In Plantagent and Tudor Times.

CHAPER IV

In Plantagent And Tudor Times.

The period covered by this chapter was a critical one for the Anglo-Irish, and eventful in the history of the owners of Howth. It opens with the Wars of the Roses, passes on to the revolt in favour of Lambert Simnel, and closes at a time when England was rent asunder by the wars of religion. The distinguished part played by the owners of Howth under the later Plantagenet sovereigns is marked by a great altar-tomb, which was then raised in the parish church to one of the most illustrious of the St. Lawrence line. The tomb bears on its slab, which measures seven feet two inches long, and three feet 11 inches broad, the effigies of a knight and a lady, and its ends and its sides are elaborately carved.

The knight is shown in armour, says the Keeper of the Irish Antiquities in the National Museum. Mr. E. C. R. Armstrong, F.S.A., “wearing a pointed bascinet. His head rests upon a cushion; his feet are supported by a hound couchant. He is represented in what appears to he a camail of mail, an archaic feature at that period, when one expects to find a plate gorget, or possibly a standard or collar of mail. A skirt of mail appears below the end of his body armour. His sword is worn in front in the fashion prevalent in the latter part of the 15th century. The lady lies on the knight’s right side. She is shown wearing the horned head-dress fashionable at that period, and a full gown with many pleats. Her head and feet rest upon cushions. The hands of both figures are shown lying flat, palms downwards, on the breast, a position that was doubtless adopted by the sculptor to avoid carving the hands clasped in high relief, in the usual attitude of prayer. Round the edge of the slab there runs an inscription which has been deciphered by Professor R. A. S. Macalister; and which shows that the tomb was erected in memory of Christopher St. Lawrence, Lord of Howth, who died in 1462, and his wife, who was a daughter of the house of Plunkett of Ratoath.

“The ends of the monument are divided into four arched niches decorated with floriated work. The east end contains effigies of St. Peter and St. Catherine, and of an ecclesiastic and an abbess, possibly meant for St. Patrick and St. Brigid. The outer niches of the west end are each filled with the figure of an angel with a censer, and the inner niches contain carvings of St. Michael and the dragon and the Crucifixion. The sides of the tomb are divided into six similar niches on each side. These niches are empty, but between their arched floriated heads are carved shields of arms, except in one case where the emblems of the Passion are inserted. Commencing on the south side and passing from right to left, the first shield contains the arms of St. Lawrence impaling those of Plunkett, the Plunkett arms being reversed and differenced with an annulet; the second an indented chief, which may stand for the arms of Butler or le Poer; the third the Plunkett arms; the fourth the arms of Fleming; and the fifth the arms of Cusack. On the north sude the first shield contains the arms of Bellew; the second a doubtful coat which may represent the arms of Barry or possibly Hussey; the third the arms of St. Lawrence; the fourth the arms of White; and the fifth the emblems of the Passion.”

[Even 300 years ago difficulty was found in determining the families to which some of the arms belonged. See notes “in the church of Howth taken the 11th of September, 1584,” in Trinity College Library, MS. 581, 72. The date on the tomb was then said to be 1430. A description of the tomb, with a wood-cut of the effigies, by R. A., appeared in “The Dublin Penny Journal” ii, 72. In his “Essay on Gothic Architecture in Ireland,” p. 177, Thomas Bell has made an attempt to prove that the tomb is Elizabethan.]

Such references to the peninsula as occur in the period under review relate principally to the port. Its importance then for mercantile traffic is evidenced in the care taken by the Corporation of Dublin that goods landed at Howth should not escape the payment of dues to them, The right to exact the same custom on goods landed there as on goods landed at Dublin was confirmed to the Corporation by Henry the Sixth, and when later on the owner of Howth disputed their right, the whole power of the Corporation was put in motion in its defence.

Amongst passengers landing at Howth in the 15th century we find Sir John de Grey, who held the sword for a brief period; Richard, Duke of York, whose viceroyalty gained for him great popularity in the Pale ; and Sir Edward Poynings, whose name is familiar in connexion with the limitation of the powers of the Irish Parliament; and amongst those sailing from it we find a Chief Baron, James Cornwalsh, who was possibly one of the old Howth clan.

In the 16th century we find sailing from it, in the reign of Edward the Sixth, Sir Edward Bellingham and Sir James Croft, in the reign of Mary, the Earl of Sussex.

There is some reason to believe that in the opening years of Henry the Seventh’s reign the owner of Howth resided at Killester, and it is possible that opportunity may have been then taken to adapt the Castle of Howth to the expanding ideas of that time, but no certainty on the question is attainable. Even at that early period the Castle appears to have been provided with cannon;’ and after Silken Thomas’s rebellion it withstood a somewhat formidable attack made upon it by the Irish tribes.

