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Tag Archives: Richard Boyle (1st Earl of Cork)


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Death of Edward Parry, Church of Ireland Bishop of Killaloe

Edward Parry, Church of Ireland Bishop of Killaloe, County Clare, dies in Dublin on July 20, 1650, after contracting the plague.

Parry is born c. 1599 in Madyn Dyswy, Amlwch, Anglesey, Wales, the son of Rhys Parry, a merchant of Newry, County Down. The name of his mother is disputed. His siblings are Arthur, Grace and Magdalen. He is educated in Newry. In 1616, he enrolls as a student of Trinity College Dublin (TCD) where he graduates with a BA in 1620. He obtains his MA there in 1623 and a fellowship on November 24, 1624. In 1630 he graduates as a Doctor of Divinity and later becomes Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the college.

In Anglican politics Parry is regarded as a Laudian. In 1627, he is appointed Prebendary of Tipperkevin, a living belonging to St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin. In 1630, he is Incumbent of St. Bride’s Church, Dublin, where several of his children are baptised. In 1634, he is made Treasurer of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin and chaplain to Lancelot Bulkeley, Archbishop of Dublin. In 1635, he is appointed one of the High Commission for Ecclesiastical Causes. In 1636, he is appointed Prebendary of Stagonyl, another living belonging to St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin. By patent dated April 28, he is presented to St. Olave’s in Waterford where he is installed on May 11, but is also licensed to hold his other preferments at the same time. In 1640, he resigns from St. Olave’s and is appointed Dean of Lismore, County Waterford. Some of the Deanery lands had been seized by Richard Boyle, 1st Earl of Cork and Parry tries to get them back but fails. His successor as Dean of Lismore is his first cousin, Robert Parry. In 1643, he is Archdeacon of Glendalough, County Wicklow.

On December 29, 1646, King Charles I of England in a letter states he favours Parry for the See of the Diocese of Killaloe, County Clare. On March 20, 1647, a patent is issued confirming his appointment as Bishop of Killaloe and he is consecrated at Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, on March 28, 1647, by Lancelot Bulkeley, Archbishop of Dublin, assisted by the Bishops of Kildare and Cloyne. However, as this is in the middle of the Irish Rebellion he was unable to travel to his diocese and remains in Dublin, where he resides in Chichester House, St. Stephen’s Street, which later houses the Parliament of Ireland. In the Hearth Money Rolls the house is assessed for eight hearths so is quite large. On July 9, 1647, he signs the petition of the clergy praying to be allowed the use of the Liturgy, then abolished by order of the commissioners under Oliver Cromwell. On account of his good character and the smallness of the revenues of Killaloe, the King permits him to hold his former preferments in commendam.

Parry marries the daughter of John Price and by her has six children, who are John Parry, Bishop of Ossory, Benjamin Parry, Bishop of Ossory, Edward Parry, Robert Parry, Mary Parry who marries John Bulkeley, and Elinor Parry who is a love and correspondent of John Locke and later marries Richard Hawkshaw.

Parry dies in his house in St. Stephen’s Street on July 20, 1650, at the age of 51, after contracting the plague which rages there, and is buried in St. Audoen’s Church, Dublin. His will dated July 17, 1650, is proved in the Prerogative Court, Dublin. Its terms are: (1) his body is to be interred in St. Audeon’s Church near the doors, with his face to the east, where he also desires the body of his wife to be translated, and laid by his side, (2) he gives to his eldest daughter, Mary Parry, alias Bulkeley, a little silver watch, and her mother’s dear-head ring, (3) to his other daughter “Eleynor Parry” other ornaments that belonged to her mother, (4) to his sister “Madelius Evans” five pounds, (5) to other beneficiaries are given legacies out of the fifty pounds due to him by William Usher, (6) to his cousin, Robert Parry, he leaves his lexicon and other books, (7) to his cousin, Richard Parry, he leaves a gold ring, (8) to his cousin, Mary Parry, wife of Richard, he leaves a money legacy, and (9) he appoints his cousin, Robert Parry, as overseer of his will.

Parry writes a book entitled David restored; or an Antidote against the Prosperity of the Wicked, and the Afflictions of the Just, which is a sermon on the seventy-third Psalm. This is afterward published by his son, John Parry at Oxford in 1660. This work contains an engraved portrait of Edward Parry (above).

(Pictured: An engraved portrait by John Dickson of Dr. Edward Parry, Bishop of Killaloe, from a book authored by the bishop entitled “David restored; or an Antidote against the Prosperity of the Wicked, and the Afflictions of the Just”, published at Oxford in 1660.)


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Death of Robert Weston, Civil Lawyer & Lord Chancellor of Ireland

Robert Weston of Lichfield, Staffordshire, England, an English civil lawyer, who is Dean of the Arches and Lord Chancellor of Ireland in the time of Queen Elizabeth I, dies in Ireland on May 20, 1573.

Weston is born in Hampshire, England, in 1515, the third son of John Weston, of Weeford, Staffordshire, and Cecilia Neville, daughter of Ralph Neville, 3rd Earl of Westmorland, and sister of Ralph Neville, 4th Earl of Westmorland. His nephew is Knight Simon Weston, son of his brother James Weston, MP for Lichfield.

The Weston family of Gloucestershire, who produce another senior Irish judge in William Weston, are probably cousins of Robert. He enters All Souls College, Oxford and is elected Fellow in 1536. He studies Civil Law and attains the degree of Bachelor of Civil Law (BCL) on February 17, 1538 and Doctor of Civil Law (DCL) on July 20, 1556. 

From 1546 to 1549, Weston is a principal of Broadgates Hall (afterwards Pembroke College), and at the same time deputy reader in civil law at the university, under Dr. John Story. He is not a clergyman, and his later appointment to two lucrative deaneries greatly troubles his conscience.

