Who Do You Think You Are? - Klaus von dem Eberbach (Part 2)
As promised, here is the second part of my research.
Research Project Part 2: Tyrian Persimmon
From El Halcon #1:
Isabella - "Look here, Tyrian. This is your grandmother. During the time of Queen Mary, your grandmother from the Farnese family in Toledo married into an English family."
Gerard Peru - "My mother came to England together with her. She still talks about the orange groves of the Farnese family."
Sub-Part 1: Tyrian’s Ancestry
Little is known about Tyrian's background beyond what is said above. We know that he was born in September of 1562, which means we can estimate that his mother was born in the 1540s (based on being <20 & >13 at the time of his birth: 1562-20=1542, 1562-13=1549). This would make the birth year of Tyrian’s grandmother no later than 1535 (if she was no older than 13 when Isabella was born, and Isabella was no older than 13 when Tyrian was born. She was also probably born after 1501, which would have made her 40 if Isabella was born in 1542.
To summarize: Isabella was born in England between 1542 and 1549; Isabella’s mother was born in Spain between 1501 and 1535.
We also know that his grandmother was of the Farnese family of Toledo, Spain and married an English lord during Queen Mary's time. However, there are just a few problems with this last bit of information:
Problem #1 - The Farnese family in Spain
1) The Farnese family was very prominent in Italy - not Spain. The family boasted several popes and cardinals and carved out the Duchy of Parma due to their political connections. They were also famous condottiero, leading many important armies, including Papal ones.
2) The first Farnese to be mentioned in connection with Spain is Alexander (Alessandro) Farnese, Duke of Parma, Governor of the Spanish Netherlands, who was heavily involved with the Spanish Armada. It is probably this Farnese that the author was thinking about when she chose the name, and it is possible that we'll learn more as the story is translated. (Anyone who has read the full stories of El Halcon and Seven Seas, Seven Skies and has more detail beyond what is here - http://belladonna.org/sevenskies.html - let me know? I have read the translations by PP 1-3, and I have SSSS in Japanese but can only stare at the pictures.) It is also probable that the infamous letter from the Duke of Paloma in SSSS, the one that sends Luminous Red’s father to the gallows, is a reference to the actual Duke of Parma, Alexander Farnese, who would have been distantly related to Tyrian.
3) However Alexander Farnese was only a small bit Spanish (1/8): he was mostly German and Flemish (his mother) and Italian (his father). His connection to Spain was through his mother, Margaret of Austria, who was the illegitimate daughter of Emperor Charles V - a Habsburg - by a Flemish serving woman and thus half-sister to Philip II of Spain. She was raised in the Netherlands by her aunts, who were Governors of the Netherlands. She married Ottavio Farnese (an Italian), although the marriage was not particularly successful, and spent much of her life in service to her half-brother as Governor of the Netherlands prior to her son taking on the post.
4) However, Alexander was brought up in Spain, and in Toledo, with his cousins, Don Carlos and Don John. It was hoped that this would make his father, the Duke of Parma, more sympathetic to Spanish causes, given the family's link to the Pope - and it worked, as they were influential in preventing the Pope from granting Henry VIII’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon. However, Alexander wasn't born till 1545, which would make him roughly the same age as Tyrian's mother, and thus a possible cousin to her and/or Tyrian. Prior to Alexander, there were no documented members of the Farnese family living in Toledo, or anywhere in Spain.
5) The only other Farnese associated with Spain is Elizabeth Farnese, great-great-granddaughter of Alexander - and thus, way outside our timeline since she was born in 1692, almost 100 years later. She married the king of Spain, and as such is the ancestress of many current royal families.
Solution to Problem #1
The only viable solution is to postulate that a Farnese further up the family tree than Alexander moved to Spain for some reason.
1) The Spanish branch of the Farnese family must have settled in Spain after 1319 but before 1500, if Tyrian’s grandmother was born and grew up in Toledo prior to moving to England (see birthdates above). Before then, the Farnese family as such did not exist (in 1319 they returned to Tuscany and acquired Farnese, Ischia di Castro, the castles of Sala and San Savino, as well as the Farnese name).
