Note 384 — INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO CHAPTER VIII
Reading edition
Catherine, widow of the twelfth Earl of Desmond, died in 1604, having survived her husband seventy years. There seems much doubt about the principal dates of her life, e.g. those of her birth and marriage, but she is said to have attained the remarkable age of 140 years, and to have died by a fall from a cherry-tree. Sir Walter Raleigh records that he knew her and that she “was married in Edward IV.’s time.”