Besides the Castle of Howth two other residences of considerable dimensions stood in the 16th century on the peninsula. The first of these was Corr Castle, which belonged to the family of White, and the other, which stood on the lands of Sutton, belonged to the family of Hackett. [In 1550 William Whyt of Corryston and Michael Racket of Sutton are mentioned in connexion with the manor of Ward, in which the St. Lawrences had an interest. Fiant, Edw. VI, no.493.] The remains of Corr Castle have been thus described by the President of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland:- “They consist of an oblong tower, four stories high, 19½ by 22 feet outside, and 13½ by 15½ feet inside.

The third story has a stone floor which rests on a vault still bearing the mark of the wicker centering over which it was built. For some reason which is not apparent, this vault covers only part of the space, leaving an opening the whole length of the south wall. Indeed, defence seems not to have been considered by the builders; no murder-hole or loops command the door, nor are there any machicolations, although a corbel for a chimney to the east might easily be mistaken for one.

A small turret, eight by five and a half feet, contains the spiral stair, which commences about seven feet from the ground at the level of the ground-floor. The basement of this turret, which forms a small room, and was probably the porter’s lodge, is corbelled like the turret rooms in Howth Castle, and is lit by unglazed slits.

The north-east angle of the main tower has a bold chamfer for about six feet up, with a defaced floral finial. The only other carving is a rude human face on a projecting stone in the east wall. The windows are very plain, oblong with chamfered edges, save the south window of the top room, which has a well-cut trefoil light with ogee curves and an angular hood.

The basement has a single window to the south and east; a second one to the east below the staircase, which looked into the porter’s room, is closed. Rude ambries remain on most of the floors. The doorways, as a rule, are pointed, and have bolt-holes, but no trace of large bars. The second and third floors have, to the south, windows with seats to each side; the third floor has other smaller windows to the north and east, and a neat, flat-arched recess to the south. There was a garde-robe in the southwest corner of the second and third floors; the doors of the garde-robe and of the stair-case opened back into the shallow recesses in the wall.

The stairs are of far better execution than are usually seen in the peel and church towers of the Dublin district, and, though without a newel, the steps are neat and well set. They number forty in all, and lead to the battlements, which command a fine view of the sea, similar to the one from the chief tower of Howth Castle, and also of the southern side of the peninsula. The doorways, which open to the upper stories at the 16th and 29th steps, are also well cut. The remains of the projecting piers of doors, and an angular mark on the north side, show that a wing two stories high adjoined the tower on that side, the entrance to the upper story from the tower being by a pointed doorway, now built up, beside the lower doorway of the tower stair-case.”

The erection of the altar-tomb led probably to extensive structural changes in the church. Before the erection of the altar-tomb the church appears to have consisted of a nave and chancel, with an aisle on the northern side of the nave, to which the aisle was nearly equal in length. On the erection of the altar-tomb the chancel in which it was faced was converted into a chantry, and a new chancel seems to have been built on its northern side in continuation of the aisle, which became the nave in the new arrangement. By tradition the church is designated an abbey church, but the only ground for the supposition that it had a higher status than a parochial one is to be found in the name, “The College,” which is attached to a building near its southern side. This building is similar in its architectural features to the later chaneel, and would appear not improbably to have been erected at the same time as a residence for the clergy whose duty it was to officiate in the chantry.

As it contains a window of similar design to that in the later chancel, the belfry gable was also probably erected at the same period. The bells which filled the three opes are still preserved in Howth Castle, and bear the following inscriptions

(1) Jesu Criste misserere noibs.

(2) Sancta Maria ora pro nobis ad Filium.

(3) Nicholas Mun Cir of Mebiginer.

During the 15th and 16th centuries the prebendaries of Howth, who were chiefly men of Irish birth, looked for preferment in Ireland rather than in England, and contented themselves with such promotion as the deanery of their own cathedral and the arebdeaconry of their diocese afforded.

Of the vicars, the name of only one, Nicholas Carney, who was appointed in 1532, has come down to us; but a chaplain, John Joy of Howth, who is mentioned in 1549 as a trustee for Lord Howth, was probably one of the clergy serving in the church.

Stephen, who succeeded to the title and estates in 1404, on the death of Nicholas, Lord of Howth, was probably his grandson. He appears to have married in 1387 Elinor, daughter of Sir Robert Holywood of Artain, which manor he held subsequently as a trustee.’ In 1410 he was appointed, with Richard Rochford, to take tithes of Howth for the expenses of the Lord Deputy;** **in 1415 he is mentioned as paying rents for the lands of Kilbarrack; and in 1421 he was required to render homage for Howth and for the lands of Stapolin in the parish of Baldoyle, which he did also in succeeding years.

