William Darcy

Sir William Darcy (c.1460–1540) was a leading Anglo-Irish statesman of the Pale in the earlysixteenth century; for many years he held the office of Vice-Treasurer of Ireland. He wrote an influential treatise , The Decay of Ireland, this led to him beingcalled "the father of the movement for political reformation in Ireland".

He was born at Platten in County Meath, son of John Darcy IV of Platten and his wife Elizabeth Plunkett, daughter of Christopher Plunkett, 2nd Baron Killeen and Elizabeth Welles. The Darcys of Platten were a junior branch of the family of Baron Darcy de Knayth, and had become one of the leading families of the Pale through intermarriage with other landedfamilies such as the Plunketts and St Lawrences. Through his mother he was a great-grandson ofSir William Welles, Lord Chancellor of Ireland.

He was in Dublin, studying law,in1482-3,along with his cousin Thomas Kent, thefuture Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer. The King's Inns, Ireland's first law school, wasnot founded until a year after Darcy's death, but arudimentary form ofprofessionalinstruction for young barristers was provided by a number of seniorIrish judges. Darcy lodged at the house of the King's Serjeant, John Estrete, with whom he studied the English legal texts which were considered to be essential for the education of those students(by no means all of them) whointended to practice law. During the holidays the students visitedthe Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, Philip Bermingham, to study dancing and the harp: these were not simplyrecreations but were considered to be an essentialpart of a young lawyer's education.

Darcy then proceeded to Lincoln's Inn, where he was enrolled in 1485; he was finedfor unspecified misconduct in theTrinity termof the same yearand returned to Ireland soon after.

He was a protégé of Gerald FitzGerald, 8th Earl of Kildare,who for much of the period 1478–1513 was so powerful that he was called "the uncrowned King of Ireland". Darcy assisted the Earl in twoof his more notable ventures: the failed attempt to put the pretender Lambert Simnel on the English throne, and the Battle of Knockdoe in 1504 where the Earl crushed the power of the Burkes of Clanricarde. He sat on the Earl's household council and at his requestwas made Vice-Treasurer of Ireland.

After the 8th Earl died in 1513, relations between Darcy and the Kildare family deteriorated. The 8th Earl's son and heir Gerald FitzGerald, 9th Earl of Kildare has been praised asa man of intelligence, charm and diplomatic skill, but there seems to have been ill-feeling between himself and Darcy, who lost both the office of Vice-Treasurer and his place on the Earl's council. This may have prompted him to write The Decay of Ireland, which, though it addressed wider problems, was partly a personal attack on Kildare.

The Decay of Ireland was originally a series of articles presented by Darcy to the English Privy Council in London in 1515. Darcy argued that the English Lordship of Ireland had originally been strong and prosperous, but had fallen into decline for two main reasons: chronic neglectof Irish affairs by the English Crown, and the carving out of semi-independent lordships, held by the three great Earls, the Earl of Desmond, the Earl of Ormond and Kildare himself. By use of what was later called bastard feudalism – the practiceof great noblemen of hiring private armies which owed loyalty only to their lord, not to the Crown – the Earls had made themselves virtually independent of the Crown. This combined with the creeping Gaelicisation even of those parts of Ireland under English rule, meant that the Crown effectively controlled only the Pale, and might soon lose even that.

Darcy proposed no remedies for the misgovernment of Ireland,although it was clear that he regarded the power of the Earl of Kildare as a threat to the Crown (theEarl could of course have pointed out that Darcy himselfowed everything to the Kildare dynasty).Although he deplored Gaelic influence on the Anglo-Irish he was personallytolerant enough in racial matters – he spoke fluent Irishand married one of his daughters to a member of theO'Donnell clan.

Darcy's treatise had agreat influence on later writers such asthe leading judge Patrick Finglas, but it did nothing to restore him toofficial favour or to damage Kildare's career. By the early 1520s however Kildare was in disfavour with the Crown, whereas Darcy had earned the respect of Surrey, the Lord Deputy of Ireland. He was restored to the office of Vice-Treasurer in 1523; when Kildare was restoredto power in 1524, it was on conditionthat he mend relations with Darcy. Kildare's brother Richard later married Darcy's granddaughter Maud, although the marriage can hardly have given any pleasure to her grandfather as they were generally believed to have murdered Maud's first husband, and Richard's involvement in the rebellion of his nephew Silken Thomas ultimately cost him his life.

Darcy died "far advanced in years" in 1540. He was remembered as a man of "great wisdom and learning" who deserved great merit from the English for his services to English rule in Ireland.

Darcy married firstly Margaret St. Lawrence, daughter of Nicholas St Lawrence, 4th Baron Howth and secondly Catherine Simon. He had at least three sons by his first marriage:

• George, his heir, who married Jane Riccard, and by her was thefather of Maud, Baroness Skryne
• John (died 1558)
• Christopher

-and three daughters:

• Eleanor, who married Robert Plunkett, 5th Baron of Dunsany
• Margery, who married Richard Golding, Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer
• an unnamed daughter who married a chieftain of the O'Donnells.

The life of Maud Darcy, Baroness Skryne

Sir William was given thewardshipof James Marward, titular Baron Skryne and married him to his granddaughter Maud, a decision he must havelater regretted when Maud, according to the popular belief, had her husband murdered in 1534 by Richard FitzGerald, whom she later married (Richard was the half-brother of Darcy's old enemythe 9th Earl of Kildare). Richard was executed for his part in the Silken Thomas Rebellion.

Maudsoon afterwards remarried SirThomas Cusack, Lord Chancellor of Ireland, by whom she had thirteen children. In notable contrast to her troubled earlier marital history,this was a happy marriage and free of scandal, and the couple are commemorated together in a monument in Trevet Church. She diedsometime before 1560.