Peter Trevers

Peter Trevers, or Travers (died 1468) was an Irish barrister and judge.

He came from a family which had settled in County Meath in the thirteenth century; John de Tryvers, judge of the Court of Common Pleas (Ireland) c.1283-5, was a member of the same family. It is unclear whether he had any family connection with Peter Treveris, the London printer of the 1520s.

Peter is first heard of in London, studying law at the Inns of Court, in 1456 : Ireland then had no law school, and thus ambitious young Irishmen who wished to become lawyers and in due course judges in their home country were obliged to seek permission from the authorities to study law in London. He was appointed King's Serjeant in 1460. He was clearly a man of considerable wealth, who owned the impressive Baldongan Castle, near Skerries, County Dublin, and a nearby estate at Courtlough.

During the Wars of the Roses, the great dynastic struggle between the rival York and Lancaster branches of the English royal family, Trevers, like most of the Anglo-Irish gentry, supported the Yorkist cause, and in 1460 he accompanied Richard, Duke of York to England when York unsuccessfully claimed the English Crown. In 1461, following the Yorkist triumph, Trevers was appointed Master of the Rolls in Ireland by Richard's son, King Edward IV. In 1465 he was entrusted with raising men for the defence of Dublin. He died in 1468.

He married Elizabeth Holywood, or Holywode, daughter and co-heiress of Sir Robert Holywood of Artane Castle. Elizabeth had been twice widowed; her first husband was the 3rd Baron Delvin, by whom she had four sons, and her second husband was Sir Thomas Dowdall, by whom she had one daughter. She and Peter had three children:

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