It was during his time, in the autumn of 1425, that Chief Baron Cornwalsh took ship at Howth, and that in the summer of 1427, Sir John de Grey landed there, and possibly enjoyed his hospitality before proceeding to Swords, where he was sworn into office next day.

Christopher, who as son and heir of Stephen, Lord of Howth, came into possession of the peninsula in 1435 and did homage as its owner in 1437, exhibited capacity and courage, and gained much renown in the troublous times in which he lived. His character is first conspicuous in his assertion of his rights as Lord of Howth, and in his management of his property. Within a few years of his succession he made a claim to all wrecks of the sea upon the peninsula, and contested the right of the Crown to have as a royalty a grampus, 12 feet long, which had been thrown upon it, pleading that from time immemorial his predecessors had been seized of all porpoises, grampuses, and herring-swine found there.

During a great council held in 1450 he appeared as patron of one Richard Ingram, a miner and refiner, who “at great and insupportable cost and labour” had worked in Ireland divers mines of silver, lead, iron, coal, gypsum, and millstone, and was granted leave himself to search within his lordship of Howth for tin or lead ore, and if a mine was found to take the profits for three years, subject to a royalty of six shillings and eight pence.

Some years later he retaliated vigorously on some inhabitants of Wicklow for imposing on him salt which they had unlawfully obtained, and caused them to be declared outlaws, he sought the aid of the Irish Parliament to free lands, in which he had an interest, from unjust taxation, and secured legislation in his favour.

But his great qualities are early seen also in regard to affairs of State. Before 1442 he had been knighted, and 10 years later he was appointed a member of the king’s council, and became foremost in protecting his county as well by sea as by land against the enemies of the king.

In April, 1455, he was commissioned to exact from those using the port of Howth tolls to defray the cost of protecting the shipping from the attacks of “Frenchmen, Bretons, Scots, and divers other nations”; and he supervised the erection of barriers on the bridges of Lucan and Kilmainham and at various fords, by which Irish enemies and English rebels were wont to cross the Liffey by night and to descend on Fingal to rob, kill, and destroy the king’s liege people.

In the following October he was joined with the Archbishop of Dublin, the Abbot of St. Mary’s, and the Priors of Kilmainham and Christ Church, in strengthening the hands of a sheriff of Dublin county under whose weak rule the march was likely to be destroyed, and three years later he was joined with the Prior of Kilmainham and the Abbots of St. Thomas’s and St. Mary’s in reporting on the conduct of the Walshes of Carrickmines, which was then regarded in very diverse lights.

Christopher became no doubt known to Richard Duke of York, the father of Edward the Fourth, on his arrival as Lord Lieutenant. It was in his time, in the summer of 1449, that the Duke landed at Howth, accompanied by his wife, the Rose of Raby, and attended by a strong body of soldiers; and from that time Christopher stood high in the Duke’s favour.

When the Wars of the Roses broke out, Christopher followed the Duke to England and joined his standard; and he was, no doubt, prominent amongst the earls and homagers who flocked round the Duke on his return to Ireland in the autumn of 1459, after the desertion of his followers at Ludlow.

In the enactments of the Parliament which the Duke called then in Ireland, Christopher’s name is mentioned several times: first, as a commissioner to adjudge compensation to persons suffering from the neglect of the guardians of the coast, then as one excepted from an act of resumption, and, lastly, as an officer of the Crown who proposed to accompany “the high and puissant prince, Richard, Duke of York,” on his return to England.

The office held by him was that of Constable of the Castle of Dublin, and a further grant of it was made to him by Edward the Fourth in consideration of his services.

During the lifetime of Christopher the Howth title appears to have been first recognized as an hereditary honour, giving its holder a right to a seat in the Upper House, and to be enrolled amongst the barons of Ireland. The place assigned to its holder was immediately after the Baron of Killeen and before the Baron of Trimlestown, whose name was entered on the roll in l46l.

It is not improbable that the names of Lord Howth and Lord Killeen were added to the roll at the same time and for the same cause, namely, loyalty to the Duke of York. With Christopher Plunkett, Lord of Killeen, Christopher St. Lawrence, Lord of Howth, was connected by fealty, as the Lord of Killeen was overlord of Kilbarrack, then held as part of the Howth estate, and also by the nearer tie of marriage, as his wife was a member of the Plunkett family. As his eldest son’s age proves, he must have been married prior to his succession to Howth, and in the year 1435 he is found acting as trustee with the first Lord Killeen.

