Adam Loftus, 1st Viscount Loftus
Encyclopedia
Adam Loftus, 1st Viscount Loftus (c. 1568 – 1643) was Lord Chancellor of Ireland
in 1619. His uncle, also named Adam
, was Archbishop of Armagh and Dublin.
Adam Loftus became lord chancellor of Ireland in 1619, and in 1622 was created Viscount Loftus of Ely, King's County, in the peerage of Ireland.
Loftus came into violent conflict with the lord-deputy of Ireland, Viscount Falkland
, in 1624; and at a later date his quarrel with Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford was even fiercer. One of the articles in Strafford's impeachment was based on his dealings with Loftus.
chancellor-archbishop, who knew how to look after his own family, bestowed upon his nephew a prebend of St. Patrick's, Dublin, without cure. The young man was then in holy (perhaps only deacon's) orders, and had been for three or four years a master of arts, probably of Cambridge. Two years later he held the archdeaconry of Glendalough, and on 17 September 1597 he was made judge of the Irish marshal court. The patent calls him bachelor of civil law, and notes his good knowledge therein.
During the Elizabethan wars martial law
was commonly exercised, and the object of Loftus's appointment as judge of the Irish marshal court was to secure that its decrees should be "orderly and judiciously examined and determined". He was the only holder of this office, which became almost useless in the next reign. Loftus afterwards complained that its ill-paid duties had obliged him to abandon a lucrative practice in the ecclesiastical courts.
On 8 November 1598 he was made a master in chancery, and a year later he obtained an interest in lands leased by his uncle with the consent of the chapters of St. Patrick's and Christchurch. In 1604 the archbishop officially described his nephew, a professor of civil law and his own vicar-general, as archdeacon of Glendalough Cathedral, and as keeping a sufficient minister to do the parochial duty. The archdeacon was soon afterwards knighted. Later, Archbishop Laud protested strongly against this arrangement, but Loftus kept Glendalough till his death.
In 1607 he seems to have gone to England; on 21 March Archbishop Jones, whose chancellor he then was, recommended him strongly to Robert, Earl of Salisbury
. Three months later he obtained a life annuity of £219. Early in 1608 Loftus was a member of the Irish Privy Council. He seems to have worked well with Lord-deputy Chichester
, who praised his conduct in the marshal court. In 1610 he had a bitter dispute with Lord Thomond
, which Salisbury decided against him. In 1611 he became constable of Maryborough, Queen's County, which was already a virtual sinecure.
Loftus was returned, along with Sir Francis Rushe, as member for the King's County
in the parliament of 1613, more apparently by the act of the sheriff than by the choice of the freeholders, and he was one of the protestant majority who made Sir John Davies speaker. In the following year he had a grant of forfeited lands in Wexford
.
In the summer of 1618 Loftus went to England, carrying with him a commendatory letter from Lord-deputy St. John
and his council, and in the following year he was made one of the commissioners of the court of wards. Archbishop Jones died on 10 April 1619, and on the 23rd Loftus was appointed lord chancellor in his stead.
On the recall of St. John in May 1622, Loftus was one of the lords justices, and he was at the same time created Viscount Loftus of Ely. In the privy seal directing this creation James I
(of Ireland) said he had bestowed this hereditary honour on him "that his virtues may be recorded to future ages, so long as there shall remain an heir male to his house". As chancellor Loftus was included in the commissions which inquired into the state of the church and completed the Ulster settlement. With St. John he had always agreed well, and he was at first on good terms with the new lord deputy, Henry Cary, 1st Viscount Falkland
. But in 1624 they were at open war. The chancellor refused to affix the great seal to certain licenses for tanning and distilling, but offered to submit their legality to the decision of the judges. Falkland, as the king's representative, claimed practically to overrule all legal scruples. The dispute lasted long, Loftus complaining bitterly that his thirty years' service was despised, that his dues were not paid, and that he had but £300 a year to support the dignity of his great place. These complaints appeared well founded, and half the fines of and for chancery writs were granted to him in 1625.
