Anthony St Leger (Master of the Rolls)

Sir Anthony St Leger (the younger) (c.1535-1613) was an English-born judge in Ireland who held the office of Master of the Rolls in Ireland.

Family

There is some confusion about his parentage. It is often said that he was the third son of Sir Anthony St Leger, Lord Deputy of Ireland, and his wife Agnes Warham. However, both Burke's Peerage,^[1] and Francis Elrington Ball in his definitive study of the pre-Independence Irish judiciary,^[2] state that he was the nephew, not the son, of the elder Sir Anthony, and that his parents were Sir Anthony's brother George St Leger and his wife Thomasine Heath.

Career

He was born around 1535, at Leeds, Kent. He entered Gray's Inn in 1562 and was called to the Bar in 1574. He was made an Ancient of Gray's Inn in 1579 and was Reader of the Inn in 1589.^[3]

In 1593 he was made Irish Master of the Rolls, with a knighthood.^[4] Crawford tells us that he was chosen because of the Crown's strong preference for sending English judges to Ireland, and because of a vague belief that the St. Leger family's previous association with Ireland fitted him for the task.^[5] St Leger evidently did not share this belief: he went to Ireland under protest, made regular visits home and petitioned for English offices such as Master of the Court of Requests.^[6] His absences were frequent enough to invite criticism: in 1599 the Privy Council of Ireland sent a sharp request to him to return to Dublin at once since his absence was making the conduct of judicial business almost impossible.^[7]

He did not entirely neglect his official duties: he negotiated with Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone in 1594, was a commissioner for the Plantation of Munster, and went regularly on assize.^[8] However his desire to return to England was as strong as ever, and he finally obtained leave to retire in 1609.^[9] He continued to advise the Crown on Irish affairs, and died in Cork early in 1613, presumably while on a short mission to Ireland. His body was brought back to England and at his own request he was buried beside his first wife Eleanor in the church of St. Sepulchre-without-Newgate in London.

Personal life

He bought Wierton House, Boughton Monchelsea, from the Norton family, and acquired Bobbing Court in Kent through marriage. His will makes generous provision for his widow, and contains legacies to his Clifford stepchildren, numerous cousins and the poor of Leeds. Sir Henry Wotton, the noted diplomat, received a bequest of a ring; since St Leger's third wife Aphra was a Wotton there may have been a family connection

St Leger married firstly Eleanor, daughter of Richard Markham of Sedgebrook, Lincolnshire; they had one daughter, Joan. Eleanor died in 1599. He married secondly as her fourth husband Mary, daughter of Francis Southwell of Wyndham Hall, Norfolk; her third husband had been the leading soldier Sir Conyers Clifford. They had two children, Anthony and Frances. Their son was knighted in 1627, and died in 1661.^[10] After Mary's death in 1603 he married Aphra Wotton, who outlived him by many years.

References