2) One of the most likely candidates for founding the Spanish branch of the Farnese family is a brother of Ranuccio Farnese il Vecchio.
a. Ranuccio (1390-1450) is considered the founder of the Italian Farnese family fortunes. He and his siblings were born on Ischia, an island in the Tyrrhenian Sea (30 miles from Naples).
b. Ranuccio was a condottiero, as was his father. If he had any brothers, they would have (by family tradition) either been soldiers or in the Church.
c. Ischia was fought over by many, many rulers. During the time period in question, Naples ruled it but then in 1422, Queen Joan II of Naples gave the island to her adoptive son, Alfonso V of Aragon. They had a big falling out in 1424 and she took the island back.
d. Although Toledo is in Castile and not Aragon, Alfonso married Maria, the Princess of Castile in 1415. So there is a connection between Ischia (and the Farneses) and Naples, then between Naples and Aragon, and finally between Aragon and Castile.
3) Going along with this theory, what we can create is a brother of Ranuccio Farnese in the employ of Queen Joan of Naples, from whence he went to the Aragon court of her adoptive son in the early 1400s. He could have then married one of the new queen's ladies-in-waiting, and at some point he & his wife returned to her family home in Toledo, settled there to grow oranges, thus founding the Farnese family in Spain.
Problem #2 - Queen Mary
1) Mary was Queen from 1553 to 1558, for 5 years, and Tyrian was born 4 years after her death. If Isabella's mother married her English lord during this time, that's only 9 years for her to have Isabella and for Isabella to become old enough to have Tyrian. Now, unless Isabella was 8 when Tyrian was born, that timeline is impossible.
2) It's possible that the author meant when Catherine of Aragon was Queen, and that Isabella's mother came to the English court as one of her ladies-in-waiting during her marriage to Arthur or Henry. The timing would work out, although it would make Isabella’s mother on the high end of 30 when Isabella was born (although there could have been other children, with Isabella the last). Still, this relies on canon being slightly wrong.
3) Another option is that Isabella's mother came to England after 1537, as part of Princess (not Queen) Mary's household. From 1533 to 1537, following the divorce of her parents, Mary had lived as a virtual prisoner, but following Jane Seymour's death in 1537, Henry allowed Mary more freedom, including her own royal palaces and entourage. She was able to bring in new ladies-in-waiting, and it would be realistic for them to have come from her mother’s home, Spain. This gives us a wider window: from 1537 when Mary was given more freedom until 1558 when she died. Isabella’s mother could have easily married her English lord between 1537 and 1547, to have Isabella sometime between 1542 & 1549. This would narrow the window for Tyrian’s grandmother to a birthdate between 1501 and 1525.
Summary to Part 1
So to summarize, for this part of Tyrian’s history to be feasible, one of the Farnese sons must have come to Spain in the early to mid 1400s, to the Court of Aragon. This Farnese probably married a noblewoman from the Queen's kingdom of Castile, and settled down there on an estate outside Toledo with orange groves. Several generations later, a daughter, born between 1501 and 1525, went to England after 1537 to be a lady-in-waiting to Princess Mary, along with Gerard Peru's mother. She married an English lord, gave birth to Isabella sometime between 1542 and 1549, who later married Lord Edlington, had an affair with Gerard, and gave birth to Tyrian in 1562.
Sub-Part 2: Tyrian as an Eberbach Ancester
Dorian: "The man dressed in purple? Tyrian Persimmon? Is he your ancestor?"
Yes, Tyrian is Klaus' ancestor - it is canon. And he has to have been a direct ancestor, not a great-uncle, as he was an only child. So, how did that happen? How did a part-Spanish, part-English pirate captain who died during the Spanish Armada end up as an ancestor to a very German aristocratic family?
Item #1 - The Woman
Obviously at some point, Tyrian had a dalliance with a woman who didn't immediately die, and she produced a child who later married one of the Eberbach ancestors. But when and where? There are a number of possibilities but we can make a few suppositions: 1) it was not a woman in England, 2) she was from a respectable family, 3) she was possibly an illegitimate child, and 4) the woman must have thought kindly of Tyrian - or at least didn’t hate his guts.