The accession of Charles I
made no difference in the relations between Falkland and his chancellor, and in May 1627 the latter was summoned to England, the great seal being placed in commission. After a long inquiry Charles I declared Loftus quite innocent of all charges made against him as a judge, and in May 1628 Falkland was ordered to reinstate him fully, and to treat him with the respect due to himself and to his office. In 1629 the king granted Loftus the unusual favour of a general license to visit England when he pleased, leaving the great seal in the hands of the commissioners last appointed, of whom his cousin, Sir Adam Loftus of Rathfarnham, co. Dublin, was one. Falkland left Ireland in August 1629, and the chancellor became lord justice along with Sir Richard Boyle
, afterwards Earl of Cork
. In 1632 Loftus took an active part in forcing William Newman, afterwards his chaplain, upon Trinity College as a fellow.
Wentworth did not reach Ireland till the summer of 1633, but Loftus wrote him a congratulatory letter as soon as his appointment was known. He thanked him for some former services, deplored his own differences with the late deputy, and promised to deserve the favour of one "whose fame had outrun his presence". When Wentworth arrived he had to deal with a chancellor who had been acting viceroy for four years. Until 1636 the two men seem to have got on pretty well together, but on 23 April in that year Wentworth wrote to John Bramhall
of Loftus and of "that fury his lady" in disparaging terms.
In 1621 the chancellor's eldest son, Sir Robert, married Eleanor, daughter of Sir Francis Rushe, whose sisters, Mary and Anne respectively, married Sir Charles Coote and Sir George Wentworth
, the lord deputy's brother. Rushe died in 1629, leaving his three daughters coheiresses. Sir Robert Loftus and his wife lived in the chancellor's house, and mainly at his expense, until the beginning of 1637, when the lady's half-brother, Sir John Gifford, petitioned the king, as her next friend, for specific performance of her father-in-law's alleged promise as to a post-nuptial settlement. The consideration set up was that she had brought with her a portion of 1,750l. As the chancellor could scarcely be judge in her own case, the matter was referred to the lord deputy and council, who decided, upon the evidence of a single witness, who testified to words spoken nearly twenty years before, that Loftus must settle upon Sir Robert Loftus and the children by Eleanor Rushe his house at Monasterevan, co. Kildare, furnished, and £1,200 a year in land. The promise, if promise there was, had been purely verbal, and it was not pretended that there was anything to bind the chancellor in law. He declared that all his land was not worth more than £800 a year, out of which he had settled a jointure of about £300 a year on his daughter-in-law; and he declined altogether to oust his second son, Edward, who ultimately succeeded to the peerage. Costs were given against Loftus, who refused to pay them and appealed to the king. His property was sequestered, and he was imprisoned in the castle from February 1637 until May 1639, and afterwards in his own house until August, the great seal being transferred to commissioners. He accused the lord deputy of partiality at the trial, but apologised and withdrew the charges as being unsupported by evidence and as not proper to be lightly made against a viceroy. Even this was not enough for Wentworth, and the chancellor had to make his whole estate over to trustees as security before he was allowed to go to England to prosecute his appeal. Wentworth's friends, Christopher Wandesford
and Philip Mainwaring
, were two of those trustees. In November 1634 the chancellor's appeal was heard before the king in council and dismissed. The great seal was in December 1639 given to Sir Richard Bolton
. Young Lady Loftus had died in the previous summer, "one of the noblest persons", Wentworth wrote, "I ever had the happiness to be acquainted with. … With her are gone the greatest part of my affections to the country, and all that is left of them shall be thankfully and religiously paid to her excellent memory and lasting goodness".
