Richard Sydgrave

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Richard Sydgrave (also written Segrave) died in 1425. He was an Irish judge who served as Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer and acted as deputy to the Lord Chancellor. His family became major landowners in County Meath and also held lands at Newry and Carlingford. An earlier Segrave, Stephen, was Archbishop of Armagh (1323–1333); the exact relationship between Richard and Stephen is unclear. Richard was custodian of the See of Armagh in 1404. In 1405 he was granted lands in Newry that had been forfeited for rebellion, though records note he would need aid to sustain them. He also held lands at Burtonstown near Navan.

Richard’s first recorded office was Clerk of the Crown and Hanaper in the late 1390s. He became a Baron of the Court of Exchequer (Ireland) in 1402 and Chief Baron in 1423; he also served as Deputy Lord Chancellor. In 1409 he sat as an acting judge on a five‑man court to hear a case of novel disseisin against the High Sheriff of Meath. In 1410 he obtained a remission for the townspeople of Carlingford from tallage, subsidies and military expenses after devastation by hostile Irish and Scottish forces. In 1412 he sat with John Fitzadam, Chief Justice of the Irish Common Pleas, in a case of novel disseisin brought by Thomas Clone against William Dervoys and his wife Blanche.

In 1420 he and Roger Hawkenshaw were instructed to inquire into complaints by the citizens of County Meath about extortion by the Lord Lieutenant’s troops. In 1422 the Lord Lieutenant, Edmund Mortimer, nominated Sydgrave to act as one of his attorneys in Ireland. He was ex officio a member of the Privy Council of Ireland and seems to have regularly attended its meetings.

Like many senior judges of the era, he faced a rival for office, James Cornwalsh, who was confirmed as Chief Baron in 1425 and murdered in 1441 during a feud with the Fitzwilliam family; Sydgrave’s own son was murdered a few years later, and his killers were pardoned. Sydgrave died in 1425.

In his later years, through the marriage of his eldest son Patrick (d. 1455) to the heiress Mary Wafer, the family acquired Killegland (Ashbourne) in County Meath, which remained in the family until the 1640s. Sydgrave also held the lands at Newry and lands in County Galway, though it seems he never gained effective control of Newry. It was noted as early as 1405 that his father could not hold them. Patrick was murdered in 1455, but his killers received a pardon from Parliament. Patrick’s son, another Richard, was later restored to his father’s estates. The Segrave family continued to be involved with the Court of Exchequer, with later family members serving as Barons.