Reasons:
1) If the woman was English, then the child would have been raised as English since Tyrian left for Spain as a traitor. So how would this child and a von dem Eberbach have hooked up? A Protestant Eberbach might have fled to England during the Thirty Years' War but not a Catholic one. And further, how would the portrait have been passed on? One would think that a painting of a notorious Spy and Traitor would have been destroyed, not passed on as a family heirloom. So she was either someone Tyrian met while a spy - in the Spanish Netherlands - or a woman he met while in Spain prior to the Armada sailing.
2) She had to have been from an aristocratic line or their descendant wouldn't have married a von dem Eberbach. Even without the Habsburg link, the von Hirschhorn family was well-connected across Europe, and the Eberbach branch would have been equally connected. It is unlikely that a von dem Eberbach would have married a commoner.
3) A young ship captain who was also an English spy can't have been considered a great catch, even if he was related to the Farnese family (and possibly a 6th cousin to Alexander Farnese), so it is unlikely that he would have been offered marriage to a high-born young lady, unless Alexander Farnese had either taken a liking to his distant cousin or wanted to secure his loyalty. There is always the possibility that Tyrian seduced her, like Penelope. However, it would have been risky to alienate himself from the very people he was trying to get an "in" with. It is also doubtful that she was a von dem Eberbach because at this time they were twenty years away from the start of the Thirty Years' devastation and no doubt sitting comfortably snug in their castle in southern Germany. So either the young lady was an acknowledged illegitimate daughter of a prominent family, like Alexander Farnese’s own mother had been, or she was a legitimate daughter of a less prominent family.
4) The Painting. A flattering (if you ignore Klaus' comments) portrait of Tyrian Persimmon exists. It could have been commissioned by Tyrian, or by someone who wanted to have his image preserved - such as a wife or a mistress. It was probably painted in the Spanish Netherlands or Spain, as it is unlikely that Tyrian paused to grab a painting as he fled from England. And since it didn’t go to the bottom of the ocean with him, he must have left it with someone on shore. Since it was kept and became part of a private family collection, instead of reduced to kindling or used for target practice, the person holding the painting must have had kind feelings for Tyrian. Okay, it's possible that this unknown woman kept the painting so she could point it out to Tyrian’s bastard child and say "That's your son-of-a-bitch father", but it would have been much easier to lose it, destroy it, leave it behind, or give it away. (Believe me - I've been divorced, I know how easy that is!) Instead, the painting ended up in the heart of Germany, ergo, it must have been brought into the family with a descendant’s dowry.
So, based on the conjectures above, the mother of Tyrian's child was probably a woman of noble birth whom he met in Spain or the Spanish Netherlands. Spain seems more plausible as there was an entire year between his arrival there and his sailing off with the Armada, whereas any dalliance in the Netherlands would have been carried off in between his duties as a British Naval Officer. If the child was born in Spain, it is also likely posthumous since there is no hint of a child before the fateful voyage.
Side-trip #1: An interesting idea
Remember Alexander Farnese, mentioned above? Alexander was the father of three legitimate children and at least one illegitimate daughter. Before his military career started, Alexander attended the University of Alcala de Henares in Toledo and was a noted womanizer, even “teaching” his younger cousin, Don John. It is possible that he sired another illegitimate daughter during this time, one who would have then been about Tyrian's age. Since Tyrian had heard stories about his Farnese ancestors from the time he was a child and dreamed of their orange groves in Spain, allying himself back to the Farnese family would have been an irresistible impulse. (And he didn't resist many of his impulses!) The fact that this daughter would have been part Habsburg, great-grand-daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, grand-niece to the Kings of Spain and Austria, and niece to two prominent Cardinals would have been another draw - and we've seen him take advantage of the connections of other women he'd seduced. At somewhere between 23 and 26, she would have been more of a woman of the world, and the attentions of a handsome and ambitious young captain might have been welcomed by her. Married? Probably not, but I think that in this case, the child would have had the Farnese last name, not Persimmon or Edlington since Tyrian hated all of his "fathers".