When the Long Parliament
met Loftus appealed to it, and on 3 May 1642 the House of Lords quashed all the decisions against him. The question was again raised after the Restoration
, during the viceroyalty of Arthur Capell, 1st Earl of Essex
, whose report to the king gives the best general account of the whole affair. The result was that the House of Lords in England, after several days' hearing, reversed the decree made in 1637, thus finally and solemnly declaring that Charles I, Strafford, and their respective councils had been wrong throughout. His arbitrary treatment of Loftus formed part of the eighth article of Strafford's impeachment. Eleanor Loftus herself was Strafford's friend, the sister of his brother's wife, but there is no evidence that she was his mistress, and his words quoted above do not support the accusation, which seems to rest upon some ambiguous expressions in Clarendon's
History. Richard Bagwell in the DNB
article states "On the other hand, it may be thought suspicious that Sir Robert Loftus refused to join in his wife's suit against his father".
After his fall Loftus lived at or near his small property at Coverham
in Yorkshire. His son Edward, by his marriage with Miss Lyndley, seems to have been then in possession of Middleham Castle
, Yorkshire. In 1641 the ex-chancellor was one of several Irish lords and gentlemen living in England who petitioned parliament against disseminators of false news from Ireland. The outbreak of the Irish Rebellion
in 1641 rendered his Irish estates worthless. He died at the beginning of 1643, and was buried in Coverham Church.
, bishop of Leighlin, by whom he had four sons and two daughters:
The title, which became extinct on the death of his grandson, the 3rd viscount, in 1725 (when the family estate of Monasterevan, re-named Moore Abbey, passed to his daughter's son Henry, 4th earl of Drogheda), was re-granted in 1756 to his cousin Nicholas Loftus, a lineal descendant of the archbishop. It again became extinct more than once afterwards, but was on each occasion revived in favour of a descendant through the female line; and it later became held by the marquess of Ely
in conjunction with other family titles.
In 1900 Lord Drogheda possessed a portrait of the chancellor, and many interesting papers connected with him.
Lord Chancellor of Ireland
The office of Lord Chancellor of Ireland was the highest judicial office in Ireland until the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922. From 1721 to 1801 it was also the highest political office of the Irish Parliament.-13th century:...
in 1619. His uncle, also named Adam
Adam Loftus (Archbishop)
thumb|right|200px|Archbishop Adam LoftusAdam Loftus was Archbishop of Armagh, and later Dublin, and Lord Chancellor of Ireland from 1581. He was also the first Provost of Trinity College, Dublin.-Early life:...
, was Archbishop of Armagh and Dublin.
Adam Loftus became lord chancellor of Ireland in 1619, and in 1622 was created Viscount Loftus of Ely, King's County, in the peerage of Ireland.
Loftus came into violent conflict with the lord-deputy of Ireland, Viscount Falkland
Henry Cary, 1st Viscount Falkland
Henry Cary, 1st Viscount Falkland ; son of a Hertfordshire knight; said to have studied at Oxford; served abroad; gentleman of the bedchamber to King James I; K.B., 1608; controller of the household, 1617-21; created Viscount Falkland in the Scottish peerage, 1620; lord-deputy of Ireland, 1622;...
, in 1624; and at a later date his quarrel with Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford was even fiercer. One of the articles in Strafford's impeachment was based on his dealings with Loftus.
Biography
Loftus's grandfather was Edward Loftus of Swineside, parish of Coverham, Yorkshire. In or about 1592, his uncle Adam LoftusAdam Loftus (Archbishop)
thumb|right|200px|Archbishop Adam LoftusAdam Loftus was Archbishop of Armagh, and later Dublin, and Lord Chancellor of Ireland from 1581. He was also the first Provost of Trinity College, Dublin.-Early life:...
chancellor-archbishop, who knew how to look after his own family, bestowed upon his nephew a prebend of St. Patrick's, Dublin, without cure. The young man was then in holy (perhaps only deacon's) orders, and had been for three or four years a master of arts, probably of Cambridge. Two years later he held the archdeaconry of Glendalough, and on 17 September 1597 he was made judge of the Irish marshal court. The patent calls him bachelor of civil law, and notes his good knowledge therein.
