Sir John Meade, 1st Baronet

Sir John Meade, 1st Baronet (1642–1707) was an Irish barrister, judge and politician.He was the first of the Meade Baronets of Balintubber,andan ancestor of the Earls of Clanwilliam. He was unusual among the lawyers ofhis erafor his lack of ambition to become a judge of the High Court, despite being widelyregarded as abarrister of "excellent parts". In matters of religion he seems to have been, by the standards of his time,a man ofvery tolerant views:although he washimself a Protestant, hedamaged his career by marrying Elizabeth Butler, who wasa Roman Catholic,as his third wife.

He was born in Cork City, son of Colonel William Meade and Elizabeth Travers; he was a grandson of Sir John Meade senior, of Balintubber, and through his paternal grandmother, Catherine Sarsfield,a great-grandson of the notoriously corrupt judge Dominick Sarsfield, 1st Viscount Sarsfield. His mother Elizabeth Travers was the daughter of Sir Robert Travers (died 1647), Judge Advocateof Ireland and member of the Irish House of Commons for Clonakilty, who was killed at the Battle of Knocknanuss, and hissecond wife Elizabeth Boyle, daughter of Richard Boyle, Archbishop of Tuam. Meadewas thus a close family connectionof the "Great Earl of Cork", Richard Boyle. His younger sister Eleanor became the fourth wife of Godwin Swift, uncle and guardian of Jonathan Swift, and another sister, Joanna, is recorded as the grandmother of the writerLaetitia Pilkington. By his third marriage he also became a member of the great Butler dynasty, although this proved to be something of a mixed blessing, as he married into one of theRoman Catholic branches of the family.

He became Attorney General to the Duke of York(the future King James II of England), andChief Justice (Seneschal)of the Palatine court of Tipperary. The latter office was generally seenas a sinecure, although the fact that there wasa second justice (or Master of the Rolls)of thePalatine Courtsuggests that the workload could washeavy enough. Meade wasa fine lawyer,but he seems to have had little interest in becoming a High Court judge, perhaps because his real interest was in politics. He sat in the Irish House of Commons, first for Trinity College Dublin in the Patriot Parliamentof 1689,and then for Tipperary for the rest of his life.

Despite his willingness to sit in the JacobitePatriot Parliament, he was regarded in his later years as a staunch supporter of William III of England. After the triumph of William's cause in 1690, he became King's Counsel, and was spoken of as a likely candidate for the office of Third Irish Serjeant in 1692. However, Henry Sydney, 1st Earl of Romney, the Lord Lieutenant of Irelandobjected to Meade's appointment, referring cryptically to "some exceptions (i.e. objections) against him". This was almost certainlya reference to Meade's third wife, Elizabeth Butler,daughter of the secondViscount Ikerrin, who was a Roman Catholic; such a marriage, after the downfall of the Catholic King James II, was a serious obstacle to high office.

Despite the handicap ofhis mixed marriage, Meade was offered the office of Serjeant,after Lord Romney andthe restof the Dublin Government. became deeply dissatisfied with the behaviour of the Prime Serjeant, John Osborne, who frequently acted without instructions from the Government, and at timeswentdirectly contrary to official policy.Meade refused the office on the ground that it would interfere with his flourishing private practice (although Hart notes thatcontemporary serjeants like Sir Richard Stephensbecameextremely rich through the perquisitesof the office).

Lord Romneymade itclear that his objection to appointing Meade to office had been no reflection on his character or reputation. In contrast to the "treacherous and ungrateful" Osborne, Romneyremarked thatMeade "has done very well, and is a man of most excellent parts:all the exception that can be made against him is that his wife is a Papist."

He was knighted in 1678 and made a baronetin 1703. He died in January 1707.

Sir John married firstly Mary Coppinger, daughter of James Coppinger of Barryscourt Castle, County Cork; they had no children.

He married secondly ElizabethRedman,daughter and co-heiress of Colonel Daniel Redman of Ballylinch, County Kilkenny and his wife Abigail Otway. Redman was a Cromwellianarmy officer, who hadpurchased substantial lands in Irelandfrom his brother-in-law Captain John Joyner, who had begun his career as a cookin the household of King Charles I of England. John and Elizabeth had one surviving daughter-

• Elizabeth, who married firstly Sir Ralph Freke, 1st Baronet, and secondly James King, 4th Baron Kingston and had children by both marriages. She died in 1750.

He married thirdly in 1688 Elizabeth Butler, daughter of Pierce Butler, 2nd Viscount Ikerrin and his wife Eleanor Bryan.The 2ndLord Ikerrinwas aconvert to Protestantismbut his son James,the 3rd Viscount(who married Eleanor Redman, sister of John Meade'ssecondwifeElizabeth Redman)reverted to the Catholic faith, as didElizabeth herself. Her Catholic beliefs became a barrier to her husband'scareer advancement.She died in 1757.They had at least eight children-

• two sons who died young
• Pierce, who succeededhis father as 2nd Baronet but died in 1711,at the age of 18;
• Richard, 3rd Baronet(1697-1744) from whom the Earls of Clanwilliam are descended;
• Helen,who married Richard Ponsonby of Crotto House, County Kerry,MP for Kinsale 1727-1760;
• Catherine,who married firstly Thomas Jones, younger son of Lewis Jones, Bishop of Killaloe,and secondly Nehemiah Donnellan, MP for Tipperary, son of Nehemiah Donnellan, Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer;
• Mary, who married Denis McCarthy of Cloghroe, County Cork,and had issue;
• Jane, who never married.

The Meade family acquired large estates in Cork and Tipperary, only to lose them all.at the end of the century through the extravagance of John Meade, 1st Earl of Clanwilliam.

• Burke's Peerage 107th edition (2003)
• CokayneComplete Peerage reissued Gloucester (2000)
• DebrettComplete Peerage 9th Edition(1814)
• Memoirs of Letitia Pilkington reissued by the University of Georgia 1999
• Hart, A.R.History of the King's Serjeant-at-law in IrelandFour Courts Press Dublin 2000
• Norris, James BrewerHistory of Leinster: Embracing the Beauties of Dublin, Wicklow, Wexford, Kilkenny...Taylor and Co. London 1829