Item #2: Getting to Eberbach
So how did Tyrian’s child, or the descendants of Tyrian’s child, get to Germany and marry into one of the prominent families of the Palatinate? There are a number of ways that are plausible, particularly during the upheaval caused by all the Reformation Wars. If Tyrian’s offspring was born in the Spanish Netherlands, it is possible that his descendants came into contact with the von dem Eberbachs during the wars of the 17th through early 19th centuries, when either (or both) families relocated for safety. Also, depending on the social status of the Flemish woman’s family, there could have been an arranged marriage between the families. It would be hard to pinpoint when in time this could have occurred, but anywhere after the von dem Eberbach family relocated to Bonn would be feasible.
Alternately, it is possible that a von dem Eberbach daughter was in attendance at the court of the Spanish Netherlands while Tyrian was a spy, and she then bore Tyrian's child, but there are a number of strikes against that - 1) since Tyrian was a spy and supposedly a loyal Englishman, he wouldn't have been visibly hanging around the Court, which would have made it hard for him to meet such a woman, 2) it is doubtful that they would have married, and if she had turned up pregnant to an English sailor, no doubt her family would have hushed it up and married her off to someone else, so it's doubtful they'd have Tyrian's portrait on the wall.
It is easier to fix a point in time if Tyrian produced a child with a Spanish woman while waiting for the Armada. Assuming the offspring was a son born posthumously in 1588, he would have been in his early thirties when Spain entered the Thirty Years' War in 1621. A young nobleman, distantly connected to the Farnese family and inheriting Tyrian’s ambitious nature, would have found a natural home in Spain’s military. During the Thirty Year’s War, Spanish troops invaded Germany and ended up taking control of - you guessed it - the Electoral Palatinate, the very territory where Eberbach was located. The Spanish settled in, and alliances with residing Catholic aristocracy would have been politically advantageous for both sides. Tyrian’s son might have married a von dem Eberbach daughter or, more likely since the von dem Eberbach name carried on, Tyrian's granddaughter was married to a von dem Eberbach son. If Tyrian's son married and produced a daughter between 1605-1607, she would have been 14-16 in 1621 when the Spanish settled in the Palatinate, a perfect age for marriage to an Eberbach heir. Then, as said in Part 1 of this research, when the Swedish armies came through to muck things up in 1630-35, the von dem Eberbach family fled to the safety of Bonn with their valuables - including a portrait of Grandfather Tyrian - and built a new home there, to be passed down to their descendants.
Summary to Part 2
So, to summarize this part, at some point in time, Tyrian’s dalliances with a woman of minor nobility, possibly illegitimate, living in Spain or the Spanich Netherlands, produced a child. This woman also retained the infamous “Pumpkin Pants” painting, which was then passed on to the von dem Eberbach family when Tyrian’s descendent married into them. Although this event could have occurred at any point from about 1621 onward, it is likely that the marriage between the two branches took place during the Spanish occupation of the Palatinate, prior to the von dem Eberbachs relocating to Bonn.
My personal theory? Tyrian’s dalliance was with an illegitimate daughter of Alexander Farnese attached to the Spanish court (and great-niece of the King of Spain), possibly named Isabella - Alexander had a legitimate daughter named Margherita and an illegitimate one named Isabella Margherita, and since the family liked to recycle names, it is feasible to think he already had an earlier illegitimate daughter named Isabella. And Tyrian would have fallen like a ton of bricks for a woman named Isabella Farnese, given his obsession with the Farnese family and his mother (also named Isabella). Isabella gave birth to a son following Tyrian’s demise with the Armada, possibly named Tyrian (depending on how kindly she felt towards Tyrian) or Alessandro or Ottavio, which were Farnese family names. Tyrian/Alessandro/Ottavio Farnese was brought up on the fringes of the Spanish court, joining the Spanish Armyand becoming part of the occupying forces in the Palatinate in 1621. Captain Farnese, by reason of his ties with the Spanish Court, became a part of the Palatinate social structure as he would have been a 3rd cousin to the ruler, Maximilian I of Bavaria. He was then able to arrange a marriage between his daughter and a von dem Eberbach son (Hans V von Hirschhorn’s 6th great-grandson). When the Swedish forces took over, the young couple fled to Bonn as stated above. Of course, this is only my speculations -- your mileage may vary.