During the Elizabethan wars martial law
Martial law
Martial law is the imposition of military rule by military authorities over designated regions on an emergency basis— only temporary—when the civilian government or civilian authorities fail to function effectively , when there are extensive riots and protests, or when the disobedience of the law...
was commonly exercised, and the object of Loftus's appointment as judge of the Irish marshal court was to secure that its decrees should be "orderly and judiciously examined and determined". He was the only holder of this office, which became almost useless in the next reign. Loftus afterwards complained that its ill-paid duties had obliged him to abandon a lucrative practice in the ecclesiastical courts.
On 8 November 1598 he was made a master in chancery, and a year later he obtained an interest in lands leased by his uncle with the consent of the chapters of St. Patrick's and Christchurch. In 1604 the archbishop officially described his nephew, a professor of civil law and his own vicar-general, as archdeacon of Glendalough Cathedral, and as keeping a sufficient minister to do the parochial duty. The archdeacon was soon afterwards knighted. Later, Archbishop Laud protested strongly against this arrangement, but Loftus kept Glendalough till his death.
In 1607 he seems to have gone to England; on 21 March Archbishop Jones, whose chancellor he then was, recommended him strongly to Robert, Earl of Salisbury
Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury
Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury, KG, PC was an English administrator and politician.-Life:He was the son of William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley and Mildred Cooke...
. Three months later he obtained a life annuity of £219. Early in 1608 Loftus was a member of the Irish Privy Council. He seems to have worked well with Lord-deputy Chichester
Arthur Chichester, 1st Baron Chichester
Arthur Chichester, 1st Baron Chichester , known between 1596 and 1613 as Sir Arthur Chichester, was an English administrator and soldier, best known as the Lord Deputy of Ireland from 1604 to 1615.- Early life :...
, who praised his conduct in the marshal court. In 1610 he had a bitter dispute with Lord Thomond
Donogh O'Brien, 4th Earl of Thomond
Donogh O'Brien, 4th Earl of Thomond and Baron of Ibrickan was an Irish nobleman and soldier noted for his loyalty to the English Crown...
, which Salisbury decided against him. In 1611 he became constable of Maryborough, Queen's County, which was already a virtual sinecure.
Loftus was returned, along with Sir Francis Rushe, as member for the King's County
King's County (UK Parliament constituency)
King's County was a parliamentary constituency in Ireland, represented in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. It return two Members of Parliament 1801–1885 and one in 1918–1922.-Boundaries:...
in the parliament of 1613, more apparently by the act of the sheriff than by the choice of the freeholders, and he was one of the protestant majority who made Sir John Davies speaker. In the following year he had a grant of forfeited lands in Wexford
Wexford
Wexford is the county town of County Wexford, Ireland. It is situated near the southeastern corner of Ireland, close to Rosslare Europort. The town is connected to Dublin via the M11/N11 National Primary Route, and the national rail network...
.
In the summer of 1618 Loftus went to England, carrying with him a commendatory letter from Lord-deputy St. John
Oliver St John, 1st Viscount Grandison
Sir Oliver St John, 1st Viscount Grandison was an English soldier who became Lord Deputy of Ireland.-Early years:He was the second son of Nicholas St John of Lydiard Park in Wiltshire and Purley Park in Berkshire, by his wife Elizabeth , daughter of Sir Richard Blount of Mapledurham House in...
and his council, and in the following year he was made one of the commissioners of the court of wards. Archbishop Jones died on 10 April 1619, and on the 23rd Loftus was appointed lord chancellor in his stead.
On the recall of St. John in May 1622, Loftus was one of the lords justices, and he was at the same time created Viscount Loftus of Ely. In the privy seal directing this creation James I
James I of England
James VI and I was King of Scots as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the English and Scottish crowns on 24 March 1603...
