trees; and the heiress of Don Isle, after a splendid defence, was betrayed by one of her own gunners, and perished miserably in the flames that consumed her castle. Curraghmore, their most ancient possession, was saved by the quick-witted daughter of the Baron, who, seeing her father resolved to defend the place to the last extremity, contrived to lock him up in his own dungeon; and, throwing open the castle gates, went out to meet Cromwell with its keys in her hand. When questioned about her father, she explained that he was "unwillingly absent;" and that she had taken upon herself to surrender unreservedly to the Parliament, and therefore claimed, as her due, confirmation of the property and his protection at all times. "Cromwell, thus baffled, was constraigned to sign the proper letters." It must have been John Lord Le Poer who was thus left chafing in confinement while his daughter made terms with the invader. His son Richard was created in 1673 Viscount Decies and Earl of Tyrone; but both titles expired with the third Earl in 1704. His only daughter Catherine, in her own right Baroness Le Poer, married Sir Marcus Beresford, who received the Earldom of Tyrone in 1746, and was the father of the first Marquess of Waterford.

The mother of Sir Marcus, Nichola Hamilton (the youngest of the three co-heiresses of Lord Glenawley) was the heroine of a celebrated ghost story, of which the first perfectly authentic account was published in 1880 by the Reverend B. W. Savile, one of her descendants. On the morning of the 15th of October, 1693 (a date faithfully treasured up in the family), she came down to breakfast deadly pale and in evident distress of mind, with a black ribbon bound round her wrist, which from that day forwards she never removed. Her husband anxiously inquired what was the matter; but she entreated him, with the greatest earnestness, to ask no questions. During the day a messenger brought them word that their neighbour, John, second Earl of Tyrone, had died suddenly in the night. He was Lady Beresford's kinsman; and in early life, having both been left orphans under the care of the same guardian, they had seen a great deal of each other. She was deeply affected; and as her husband was endeavouring to console her, she suddenly turned to him, in the midst of her grief, and told him she was expecting another child, and that it would be a son—her first son, for as yet she had only daughters. The prophecy came true; and in due time Sir Tristram was made happy by the birth of an heir. He died seven years afterwards, in 1701; and Lady Beresford re-married General Gorges, by whom she had four other children. In 1713, a large party assembled at her house to celebrate her birthday, for which she had made great preparation, and evinced a degree of solicitude that seemed altogether unaccountable. She appeared among her guests in the highest spirits; declaring that she felt uncommonly happy in keeping her forty-eighth birthday. An old clergyman, who was one of the company, here unfortunately interposed. "No, my Lady," he said, "you are mistaken; your mother, Lady Glenawley, and I, used to have many disputes concerning your age; and to-day I am able to prove myself in the right, for last week I happened to go to the parish where you were born, and took the opportunity of searching the register. You are only forty-seven to-day." Lady Beresford turned ghastly pale, and cried, "Then you have signed my death warrant!" She at once withdrew to her own room, and, sending for her young son Sir Marcus, and one other intimate friend, for the first time in her life told the story of Lord Tyrone's apparition to her on the night of his death, twenty years before, with all its now well-known details. She awoke to find him sitting by her bedside; and was so thoroughly convinced she was dreaming, that nothing short of the touch of his hand would serve to assure her of his actual presence. As his fingers closed round her wrist, every nerve and sinew shrank, and, though ice-cold, they left an indelible mark, as if from the gripe of red-hot pincers. He bade her hide it from every living soul, as long as she herself should live. Then, rising from his seat, he walked across to a bureau that stood on the other side of the room, and laid his hand upon it. "Look at this," he said, "when the morning comes. You will find another proof;" and there, again, she saw the impress of a man's hand, deeply burnt into the wood. He told her that she would bear a son, and die on her forty-seventh birthday. "I thought," added she, "that I had outlived the fatal date. But I bless God that I am no longer afraid of death. I have learnt the truth of revealed religion, and can depart in peace." Then she desired her friend, as soon as she was dead, to take the ribbon from her arm, and to show it to her son. She died within the hour; and her wrist was found exactly as she had described it, with every nerve and sinew shrunk and withered away, and branded by the clasp of four fiery fingers. The bureau, retaining the scorched print-marks of a man's hand, is still in existence in Lord Clanwilliam's house of Gill Hall in the county Down; and Lady Beresford's portrait, painted with the mysterious black ribbon round her wrist, is to be seen at Curraghmore.

The name of Poer or Power is widely spread in Ireland. "The Poers of Belleville Park, near Cappoquin; the Powers of Affane and Mount Rivers, in the same vicinity; the Powers of Gurteen, midway between Clonmel and Carrick, are the chief representatives of this honourable name in the county of Waterford."—Sir Bernard Burke. Several branches remained seated in England. In Worcestershire the Poers held of the honour of Gloucester, and affixed their name to Pyriton Power. Robert de Poher was seven times Sheriff of Leicestershire under King John, and held five and a half knight's fees in the county. Richard le Poer occurs in the Hundred Rolls of 7 Edward I. as a landowner in Oxfordshire, where his descendants "continued for many ages;" Thomas Poure, a minor (the son of Sir Thomas Poure), died in 1407; his heiress was his sister Agnes Wyneslowe.—Bullington and Ploughley's Oxon.

Gentischieve le Poer held considerable property in Oxfordshire during the reign of John; and his descendant Sir Walter founded a house of charity dedicated to St. John at Oxford; after which, taking a journey to the Holy Land, he was absent for many years. The college, believing him to be dead, ventured upon altering some of his statutes, which provided for the reception and entertainment of pilgrims; and when he at length returned, so changed with age and travel that none might know him, and knocked at the gate of his hospital, he found it closed against him. He asked for alms, and was refused and turned away; but a poor scholar, compassionating his wan and weary looks, followed him out and put a piece of money into his hand. Then, drawing a ring off his finger, he asked the young man—a rather reluctant emissary—to take it to the Warden, who instantly recognised it. "God's mercy!" he cried; "it is the ring of our founder!" Having thus announced his presence, Sir Walter lost no time in discharging the vials of his wrath upon the disobedient fraternity, whom he sentenced to instant expulsion, and only pardoned when they had made the most abject submission, and most solemn promises of good conduct for the future. "The restoration of the Fellows of St. John's is said to have given rise to the choir music in the open air."—Bullington and Ploughley's Oxfordshire.