Besides Howth and the lands of Kilbarrack, Christopher owned at the time of his death other lands and tenements in the counties of Dublin, Meath, and Louth, and in the town of Drogheda.

One of these holdings at Ratoath came to him through his wife, the lady commemorated with him on the altar-tomb, and after his death, when she had remarried with one Anthony Percy, she was a party to a suit in regard to that property/ As the inscription on the altar-tomb records, Christopher’s death took place in 1462.

Christopher’s family reaped a rich harvest from his services to the White Rose. Besides his eldest son Robert he appears to have had five sons - William, who became possessed of Stapolin, and was appointed in his father’s lifetime Admiral of Ireland; Thomas, who was given a few months after his father’s death an annuity of 20 marks from the manor of Ratoath; Almeric, who was appointed before his father’s death Clerk of the Rolls in Ireland, and who was afterwards described as of London ; Lionel, who became, while a student at Oxford, prebendary of Howth and precentor of St. Patrick’s Cathedral; and Walter, who was a barrister, and became successively Attorney-General and Chief Baron of the Exchequer in this country.

Robert, who succeeded to the title and estate as his father’s eldest son, and who is said to have been 28 years of age at the time, obtained livery of his inheritance by authority of Parliament, and not by the usual process of common law. He added to the position which he enjoyed as his father’s son good abilities, and before succeeding to Howth, while residing apparently in a more northern part of the county, he had shown himself one on whom the State could rely.

In 1455 the collection of the tolls in the ports of Rush, Rogerstown, and Portraine was committed to him; in 1456 he is mentioned as having served as sheriff of his county; and in 1460 he was appointed to take an account of drainage work at Balrothery.

After his father’s death his interest in local affairs did not abate. In 1464 he was responsible for a levy for further fortifications of Kilmainham Bridge, and in 1465 he was engaged in organizing the militia. The protection of the coast was also in his charge, and during the feast of the Circumcision following he came into conflict with three Breton merchants, who were coming to Ireland under the King’s protection to sell wine, salt, and iron. When he descended upon them, they were in a French ship called the “Mary,” which was lying under Lambay, and they accused him of assaulting them, putting them to flight, and following them “by force and arms” to the port of Drogheda, and of depriving the master of the ship of an anchor valued at 20 shillings. He was brought before the mayor of Drogheda, together with 20 mariners and a yeoman, and acquitted; but, owing to a dispute with the corporation about his property in Drogheda, he could not get his acquittal recorded, and had to appeal to Parliament for a ratification of it.

The distracted state of Ireland after the Wars of the Roses rendered the path of a public man no easy one, but Robert took the line that the king’s government must be carried on, and did not allow any change of policy to abate his loyalty to the York dynasty. What part he took in the obscure events thit preceded the execution of the Earl of Desmond of that time cannot be determined with certainty. While the Earl of Desmond was Lord Deputy, Robert appears to have received the honour of knighthood, and to have been the Earl’s host at Howth, where in the summer of 1464 letters patent were issued by the Earl; but there is indication that before the year 1467, when the Earl of Desmond was superseded by the Earl of Worcester, he had lost faith in him. The Earl of Worcester, whose fame as a scholar is tarnished by his cruelty to the FitzGeralds, landed at Howth, and in the proceedings of the Parliament which was called by him, and which decreed the Earl of Desmond’s attainder, Robert is mentioned as excepted from an act of resumption, and as a witness to letters patent which were issued during the session.

A few years later, in 1472, he joined with the seventh Earl of Kildare, who had become Lord Deputy, in establishing the Brotherhood of St. George, an order consisting of the Lord Deputy and twelve knights, and having as its object the maintenance of an armed force for the defence of the Pale, but when the Earl of Kildare’s supersession was in turn found desirable, Robert was again one of those on whose loyalty the Crown could depend.

The height of royal favour to which he had attained is shown by a second marriage, which he made a few years later, and in which the King must have had a part. His first wife had been an Irish lady, Alice, daughter of Nicholas White, of Killester, through whom the Killester lands came to the St. Lawrences; but his second wife was an English lady of the highest rank, Joan, daughter of Edmund Beaufort, second Duke of Somerset, a grandson of John of Gaunt, by his wife, Elinor, daughter of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick.

The marriage was no less remarkable on account of the lady’s Lancastrian descent than of her rank, but as both her parents were dead, it is probable that she had been a ward of the King, and that her hand was at his disposal. The marriage was, no doubt, contracted during a visit to England, for which Robert obtained leave from the Irish Parliament in 1475, and it took place in the summer of 1478. The Earl of Kildare had been superseded shortly before, and his successor, Henry Lord de Grey, appears in the list of the lady’s trustees, which is headed by the Archbishop of Canterbury and several of the great officers of state.