CHARTS:
Farnese family, including hypothetical Spanish branch
Hypothetical Pedigree chart for Tyrian Persimmon
Tomorrow: Research Project Part 3 - Habsburgs in the Eberbach tree
Research Project Part 2: Tyrian Persimmon
From El Halcon #1:
Isabella - "Look here, Tyrian. This is your grandmother. During the time of Queen Mary, your grandmother from the Farnese family in Toledo married into an English family."
Gerard Peru - "My mother came to England together with her. She still talks about the orange groves of the Farnese family."
Sub-Part 1: Tyrian’s Ancestry
Little is known about Tyrian's background beyond what is said above. We know that he was born in September of 1562, which means we can estimate that his mother was born in the 1540s (based on being <20 & >13 at the time of his birth: 1562-20=1542, 1562-13=1549). This would make the birth year of Tyrian’s grandmother no later than 1535 (if she was no older than 13 when Isabella was born, and Isabella was no older than 13 when Tyrian was born. She was also probably born after 1501, which would have made her 40 if Isabella was born in 1542.
To summarize: Isabella was born in England between 1542 and 1549; Isabella’s mother was born in Spain between 1501 and 1535.
We also know that his grandmother was of the Farnese family of Toledo, Spain and married an English lord during Queen Mary's time. However, there are just a few problems with this last bit of information:
Problem #1 - The Farnese family in Spain
1) The Farnese family was very prominent in Italy - not Spain. The family boasted several popes and cardinals and carved out the Duchy of Parma due to their political connections. They were also famous condottiero, leading many important armies, including Papal ones.
2) The first Farnese to be mentioned in connection with Spain is Alexander (Alessandro) Farnese, Duke of Parma, Governor of the Spanish Netherlands, who was heavily involved with the Spanish Armada. It is probably this Farnese that the author was thinking about when she chose the name, and it is possible that we'll learn more as the story is translated. (Anyone who has read the full stories of El Halcon and Seven Seas, Seven Skies and has more detail beyond what is here - http://belladonna.org/sevenskies.html - let me know? I have read the translations by PP 1-3, and I have SSSS in Japanese but can only stare at the pictures.) It is also probable that the infamous letter from the Duke of Paloma in SSSS, the one that sends Luminous Red’s father to the gallows, is a reference to the actual Duke of Parma, Alexander Farnese, who would have been distantly related to Tyrian.
3) However Alexander Farnese was only a small bit Spanish (1/8): he was mostly German and Flemish (his mother) and Italian (his father). His connection to Spain was through his mother, Margaret of Austria, who was the illegitimate daughter of Emperor Charles V - a Habsburg - by a Flemish serving woman and thus half-sister to Philip II of Spain. She was raised in the Netherlands by her aunts, who were Governors of the Netherlands. She married Ottavio Farnese (an Italian), although the marriage was not particularly successful, and spent much of her life in service to her half-brother as Governor of the Netherlands prior to her son taking on the post.
4) However, Alexander was brought up in Spain, and in Toledo, with his cousins, Don Carlos and Don John. It was hoped that this would make his father, the Duke of Parma, more sympathetic to Spanish causes, given the family's link to the Pope - and it worked, as they were influential in preventing the Pope from granting Henry VIII’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon. However, Alexander wasn't born till 1545, which would make him roughly the same age as Tyrian's mother, and thus a possible cousin to her and/or Tyrian. Prior to Alexander, there were no documented members of the Farnese family living in Toledo, or anywhere in Spain.
5) The only other Farnese associated with Spain is Elizabeth Farnese, great-great-granddaughter of Alexander - and thus, way outside our timeline since she was born in 1692, almost 100 years later. She married the king of Spain, and as such is the ancestress of many current royal families.
Solution to Problem #1
The only viable solution is to postulate that a Farnese further up the family tree than Alexander moved to Spain for some reason.
1) The Spanish branch of the Farnese family must have settled in Spain after 1319 but before 1500, if Tyrian’s grandmother was born and grew up in Toledo prior to moving to England (see birthdates above). Before then, the Farnese family as such did not exist (in 1319 they returned to Tuscany and acquired Farnese, Ischia di Castro, the castles of Sala and San Savino, as well as the Farnese name).
