The imposing Lismore Castle, situated on the site of the old monastery since medieval times, lies on a steep hill overlooking the town and the Blackwater valley. It can trace an eight-hundred-year-old history linking the varied historic relations between England and Ireland. Originally built following the arrival of Henry II's son, Prince John, in the twelfth century, the castle was a bishop's palace up to the sixteenth century. Subsequently owned by Sir Walter Raleigh until his demise, it was sold to Richard Boyle, controversial First Earl of Cork, described by historian R. F. Foster, in his "Modern Ireland", as an "epitome of Elizabethan adventurer-colonist in Ireland". In 1627 the castle was the birthplace of the First Earl's most famous son, Robert Boyle (of Boyle's Law), known as the "Father of Modern Chemistry". Boyle was chased off his lands in Ireland during the Irish Rebellion of 1641, following which his sons recovered the family estates after suppression of the rebellion. The castle remained in the possession of the Boyle family until it passed to the English Dukes of Devonshire in 1753 when the daughter of the 4th Earl of Cork, Lady Charlotte Boyle, married the Marquess of Hartington, who later succeeded as, in 1755, The 4th Duke of Devonshire, a future Prime Minister of Great Britain and First Lord of the Treasury.