A curious glimpse of life at that period is caught in connexion with the dispute about the dues payable to the Corporation of Dublin, which occurred in the winter of 1481. It appears that up to that time their right to exact dues on goods landed at Howth had not been questioned, but on the arrival then of a ship from Milford, laden with coal, Robert said they should have no custom on its cargo, and set at defiance, first the servants of the bailiff, and afterwards the bailiff himself. Finally, the mayor, council, aldermen, and commons were only stopped from setting out in a body to Howth to enforce their demands, by Robert’s son and heir being sent “in pledge” to the mayor, and an agreement to abide the award of arbitrators, who found that “the mayor and citizens should enjoy the custom of the haven in time to come for evermore. ”

A few months before the death of Edward the Fourth, in January, 1483, Robert was appointed Chancellor of Ireland. He had possibly been at one of the Inns of Court in London, and he had gained some experience of legal administration in Ireland in the offices of Clerk of the Common Pleas of the Exchequer and Chancellor of the Green Wax, which he had previously held. His patent was issued in January, 1483, and his appointment may have had some connexion with a licence of absence granted to him by the Irish Parliament in 1481, when he intended “in the name of our blessed Creator to go into the noble kingdom of England for certain matters there to be done.” A new patent was issued to Robert in May, 1483, by Edward the Fifth, and in July following by Richard the Third; but the office of Chancellor was only held by him afterwards for a few months.”

In the spring of 1486 another licence to leave Ireland was granted to him, and probably he went soon afterwards to England, where his death, which occurred before 1488, took place. He was buried in London in the church of the Black Friars, a church in which some of England’s highest nobility were laid, and was given a place of no little honour, for the list of burials records that “in the choir lyeth the Lord Howth of Ireland.”

By his second wife, who survived him many years, and married as a second husband Richard Fry, he had three sons, Thomas, who was a barrister and became a Justice of the King’s Bench, Walter, and Christopher, who was in holy orders, and became Archdeacon of Glendalough, and two daughters, Genet, who married Thomas FitzSimons, Recorder of Dublin, and Anne, who married Walter Gelding.

Nicholas, who succeeded to the title and estate on the death of Robert Lord of Howth as his eldest son, was almost immediately called upon to exercise his judgment upon a matter of the greatest moment, the validity of the claims of Lambert Simnel, and exhibited more discernment than the majority of the chief men of the Pale, influenced possibly by his connexion through his stepmother with Henry the Seventh.

According to the Book of Howth he perceived from the beginning that the affair was “a mad dance,” and sent over a messenger to tell Henry of the revolt against his authority, and of its “doers and maintainers.” In refusing to countenance the revolt Nicholas was allied with the Archbishop of Armagh, but for some reason which is not apparent they are included in a list of leading men in Ireland pardoned afterwards by the King, and when Sir Richard Edgecombe was sent over to deliver the pardons Nicholas took before him the oath prescribed for Lambert Simnel’s followers.

Not long after Sir Richard Edgecombe’s mission, which was executed in the summer of 1488, the peers of Ireland were summoned to England to attend upon the King, and were kept for a considerable time at Court. In consequence of the part which he had taken, Nicholas was free from any constraint, and he is said to have delighted the courtiers by his Irish wit.

He is described as telling an English peer, who shook with terror on seeing the axe under which the heads of his father and grandfather had fallen, to serve God and fear his Prince and all would be well; and as saying to Lambert Simnel, who waited on the Irish peers, when he offered him wine, “Bring me the cup if the wine be good, and I shall drink it off for the wine’s sake and mine own sake also, and for thee, as thou art, so I leave thee, a poor innocent.”

Finally, when the time of departure came Nicholas is said to have been clothed for the journey in the King’s apparel, and given £300 in gold, accompanied by the King’s thanks; but his companions, who had been reduced to a state of penury by their attendance at Court, were sent off without any provision, and had to make their way home in the guise of mendicants.’

Although he had been the chief supporter of Lambert Simnel’s claims, the Lord Deputy, Gerald FitzGerald, eighth Earl of Kildare, was not displaced, and in the summer of 1490 Nicholas joined in representing to the King that it was impossible for the Lord Deputy to obey his command to attend at Court, owing to the danger of an attack upon the Pale, and the variances that existed amongst the leading Anglo-Irish.