2) One of the most likely candidates for founding the Spanish branch of the Farnese family is a brother of Ranuccio Farnese il Vecchio.
a. Ranuccio (1390-1450) is considered the founder of the Italian Farnese family fortunes. He and his siblings were born on Ischia, an island in the Tyrrhenian Sea (30 miles from Naples).
b. Ranuccio was a condottiero, as was his father. If he had any brothers, they would have (by family tradition) either been soldiers or in the Church.
c. Ischia was fought over by many, many rulers. During the time period in question, Naples ruled it but then in 1422, Queen Joan II of Naples gave the island to her adoptive son, Alfonso V of Aragon. They had a big falling out in 1424 and she took the island back.
d. Although Toledo is in Castile and not Aragon, Alfonso married Maria, the Princess of Castile in 1415. So there is a connection between Ischia (and the Farneses) and Naples, then between Naples and Aragon, and finally between Aragon and Castile.
3) Going along with this theory, what we can create is a brother of Ranuccio Farnese in the employ of Queen Joan of Naples, from whence he went to the Aragon court of her adoptive son in the early 1400s. He could have then married one of the new queen's ladies-in-waiting, and at some point he & his wife returned to her family home in Toledo, settled there to grow oranges, thus founding the Farnese family in Spain.
Problem #2 - Queen Mary
1) Mary was Queen from 1553 to 1558, for 5 years, and Tyrian was born 4 years after her death. If Isabella's mother married her English lord during this time, that's only 9 years for her to have Isabella and for Isabella to become old enough to have Tyrian. Now, unless Isabella was 8 when Tyrian was born, that timeline is impossible.
2) It's possible that the author meant when Catherine of Aragon was Queen, and that Isabella's mother came to the English court as one of her ladies-in-waiting during her marriage to Arthur or Henry. The timing would work out, although it would make Isabella’s mother on the high end of 30 when Isabella was born (although there could have been other children, with Isabella the last). Still, this relies on canon being slightly wrong.
3) Another option is that Isabella's mother came to England after 1537, as part of Princess (not Queen) Mary's household. From 1533 to 1537, following the divorce of her parents, Mary had lived as a virtual prisoner, but following Jane Seymour's death in 1537, Henry allowed Mary more freedom, including her own royal palaces and entourage. She was able to bring in new ladies-in-waiting, and it would be realistic for them to have come from her mother’s home, Spain. This gives us a wider window: from 1537 when Mary was given more freedom until 1558 when she died. Isabella’s mother could have easily married her English lord between 1537 and 1547, to have Isabella sometime between 1542 & 1549. This would narrow the window for Tyrian’s grandmother to a birthdate between 1501 and 1525.
Summary to Part 1
So to summarize, for this part of Tyrian’s history to be feasible, one of the Farnese sons must have come to Spain in the early to mid 1400s, to the Court of Aragon. This Farnese probably married a noblewoman from the Queen's kingdom of Castile, and settled down there on an estate outside Toledo with orange groves. Several generations later, a daughter, born between 1501 and 1525, went to England after 1537 to be a lady-in-waiting to Princess Mary, along with Gerard Peru's mother. She married an English lord, gave birth to Isabella sometime between 1542 and 1549, who later married Lord Edlington, had an affair with Gerard, and gave birth to Tyrian in 1562.
Sub-Part 2: Tyrian as an Eberbach Ancester
Dorian: "The man dressed in purple? Tyrian Persimmon? Is he your ancestor?"
Yes, Tyrian is Klaus' ancestor - it is canon. And he has to have been a direct ancestor, not a great-uncle, as he was an only child. So, how did that happen? How did a part-Spanish, part-English pirate captain who died during the Spanish Armada end up as an ancestor to a very German aristocratic family?
Item #1 - The Woman
Obviously at some point, Tyrian had a dalliance with a woman who didn't immediately die, and she produced a child who later married one of the Eberbach ancestors. But when and where? There are a number of possibilities but we can make a few suppositions: 1) it was not a woman in England, 2) she was from a respectable family, 3) she was possibly an illegitimate child, and 4) the woman must have thought kindly of Tyrian - or at least didn’t hate his guts.