(of Ireland) said he had bestowed this hereditary honour on him "that his virtues may be recorded to future ages, so long as there shall remain an heir male to his house". As chancellor Loftus was included in the commissions which inquired into the state of the church and completed the Ulster settlement. With St. John he had always agreed well, and he was at first on good terms with the new lord deputy, Henry Cary, 1st Viscount Falkland
Henry Cary, 1st Viscount Falkland
Henry Cary, 1st Viscount Falkland ; son of a Hertfordshire knight; said to have studied at Oxford; served abroad; gentleman of the bedchamber to King James I; K.B., 1608; controller of the household, 1617-21; created Viscount Falkland in the Scottish peerage, 1620; lord-deputy of Ireland, 1622;...
. But in 1624 they were at open war. The chancellor refused to affix the great seal to certain licenses for tanning and distilling, but offered to submit their legality to the decision of the judges. Falkland, as the king's representative, claimed practically to overrule all legal scruples. The dispute lasted long, Loftus complaining bitterly that his thirty years' service was despised, that his dues were not paid, and that he had but £300 a year to support the dignity of his great place. These complaints appeared well founded, and half the fines of and for chancery writs were granted to him in 1625.
The accession of Charles I
Charles I of England
Charles I was King of England, King of Scotland, and King of Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. Charles engaged in a struggle for power with the Parliament of England, attempting to obtain royal revenue whilst Parliament sought to curb his Royal prerogative which Charles...
made no difference in the relations between Falkland and his chancellor, and in May 1627 the latter was summoned to England, the great seal being placed in commission. After a long inquiry Charles I declared Loftus quite innocent of all charges made against him as a judge, and in May 1628 Falkland was ordered to reinstate him fully, and to treat him with the respect due to himself and to his office. In 1629 the king granted Loftus the unusual favour of a general license to visit England when he pleased, leaving the great seal in the hands of the commissioners last appointed, of whom his cousin, Sir Adam Loftus of Rathfarnham, co. Dublin, was one. Falkland left Ireland in August 1629, and the chancellor became lord justice along with Sir Richard Boyle
Richard Boyle, 1st Earl of Cork
Richard Boyle, 1st Earl of Cork , also known as the Great Earl of Cork, was Lord Treasurer of the Kingdom of Ireland....
, afterwards Earl of Cork
Earl of Cork
Earl of the County of Cork, usually shortened to Earl of Cork, is a title in the Peerage of Ireland. It was created in 1620 for the Anglo-Irish politician Richard Boyle, 1st Baron Boyle...
. In 1632 Loftus took an active part in forcing William Newman, afterwards his chaplain, upon Trinity College as a fellow.
Wentworth did not reach Ireland till the summer of 1633, but Loftus wrote him a congratulatory letter as soon as his appointment was known. He thanked him for some former services, deplored his own differences with the late deputy, and promised to deserve the favour of one "whose fame had outrun his presence". When Wentworth arrived he had to deal with a chancellor who had been acting viceroy for four years. Until 1636 the two men seem to have got on pretty well together, but on 23 April in that year Wentworth wrote to John Bramhall
John Bramhall
John Bramhall was an Archbishop of Armagh, and an Anglican theologian and apologist. He was a noted controversialist who doggedly defended the English Church from both Puritan and Roman Catholic accusations, as well as the materialism of Thomas Hobbes.-Early life:Bramhall was born in Pontefract,...
of Loftus and of "that fury his lady" in disparaging terms.
In 1621 the chancellor's eldest son, Sir Robert, married Eleanor, daughter of Sir Francis Rushe, whose sisters, Mary and Anne respectively, married Sir Charles Coote and Sir George Wentworth
George Wentworth (of Wentworth Woodhouse)
Sir George Wentworth was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1640 to 1644...