These variances centred in the rivalry between the Butlers and the Geraldines, but two years later the Earl of Ormonde’s representative, Sir James Butler, and the Earl of Kildare reconciled their differences so far as to shake hands through an opening in a closed door in St. Patrick’s Cathedral. At that time, according to the Book of Howth, Nicholas entertained Sir James Butler in his mother’s house at Killester, and resented an attack which Sir James Butler thought fit to make at dinner on the Earl of Kildare’s conduct. “I swear by our Lady of the north church of Howth,” quoth Nicholas, “that butler, nor wine-drawer, nor tapster is not in Ireland, but I daren’t stand to defend this quarrel, and if your lordship be so stomached, and would ease your heart, let us both take a boat, and go to yonder island of Clontarf, there to ease your stomach and mine, for our companies here are not indifferent.” Whereat Sir James Butler is reported to have departed in a fury, saying that Nicholas’s “stout and bullish nature” would end his days before the natural time.

About the same time a quarrel between Nicholas’s brother, William, and a brother of Sir James Butler had a more serious ending. William is said to have been “the boldest man of his hand in the realm,” and to have often put his brother, when contention arose between them, “in hazard of his life,” and he gave proof of his prowess in his encounter with Sir James Butler’s brother. It took place at Kilmainham Bridge, and William not only slew there his opponent, but also seven men by whom he was accompanied.

Before the scene at Killester the second rising in Ireland against Henry the Seventh, the revolt in favour of Perkin Warbeck, had begun, and the Earl of Kildare had been superseded in the office of Lord Deputy. Subsequently, in the autumn of 1493, commissioners who were sent over from England required him, together with a number of the chief men of the Pale, to enter into recognizances to suppress the insurgents, and a visit was paid by him to England in order to make his peace with the King.

Nicholas, who was one of those required to enter into recognizances in the sum of £200 pounds, appears to have accompanied him to England, and in the following January he was knighted, together with Lord Slane, in the King’s Chamber at Westminster.’

In the month of October, 1494, Sir Edward Poynings, who, as has been mentioned, landed at Howth, arrived, and, together with him 1,000 soldiers, and a number of Englishmen, who were appointed to the principal judicial officers, but the rising in favour of Perkin Warbeck was not suppressed for many months.

What part Nicholas took in its suppression is not known, but his uncle, Walter, was prominent in assisting the forces of the Crown. Amongst the payments by the State in the summer of 1495 is an item for the conveyance by ship, presumably from Howth, of arms and cannon which had belonged to Robert Lord Howth, as far as Dublin, with the carriage on land to the cellar of Walter Howth; and in the following November there is another item for the carriage of arms and gunpowder from the cellar of Walter Howth to one of the Dublin inns.

Walter St. Lawrence, or Howth, Nicholas’s uncle, had been appointed Attorney-General in May, 1491, and is mentioned as having represented his family in two prosecutions in the preceding year. One was against Walter Hamlyn of Beaulieu in the county of Louth, for having by force and arms, namely, with bows, swords, and arrows, despoiled Thomas Howth of Richardstown, in the same county, of a fishing net, and the other was against a fisherman of Howth, Thomas Keatinge, who was accused of forestalling the market, and buying four cowhides for 18 pence. Both these prosecutions were initiated in the Court of Exchequer, and to the chief seat in it Walter St. Lawrence was subsequently promoted. He did not long hold, however, the place of Chief Baron, for his death is recorded in the Christ Church obits to have taken place on January 25, 1503.

When the Earl of Kildare, once again Lord Deputy, made his expedition to Connaught, in August, 1504, against Ulick Burke, Nicholas is represented in the Book of Howth as acting the same part as the founder of his house, and engineering victory for the Earl of Kildare’s army in the battle of Knockdoe.

“O good God,” cried he to four of the leaders who advised retreat, “by our blessed Lady that blest in the north church of Howth, you four might have spoken these words in some other ground than this is, and our enemies now being in sight.” His assistance did not end in speech, and his place in the fight was in the main battle, where he commanded the billmen, and was ever found the foremost.

After holding the office of Chancellor of the Green Wax for a time, he was appointed on the accession of Henry the Eighth, in 1509, like his father, Chancellor of Ireland, but, also like his father, only held the great seal for a very brief period. Towards the close of his life he became much embroiled in disputes between the Butlers and the Geraldines, and when Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, afterwards Duke of Norfolk, was sent over in 1520 as Viceroy, Nicholas is said to have been dismissed from the council on that account, but to have been soon restored as one above all other worthy to be of the King’s privy council, and so continued to his end.” His death took place on July 10, 1526.

