Edward Bellingham

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Sir Edward Bellingham (d. 1549), lord deputy of Ireland, was a son of Edward Bellingham of Erringham, Sussex, his mother being a member of the Shelley family.

As a soldier he fought in France and elsewhere, then became an English member of parliament and a member of the privy council, and in 1547 took part in some military operations in Ireland, during which time he rebuilt Leighlinbridge Castle in County Carlow.^[1] In May 1548 he was sent to that country as Lord Deputy. Ireland was then in a very disturbed condition, but the new governor crushed a rebellion of the O'Connors in Leinster, freed the Pale from rebels, built forts, and made the English power respected in Munster and Connaught.

Bellingham, however, was a headstrong man and was constantly quarrelling with his council; but one of his opponents admitted that he was the best man of war that ever he had seen in Ireland. His short but successful term of office was ended by his recall in 1549.

[edit] References

See R Bagwell, Ireland Under the Tudors, vol. i. (1885).

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

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