Richard Stephens

Sir Richard Stephens (c.1630-1692) was an Irish barrister, politician and judge of the seventeenth century. He was a highly successful lawyer, but his political career was hampered by his unorthodox religious and political views. He became Serjeant-at-law (Ireland) to King Charles II, but was later dismissed from office, and was in political disgrace during the following reign. After the Glorious Revolution he was appointed to a position on the Irish High Court bench, but he died only a few years later.

He was born in Wexford, son of Richard Stephens senior. He entered Lincoln's Inn in 1658 and the King's Inn in 1663. He became one of the most successful practitioners at the Irish Bar, and was Recorder of Waterford and Clonmel. In 1665 he was elected to the Irish House of Commons as member for Ardee.

In the autumn of 1678 the great wave of anti-Catholic hysteria known as the Popish Plot, sparked by the invention by the informer Titus Oates of a wholly fictitious Jesuit-led conspiracy to murder the King, broke out in England, and gained some credence in Ireland also. At that time many Irish judges and Law Officers, who were aware of the King's own leaning towards the Roman Catholic religion, more or less openly indulged their own attachment to that faith, even though office holders were in theory disqualified for practicing the Catholic religion. The Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormonde, himself a staunch Anglican, pursued a policy of unofficial religious toleration towards Roman Catholics. By 1679 however public opinion demanded the appointment to office of men of extreme Protestant views: and Stephens was a client of Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury, who had used the Popish Plot to become effective Leader of the Opposition. Ormonde, despite his own strong personal antipathy to Stephens, accordingly recommended him to the King as a man who was worth promoting: he met the King at Portsmouth and was given a knighthood.

James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormonde

His career did not advance as quickly as he had presumably hoped: he failed in his efforts to become Master of the Rolls in Ireland, Solicitor General for Ireland, or Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer. He finally achieved office as Second Serjeant-at-law. He went as a judge of assize in the north-west of Ireland, and apparently planned to enter the English House of Commons.

The waning of popular belief in the Popish Plot, and the downfall of Stephens's patron Lord Shaftesbury, who was forced to flee from England in 1682 and died in exile in Amsterdam early the following year, made Stephens's position precarious. Ormonde was noted for loyalty to his friends, in which category he included most of the Irish judiciary, but he clearly disliked Stephens, and had him dismissed from the office of King's Serjeant late in 1682, on the grounds that he was a "fanatic", i.e. a non-conforming Protestant (Ormonde's policy of religious tolerance clearly had limits).

Stephens complained bitterly that he had lost £1000 a year as a result of his dismissal from office; although the nominal salary of a Serjeant was fixed a few years later at £30 a year, there is a good deal of evidence that the perquisites of the office brought the actual income up to roughly the figure which Stephens mentioned. Stephens may have derived some ironic amusement from the fiasco which followed his removal, as no less than three candidates- William Beckett, Sir Richard Ryves and Sir John Lyndon- claimed that they had been promised his job. Ormonde, whose apparent indifference to who the office of Serjeant was largely responsible for the fiasco, was obliged to create a new office of Third Serjeant to satisfy the rivals, even though it was generally believed that there was not enough work for the existing two Serjeants.

Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury, who was Stephens's patron.

It has been suggested that his dismissal set the precedent for the policy later adopted by King James II, which entailed the wholesale dismissal of judges and other office holders for holding the "wrong" religious opinions.

He became a bitter opponent of King James II, and like many of the King's opponents fled to England. He was proscribed as one of the King's known enemies by the Patriot Parliament of 1689. After the Revolution of 1688 he was restored to his old office of Second Serjeant. He continued to reside mainly in England: although he was appointed a justice of the Court of King's Bench (Ireland) in 1690, he does not seem to have sat regularly as a judge of the court. He died in 1692.