Richard FitzWilliam, 7th Viscount FitzWilliam

[2] The coats of arms of the two families, adopted at the start of the age of heraldry c. 1200-1215, are however apparently identical: Lozengy argent and gules.

The family in Ireland are recorded in Dublin since the thirteenth century, and through shrewd business sense, and a series of advantageous marriages, they became the largest landowners in the region.

This included: Fitzwilliam never married but in the late 1780s it was discovered that starting in 1784 he had a six-year romance with a 15-year-old French Opera dancer from Paris, Marie Anne Bernard (born 1769), known to him by her stage name Zacharie.

He died unmarried and without legitimate progeny on 4 February 1816, in Bond Street,[6] Mayfair, London, having a few months previously fallen off a ladder in his library when he broke a knee.

He bequeathed his large Irish estates to George Herbert, 11th Earl of Pembroke (1759-1827), his first cousin's son, and his art collection and library to the University of Cambridge, together with funds to house them, which became the Fitzwilliam Museum.