, the lord deputy's brother. Rushe died in 1629, leaving his three daughters coheiresses. Sir Robert Loftus and his wife lived in the chancellor's house, and mainly at his expense, until the beginning of 1637, when the lady's half-brother, Sir John Gifford, petitioned the king, as her next friend, for specific performance of her father-in-law's alleged promise as to a post-nuptial settlement. The consideration set up was that she had brought with her a portion of 1,750l. As the chancellor could scarcely be judge in her own case, the matter was referred to the lord deputy and council, who decided, upon the evidence of a single witness, who testified to words spoken nearly twenty years before, that Loftus must settle upon Sir Robert Loftus and the children by Eleanor Rushe his house at Monasterevan, co. Kildare, furnished, and £1,200 a year in land. The promise, if promise there was, had been purely verbal, and it was not pretended that there was anything to bind the chancellor in law. He declared that all his land was not worth more than £800 a year, out of which he had settled a jointure of about £300 a year on his daughter-in-law; and he declined altogether to oust his second son, Edward, who ultimately succeeded to the peerage. Costs were given against Loftus, who refused to pay them and appealed to the king. His property was sequestered, and he was imprisoned in the castle from February 1637 until May 1639, and afterwards in his own house until August, the great seal being transferred to commissioners. He accused the lord deputy of partiality at the trial, but apologised and withdrew the charges as being unsupported by evidence and as not proper to be lightly made against a viceroy. Even this was not enough for Wentworth, and the chancellor had to make his whole estate over to trustees as security before he was allowed to go to England to prosecute his appeal. Wentworth's friends, Christopher Wandesford
Christopher Wandesford
Christopher Wandesford , was an English politician administrator, Lord Deputy of Ireland at the end of his life.-Life:He was the son of Sir George Wandesford of Kirklington, Yorkshire, and was born on 24 September 1592....
and Philip Mainwaring
Philip Mainwaring
Sir Philip Mainwaring was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons variously between 1625 and 1661.Mainwaring was the son of Randall Mainwaring, of Peover, Cheshire. He was admitted at Gray's Inn on 14 March 1609, and matriculated at Cambridge from Brasenose College, Oxford on 29...
, were two of those trustees. In November 1634 the chancellor's appeal was heard before the king in council and dismissed. The great seal was in December 1639 given to Sir Richard Bolton
Richard Bolton
Sir Richard Bolton was an English lawyer, an important figure in the politics of Ireland in the 1630s and 1640s.- Life :He was son of John Bolton, of Fenton, Staffordshire, and born about 1570...
. Young Lady Loftus had died in the previous summer, "one of the noblest persons", Wentworth wrote, "I ever had the happiness to be acquainted with. … With her are gone the greatest part of my affections to the country, and all that is left of them shall be thankfully and religiously paid to her excellent memory and lasting goodness".
When the Long Parliament
Long Parliament
The Long Parliament was made on 3 November 1640, following the Bishops' Wars. It received its name from the fact that through an Act of Parliament, it could only be dissolved with the agreement of the members, and those members did not agree to its dissolution until after the English Civil War and...
met Loftus appealed to it, and on 3 May 1642 the House of Lords quashed all the decisions against him. The question was again raised after the Restoration
Restoration (Ireland)
The Restoration of the monarchy began in 1660 when the English, Scottish and Irish monarchies were all restored under Charles II after the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland that followed the Wars of the Three Kingdoms...
, during the viceroyalty of Arthur Capell, 1st Earl of Essex
Arthur Capell, 1st Earl of Essex
Arthur Capell, 1st Earl of Essex PC , whose surname is sometimes spelled Capel, was an English statesman.-Early life:...
, whose report to the king gives the best general account of the whole affair. The result was that the House of Lords in England, after several days' hearing, reversed the decree made in 1637, thus finally and solemnly declaring that Charles I, Strafford, and their respective councils had been wrong throughout. His arbitrary treatment of Loftus formed part of the eighth article of Strafford's impeachment. Eleanor Loftus herself was Strafford's friend, the sister of his brother's wife, but there is no evidence that she was his mistress, and his words quoted above do not support the accusation, which seems to rest upon some ambiguous expressions in Clarendon's
Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon
Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon was an English historian and statesman, and grandfather of two English monarchs, Mary II and Queen Anne.-Early life:...
