Catherine Fenton

The Rt Hon. Catherine Fenton Boyle, Countess of Cork (1588 – 16 February 1630), was an Anglo-Irish aristocrat and the wife of the 1st Earl of Cork.

Biography Catherine Fenton Boyle was born around 1588. She was the only daughter of Sir Geoffrey Fenton, the Secretary of State for Ireland 1580–1608, and Alice (née Weston). Her maternal grandfather was Robert Weston, Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and her grandmother was Alice Jenyngs. She had one brother, Sir William Fenton. On 25 July 1603, she married an Englishman, Richard Boyle, who was later created, in October 1620, 1st Earl of Cork. Her dowry of £1,000 allowed Boyle to purchase the estates of Sir Walter Raleigh in East Cork. She could have been as young as 15 at the time of the marriage, and Richard was 37. The age difference may have made Richard paternalistic towards Catherine, allowing her little freedom even in domestic affairs.

He oversaw the household accounts, purchased and chose his wife's clothes, did not allow her to borrow money, and did not seek her opinion on the education or marriages of their children. He commented on her as being "most religious, virtuous, loving and obedient". The family moved to Youghal in 1605, where Richard bought the lease of a former college, converting it into a home. He purchased the Chantry of our Blessed Saviour, and made it into a family mortuary chapel. Lord Cork, as he later became, was eventually buried there, but not Catherine, his wife. However, she is represented in the chapel by a marble effigy in the state robe of a countess. Hon. Robert Boyle (1627–1691), author of The Sceptical Chymist; considered to be the father of modern chemistry. Lady Margaret Boyle (1629–1637)