Reasons:
1) If the woman was English, then the child would have been raised as English since Tyrian left for Spain as a traitor. So how would this child and a von dem Eberbach have hooked up? A Protestant Eberbach might have fled to England during the Thirty Years' War but not a Catholic one. And further, how would the portrait have been passed on? One would think that a painting of a notorious Spy and Traitor would have been destroyed, not passed on as a family heirloom. So she was either someone Tyrian met while a spy - in the Spanish Netherlands - or a woman he met while in Spain prior to the Armada sailing.
2) She had to have been from an aristocratic line or their descendant wouldn't have married a von dem Eberbach. Even without the Habsburg link, the von Hirschhorn family was well-connected across Europe, and the Eberbach branch would have been equally connected. It is unlikely that a von dem Eberbach would have married a commoner.
3) A young ship captain who was also an English spy can't have been considered a great catch, even if he was related to the Farnese family (and possibly a 6th cousin to Alexander Farnese), so it is unlikely that he would have been offered marriage to a high-born young lady, unless Alexander Farnese had either taken a liking to his distant cousin or wanted to secure his loyalty. There is always the possibility that Tyrian seduced her, like Penelope. However, it would have been risky to alienate himself from the very people he was trying to get an "in" with. It is also doubtful that she was a von dem Eberbach because at this time they were twenty years away from the start of the Thirty Years' devastation and no doubt sitting comfortably snug in their castle in southern Germany. So either the young lady was an acknowledged illegitimate daughter of a prominent family, like Alexander Farnese’s own mother had been, or she was a legitimate daughter of a less prominent family.
4) The Painting. A flattering (if you ignore Klaus' comments) portrait of Tyrian Persimmon exists. It could have been commissioned by Tyrian, or by someone who wanted to have his image preserved - such as a wife or a mistress. It was probably painted in the Spanish Netherlands or Spain, as it is unlikely that Tyrian paused to grab a painting as he fled from England. And since it didn’t go to the bottom of the ocean with him, he must have left it with someone on shore. Since it was kept and became part of a private family collection, instead of reduced to kindling or used for target practice, the person holding the painting must have had kind feelings for Tyrian. Okay, it's possible that this unknown woman kept the painting so she could point it out to Tyrian’s bastard child and say "That's your son-of-a-bitch father", but it would have been much easier to lose it, destroy it, leave it behind, or give it away. (Believe me - I've been divorced, I know how easy that is!) Instead, the painting ended up in the heart of Germany, ergo, it must have been brought into the family with a descendant’s dowry.
So, based on the conjectures above, the mother of Tyrian's child was probably a woman of noble birth whom he met in Spain or the Spanish Netherlands. Spain seems more plausible as there was an entire year between his arrival there and his sailing off with the Armada, whereas any dalliance in the Netherlands would have been carried off in between his duties as a British Naval Officer. If the child was born in Spain, it is also likely posthumous since there is no hint of a child before the fateful voyage.
Side-trip #1: An interesting idea
Remember Alexander Farnese, mentioned above? Alexander was the father of three legitimate children and at least one illegitimate daughter. Before his military career started, Alexander attended the University of Alcala de Henares in Toledo and was a noted womanizer, even “teaching” his younger cousin, Don John. It is possible that he sired another illegitimate daughter during this time, one who would have then been about Tyrian's age. Since Tyrian had heard stories about his Farnese ancestors from the time he was a child and dreamed of their orange groves in Spain, allying himself back to the Farnese family would have been an irresistible impulse. (And he didn't resist many of his impulses!) The fact that this daughter would have been part Habsburg, great-grand-daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, grand-niece to the Kings of Spain and Austria, and niece to two prominent Cardinals would have been another draw - and we've seen him take advantage of the connections of other women he'd seduced. At somewhere between 23 and 26, she would have been more of a woman of the world, and the attentions of a handsome and ambitious young captain might have been welcomed by her. Married? Probably not, but I think that in this case, the child would have had the Farnese last name, not Persimmon or Edlington since Tyrian hated all of his "fathers".