Nicholas is said to have been married three times, namely, to Genet, daughter of one of the Lords of Killeen; Anne, daughter of Thomas Berford; and Alison, sister of Walter Fitzsimons, who was Archbishop of Dublin from 1484 to 1511.

His last wife appears to have been married to him in February, 1505, and to have survived him.6 By his first wife he had a son Christopher and four daughters: Alison, who married, first, John Netterville of Howth, and, secondly, Patrick White of Malassin; Elizabeth, who married Thomas Netterville, a Justice of the Common Pleas; Elinor, who married Sir Walter Cheevers of Macetown, and Anne, who married Thomas Cusack of Gerardstown. By his second wife he had two sons Almeric and Robert, and a daughter, Catherine, who married Sir John Plunkett of Beaulieu. And by his third wife he had a son Walter, and a daughter, Marian, who married first, Sir Christopher Nugent, secondly, Sir Gerald FitzGerald, and thirdly, John Parker, who was sometime Master of the Rolls.

Christopher, who succeeded to the title and estate on his father’s death, was then a man of middle age, and had been long married. His wife, Amy Bermingham, was a daughter of his father’s second wife by a previous marriage, and through the death of her brother she became owner of much property in Dublin county, including Baldongan and the Ward.

Before his succession to Howth Christopher resided at Baldongan, and had served as sheriff of his county, and had been knighted. Not long after his father’s death he is said to have proceeded with a great force against Brian O’Connor, Chief of Offaly, on his invading the Pale, and taking prisoner the acting Lord Deputy, Lord Delvin; but he and his men had only to march back again, as Lord Delvin’s life was spared on condition that his capture should not be avenged.

By Silken Thomas Christopher was regarded as a dangerous opponent, and after the murder of Archbishop Alen at Artain Christopher was himself taken prisoner at Howth by the insurgents. It is said that during the anarchy that ensued on the rising Howth was spoiled by the O’Tooles and O’Byrnes, and that the Castle would have been burned only for vigorous resistance on the part of the occupants, who killed or wounded many of the raiders. But judging by Corr Castle, which was doubtless built before then, the strength of the building played also a part in its successful defence.

Like the other leading men in the Pale, Christopher assented to Henry the Eighth’s claim to supremacy in the Church, but no spoil from the dissolved religious houses fell to him. He is said by Lord Leonard Grey to have been, in common with other Irish peers, deficient in “wit and men”; but as few persons found favour with Lord Leonard, little heed need be given to his judgment. He appears to have been active in the House of Lords, and on the council, of which he was a member, and was able to impress his individuality on the great English statesman of his day, Thomas Cromwell, whose assistance he invoked in litigation, in which he was involved with the Archbishop of Dublin, concerning the ownership of Ireland’s Eye, and which terminated two days before Nicholas’s death in a decree against him.

The letter in which he appealed to Cromwell was written in the winter of 1537, not long after Lord Leonard had made his disparaging report on the Irish nobility, and conveys the impression that Christopher was well known to Cromwell, and had more claim on his attention than could be secured by a gift of hawks which accompanied the letter, and had probably been bred on Ireland’s Eye.

In order probably to exhibit their acquiescence in the changes of the time, Christopher’s three sons, to whom his title passed in succession, entered Lincoln’s Inn as students at an unusually late time of life. The eldest, Edward, entered in 1540, the second, Richard, in 1541, and the third, Christopher, in 1544.2 At the time of his admission Edward had been married 12 years, but he submitted to the ordinary discipline of the Inn, and in the year after his admission he was named as escheator, an officer chosen from the students whose duty it was to provide fuel and torches on special occasions.

His youngest brother, Christopher, appears to have remained long in residence, and 10 years after his admission, in the summer of 1554, he is mentioned as having incurred the displeasure of the authorities by wearing a beard, which he was ordered to remove within 11 days on pain of expulsion.

It is impossible to say to what extent Christopher’s sons were influenced by the doctrines of the Reformed Church. The second, Richard, held the title during the closing years of Edward the Sixth’s reign and the whole of Queen Mary’s, and seems to have succeeded in serving both Sovereigns with equal fidelity and acceptableness.

There is no doubt, however, that Christopher’s uncle Thomas St. Lawrence, who occupied a great position then in the government of Ireland, was a strong opponent of the Reformation. After a long residence in Lincoln’s Inn, which he entered in 1503, and of which he was still a member in 1515, he returned to practise at the bar of Ireland, and in 1532 was appointed Attorney-General. Two years later he was raised to the bench, as second Justice of the King’s Bench, with a seat on the council, then a most unusual honour for a puisne judge.