History. Richard Bagwell in the DNB
Dictionary of National Biography
The Dictionary of National Biography is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published from 1885...
article states "On the other hand, it may be thought suspicious that Sir Robert Loftus refused to join in his wife's suit against his father".
After his fall Loftus lived at or near his small property at Coverham
Coverham
Coverham is a village in Coverdale on the border of the Yorkshire Dales in North Yorkshire, England. It lies only a mile west of the town, Middleham....
in Yorkshire. His son Edward, by his marriage with Miss Lyndley, seems to have been then in possession of Middleham Castle
Middleham Castle
Middleham Castle in Wensleydale, in the county of North Yorkshire, was built by Robert Fitzrandolph, 3rd Lord of Middleham and Spennithorne, commencing in 1190. It was built near the site of an earlier motte and bailey castle...
, Yorkshire. In 1641 the ex-chancellor was one of several Irish lords and gentlemen living in England who petitioned parliament against disseminators of false news from Ireland. The outbreak of the Irish Rebellion
Irish Rebellion of 1641
The Irish Rebellion of 1641 began as an attempted coup d'état by Irish Catholic gentry, who tried to seize control of the English administration in Ireland to force concessions for the Catholics living under English rule...
in 1641 rendered his Irish estates worthless. He died at the beginning of 1643, and was buried in Coverham Church.
Family
Loftus married Sarah Bathow, widow of Richard MeredithRichard Meredith (bishop)
Richard Meredith was the Church of Ireland Bishop of Leighlin from 1589 until his death.-Life:...
, bishop of Leighlin, by whom he had four sons and two daughters:
- Robert died before his father,
- Edward who was succeeded to the peerage as the 2nd viscount.
- The younger daughter, Alice, married Charles Moore, afterwards Earl of Drogheda. In June 1639 she was seen on her knees before the king at Berwick, "very earnestly soliciting for her father's coming over". On the extinction of the male line, Monasterevan passed through her children to the Moore family.
The title, which became extinct on the death of his grandson, the 3rd viscount, in 1725 (when the family estate of Monasterevan, re-named Moore Abbey, passed to his daughter's son Henry, 4th earl of Drogheda), was re-granted in 1756 to his cousin Nicholas Loftus, a lineal descendant of the archbishop. It again became extinct more than once afterwards, but was on each occasion revived in favour of a descendant through the female line; and it later became held by the marquess of Ely
Marquess of Ely
Marquess of Ely, of the County of Wexford, is a title in the Peerage of Ireland. It was created in 1800 for Charles Loftus, 1st Earl of Ely. He was born Charles Tottenham, the son of John Tottenham, who had been created a Baronet, of Tottenham Green in the County of Wexford, in the Baronetage of...
in conjunction with other family titles.
In 1900 Lord Drogheda possessed a portrait of the chancellor, and many interesting papers connected with him.
Further reading
- Richard MantRichard Mant-Life:He was born at Southampton and educated at Winchester College and at Trinity College, Oxford.He was elected fellow of Oriel in 1798, and afterwards took orders, holding a curacy at Southampton in 1802...
, History of the Church of Ireland (2 vols., London, 1840); - J. R. O'Flanagan, Lives of the Lord Chancellors of Ireland (2 vols., London, 1870);
- John D'Alton, Memoirs of the Archbishops of Dublin (Dublin, 1838);
- Henry CottonHenry Cotton (divine)Henry Cotton was an Anglo-Irish churchman, ecclesiastical historian and author.-Life:He was a native of Buckinghamshire. Beginning in 1803, he spent four years at Westminster School and then in 1807 he entered Christ Church, Oxford. He obtained a B.A. in classics in 1811 and a M.A. in 1813...
, Fasti Ecclesiae Hibernicae (5 vols., Dublin, 1848-1878); - William Monck Mason, History and Antiquities of the College and Cathedral Church of St Patrick, near Dublin (Dublin, 1819);
- G. E. Cokayne, Complete Peerage vol. iii.. sub. "Ely" (London, 1890).