Item #2: Getting to Eberbach
So how did Tyrian’s child, or the descendants of Tyrian’s child, get to Germany and marry into one of the prominent families of the Palatinate? There are a number of ways that are plausible, particularly during the upheaval caused by all the Reformation Wars. If Tyrian’s offspring was born in the Spanish Netherlands, it is possible that his descendants came into contact with the von dem Eberbachs during the wars of the 17th through early 19th centuries, when either (or both) families relocated for safety. Also, depending on the social status of the Flemish woman’s family, there could have been an arranged marriage between the families. It would be hard to pinpoint when in time this could have occurred, but anywhere after the von dem Eberbach family relocated to Bonn would be feasible.
Alternately, it is possible that a von dem Eberbach daughter was in attendance at the court of the Spanish Netherlands while Tyrian was a spy, and she then bore Tyrian's child, but there are a number of strikes against that - 1) since Tyrian was a spy and supposedly a loyal Englishman, he wouldn't have been visibly hanging around the Court, which would have made it hard for him to meet such a woman, 2) it is doubtful that they would have married, and if she had turned up pregnant to an English sailor, no doubt her family would have hushed it up and married her off to someone else, so it's doubtful they'd have Tyrian's portrait on the wall.
It is easier to fix a point in time if Tyrian produced a child with a Spanish woman while waiting for the Armada. Assuming the offspring was a son born posthumously in 1588, he would have been in his early thirties when Spain entered the Thirty Years' War in 1621. A young nobleman, distantly connected to the Farnese family and inheriting Tyrian’s ambitious nature, would have found a natural home in Spain’s military. During the Thirty Year’s War, Spanish troops invaded Germany and ended up taking control of - you guessed it - the Electoral Palatinate, the very territory where Eberbach was located. The Spanish settled in, and alliances with residing Catholic aristocracy would have been politically advantageous for both sides. Tyrian’s son might have married a von dem Eberbach daughter or, more likely since the von dem Eberbach name carried on, Tyrian's granddaughter was married to a von dem Eberbach son. If Tyrian's son married and produced a daughter between 1605-1607, she would have been 14-16 in 1621 when the Spanish settled in the Palatinate, a perfect age for marriage to an Eberbach heir. Then, as said in Part 1 of this research, when the Swedish armies came through to muck things up in 1630-35, the von dem Eberbach family fled to the safety of Bonn with their valuables - including a portrait of Grandfather Tyrian - and built a new home there, to be passed down to their descendants.
Summary to Part 2
So, to summarize this part, at some point in time, Tyrian’s dalliances with a woman of minor nobility, possibly illegitimate, living in Spain or the Spanich Netherlands, produced a child. This woman also retained the infamous “Pumpkin Pants” painting, which was then passed on to the von dem Eberbach family when Tyrian’s descendent married into them. Although this event could have occurred at any point from about 1621 onward, it is likely that the marriage between the two branches took place during the Spanish occupation of the Palatinate, prior to the von dem Eberbachs relocating to Bonn.
My personal theory? Tyrian’s dalliance was with an illegitimate daughter of Alexander Farnese attached to the Spanish court (and great-niece of the King of Spain), possibly named Isabella - Alexander had a legitimate daughter named Margherita and an illegitimate one named Isabella Margherita, and since the family liked to recycle names, it is feasible to think he already had an earlier illegitimate daughter named Isabella. And Tyrian would have fallen like a ton of bricks for a woman named Isabella Farnese, given his obsession with the Farnese family and his mother (also named Isabella). Isabella gave birth to a son following Tyrian’s demise with the Armada, possibly named Tyrian (depending on how kindly she felt towards Tyrian) or Alessandro or Ottavio, which were Farnese family names. Tyrian/Alessandro/Ottavio Farnese was brought up on the fringes of the Spanish court, joining the Spanish Armyand becoming part of the occupying forces in the Palatinate in 1621. Captain Farnese, by reason of his ties with the Spanish Court, became a part of the Palatinate social structure as he would have been a 3rd cousin to the ruler, Maximilian I of Bavaria. He was then able to arrange a marriage between his daughter and a von dem Eberbach son (Hans V von Hirschhorn’s 6th great-grandson). When the Swedish forces took over, the young couple fled to Bonn as stated above. Of course, this is only my speculations -- your mileage may vary.
CHARTS:
Farnese family, including hypothetical Spanish branch
Hypothetical Pedigree chart for Tyrian Persimmon
Tomorrow: Research Project Part 3 - Habsburgs in the Eberbach tree