His devotion to the Church had been displayed at the time of the murder of Archbishop Alen, to whom he had afforded refuge in the castle of Artain, which had come into his possession as guardian of its owner, Thomas Holywood, who was then a minor, and although he continued on the bench and on the council throughout the reign of Edward the Sixth, he was foremost on the accession of Queen Mary in inciting a revolt against the bishops appointed by her brother. As his death took place within a few months of her accession, he did not, however, long enjoy her rule.

Besides the three sons already mentioned, Christopher had a fourth son called John, who appears in the year 1566 to have been residing at Baldongan, and to have been leader of the militia in that part of the county; and three daughters: Joan, who married Robert Preston of Ballimadon; Alison, who married first, George FitzGerald, and secondly, William Heron; and Margaret, who married a member of the Cashell family.

Christopher’s brother, Almeric, appears to have survived him, and to have occupied Killester, in respect of which an Almeric St. Lawrence contributed to the hostings in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth’s reign

His two other brothers are remarkable as having been respectively in the service of the heads of the rival houses of FitzGerald and Butler. Robert, who became summoner of the Court of Exchequer, is mentioned as having been sent in 1516 by Gerald, ninth Earl of Kildare, with the head of the chief of the O’Tooles to the mayor of Dublin, and as having been given by that nobleman a hackney; and Walter figures in the will of Tames, ninth Earl of Ormond, made in 1513, as his “right well-beloved servant,” to whom he bequeathed an annuity of twenty nobles.

Edward, who succeeded to the title and estate on the death of his father, which took place on April 20, 1542, has left no mark on the history of his time. He appears to have resided prior to his succession to the title at Baldongan, and owned in right of his wife, Alison, daughter of James FitzLyons, much property in the counties of Dublin and Meath. She was allied to him in a prohibited degree, and before their marriage, which took place in 1528, a licence had to be obtained. By her Edward had a son, Richard, who died as a child, and two daughters, Anne, who married Bartholomew Dillon of Keppoch, and Alison, who married her cousin John Golding.

In 1545 Edward is mentioned as a member of the council, and in the same year he obtained a decree against the Corporation of Drogheda in a suit touching the ownership of “seven stone shops” near the bridge of that town. His death took place on July 2, 1549, in Dublin.

Richard, who succeeded as heir presumptive on his brother’s death, had resided previously at the Ward. He proved himself eminent as a soldier, arid was a leader in all the military expeditions of his day. He had probably seen service first under Lord Deputy Bellingham, who, as an ancient retainer of the Howth family has recorded, “wore ever his harness as did all those whom he liked of,” and he was sent by Bellingham’s successor, Sir James Croft, into Lecale with 100 horse to banish the Scots It was probably his knowledge of Richard that led Bellingham to select Howth as the place of his departure in the winter of 1549, when he sailed from Ireland never to return; and possibly the same reason led Croft, three years later, in the winter of 1552, to follow Bellingham’s example.

In annals compiled by the ancient retainer, who had been Richard’s foster-father, it is recorded that in 1553 Richard attacked with only a small force the great Shane O’Neill when the latter was preparing to invade the Pale, and that a few days later Richard penetrated into O’Neill’s country and carried off much prey.

Further military service on Richard’s part is indicated by a pardon to a number of soldiers which was granted in 1555, and in which he appears as their commander. On his arrival as chief governor in 1556 the Earl of Sussex recognized Richard’s capacity, and assigned him the command of the rear of his army in his first expedition against the Scots, to which Richard contributed in respect of his tenure of Howth four mounted archers. Of that command the jealousy of Marshal Bagenal deprived him, with very lamentable results, says the Howth annalist, to those whom he led. At Glenarm, however, during a night “terrible of wind, of rain, of hail, of thunder, and of wild fire,” Richard’s opportunity came, and he crowned himself with glory in a raid on the enemy’s herds.

But in civil life Richard was also prominent, and acted as a commissioner of gaol delivery on one occasion in the counties of Meath, Kildare, and Westmeath. He was a justice of the peace for the county of Meath as well as for the county of Dublin, and was also entrusted with the levying of subsidy.

In the summer of 1558 he was appointed by the Earl of Sussex, who when going to England in the previous December had selected Howth as his place of embarkation, to be one of the guardians of the Pale; and owing to the vigilance shown by him and Viscount Baltinglass “no harm there was committed.”

Like his father he was involved in litigation with the Church, in respect of the tithe of the parish of Ward which the rector of Finglas claimed, and like his father was defeated. He married the Dame Catherine FitzGerald, but appears to have had no children. His death took place in the autumn of 1555, probably at Drogheda, where a monument to his memory formerly stood in the Cord Cemetery.

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