Weston is elected Member of Parliament for Exeter in March 1553 and for Lichfield in 1558 and 1559.

On January 12, 1559, Weston is created Dean of the Arches and is a commissioner for administering the oaths required of ecclesiastics under the Act of Uniformity 1558. He is consulted in regard to the Queen’s Commission issued on December 6, 1559, for confirming Matthew Parker as Archbishop of Canterbury and is included in a commission issued on November 8, 1564, to inquire into complaints of piratical depredations committed at sea on the subjects of the King of Spain.

The Lord Deputy of Ireland, Sir Henry Sidney, requests that Weston be nominated for the post of Lord Chancellor of Ireland in succession to Hugh Curwen, Archbishop of Dublin, in April 1566. After a year, on June 10, 1567, Queen Elizabeth I tells Sidney that after good deliberation she has made the “choice for the supply of room of Chancellor by naming thereunnto our trusty well-beloved Doctor Weston, dean of the arches here, a man for his learning and approved integrity thoroughly qualified to receive and possess the same” and “that for some increase of his living whilst he remaineth in our service there she was pleased to give unto him the Deanery of St. Patrick’s, whereof the Bishop of Armagh, Adam Loftus, is now dean and yet to leave it at our order, as we know he will.”

Weston arrives in Dublin early in August and is sworn into office on August 8, 1567. He is conscientious in performing his duties, and greatly respected for his integrity, although ill-health (he is plagued by gout and gallstones) hampers his effectiveness. He is appalled by the laziness and inefficiency of many of the Irish judges and urges Elizabeth I to replace them with Englishmen wherever possible. He is equally shocked at the poverty and ignorance of many of the Protestant clergy in Ireland. His zeal for reform leads him, though a layman, to become an effective leader of the Church of Ireland for a few years. He cooperates with Adam Loftus, now Archbishop of Dublin, in purging the Archdiocese of Dublin of crypto-Catholics, but is opposed to the persecution of the Roman Catholic majority, or any efforts to forcibly convert them.

Weston and Sir William FitzWilliam, the Vice-Treasurer of Ireland, are sworn Lords Justices in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin on October 14, and he becomes a member of the Privy Council of Ireland. He addresses the Irish Parliament when it is summoned on January 17, 1568. In addition to being Dean of St. Patrick’s, he is Dean of Wells from 1570 to 1573, but his health is failing.

Weston dies on May 20, 1573, and is buried beneath the altar in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, “leaving behind him an excellent character for uprightness, judgment, learning, courtesy, and piety.”

Weston marries Alice Jenyngs, daughter of Richard Jenyngs of Great Barr, Staffordshire. They have a son, John, and three daughters, of whom most of known of Alice, who marries firstly Hugh Brady, Bishop of Meath, by whom she has numerous children including Luke and Nicholas, and secondly Sir Geoffrey Fenton, by whom she is the mother of Catherine, who marries Richard Boyle, 1st Earl of Cork, and of Sir William Fenton.

Weston is the 7th great-grandfather of the American firearms industrialist Daniel B. Wesson, who cofounds Smith & Wesson with Horace Smith. Hus great-grandson, John Wesson, immigrates to the Massachusetts Bay Colony around 1644 and settles in Reading, Massachusetts.


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Death of Richard Boyle, 1st Earl of Cork

richard-boyle-1st-earl-of-cork

Richard Boyle, 1st Earl of Cork, English-born politician who serves as Lord Treasurer of the Kingdom of Ireland and is also known as the Great Earl of Cork, dies on September 15, 1643 in Youghal, County Cork. He is an important figure in the continuing English colonisation of Ireland in the 16th and 17th centuries, as he acquires large tracts of land in plantations in Munster in southern Ireland.

Boyle is born at Canterbury, Kent, England on October 3, 1566, the second son of Roger Boyle, a descendant of an ancient landed Herefordshire family, and of Joan, daughter of John Naylor. He goes to The King’s School, Canterbury, at the same time as Christopher Marlowe. His university education begins at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, England, in 1583. After this he studies law at the Middle Temple in London and becomes a clerk to Sir Roger Manwood, who is then Chief Baron of the Exchequer.

Boyle goes to Ireland in 1588. He becomes deputy Escheator under Ireland’s Escheator General John Crofton and uses his office to enrich himself, only to lose his property in the Munster rebellion in 1598. Returning to England, he is imprisoned on charges of embezzlement arising from his activities in Ireland. He is acquitted by a royal court, however, and in 1600 Elizabeth I of England appoints him clerk of the council of Munster.

Two years later, Boyle purchases Sir Walter Raleigh’s estates in the Irish counties of Cork, Waterford, and Tipperary. By employing settlers imported from England, he develops his lands and founds ironworks and other industries. The enormous wealth he accumulates brings him honours and political influence. Created Earl of Cork in 1620, he is appointed a Lord Justice of Appeal in 1629 and Lord High Treasurer in 1631. Nevertheless, soon after Sir Thomas Wentworth (afterward Earl of Strafford) goes to Ireland as lord deputy in 1633, Boyle is fined heavily for possessing defective titles to some of his estates. Thereafter his political influence declines.

Boyle dies at Youghal on September 15, 1643, having been chased off his lands in the Irish Rebellion of 1641. His sons, however, recover the family estates after the suppression of the rebellion.

Boyle’s first wife, Joan Apsley, the daughter and co-heiress of William Apsley of Limerick, whom he marries on November 6, 1595, dies at Mallow, County Cork on December 14, 1599 during childbirth. By his second wife, Catherine Fenton, daughter of Sir Geoffrey Fenton, he has eight daughters and seven sons, including the renowned chemist Robert Boyle and the statesman-dramatist Roger Boyle, 1st Earl of Orrery.