Nicholas Sutton (lawyer)

Nicholas Sutton (c. 1440 – 1478) was an Irish judge who held the offices of Attorney General for Ireland and Baron of the Court of Exchequer (Ireland). His life demonstrates how small the Irish legal world was at the time: his father held the same two offices, while his widow married his successor on the Bench.^[1] His will, which no longer exists, has been described as being full of "curious details".^[2]

He was born in Dublin, probably at St. Werburgh's Street where the Suttons had a town house and where he was buried. His father was William Sutton, who was Attorney General in about 1444 and then for many years a Baron of the Exchequer; his mother was Alison Darby.^[3]

He was Attorney General in 1473; he is recorded as Baron of the Exchequer in 1478, possibly repalcing his father who retired the previous year. Nicholas however died almost at once, two years before his father, and was buried in St. Werburgh's Church, Dublin.^[4]

Elrington Ball states that his will, of which Ball had seen a copy which no longer survives,^[5] showed evidence of extraordianary religious fervour, even by the standards of the age: he called himself a "clerk" the normal term for a celibate clergyman and an unusual way for a married man to describe himself.^[6] Should he have no other heirs, his lands were to be divided between St Werburgh's and St. Mary's Abbey, Dublin.^[7] He left a legacy to his father, William, in return for his blessing, and numerous legacies to religious houses.^[8]

He had children by his marriage to Anne Cusacke;^[9] in his will he commended his family to the care of Philip Bermingham, the Lord Chief Justice of Ireland. ^[10] A year after his death Anne remarried his successor on the Court of Exchequer, Patrick Burnell, a member of the well-known Burnell family which produced a number of leading judges and politicians.^[11]

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