Thomas Archbold

Thomas Archbold (died after1488) was an Irish Crown official, lawyer and judge of the late fifteenth century.

He was born in Dublin. The Archbold family were among the earliest English settlers in Ireland;[1] William Archbold, one of the Barons of the Court of Exchequer in the 1380s, was his ancestor. Thomas is first heard of in 1465 when he was having great difficulty collecting a debt: according to Elrington Ball he had to make forty journeys between Dublin and County Meath in pursuit of it.[2]

He became Attorney General for Ireland in 1478 and at the same time was made Master of the Royal Mint in Ireland.[3] As Master of the Mint he was soon drawn into a major political controversy when Lord Portlester, the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, refused to hand over the Great Seal of Ireland to Lord Grey, the Lord Deputy of Ireland: this was part of a comprehensive challenge by the Anglo-Irish nobility to Grey's authority. King Edward IV tried to resolve the problem by ordering Archbold to issue a new Great Seal, and declared that the Seal held by Portlester was declared to be "damned, annulled and suspended", while all his acts as Lord Chancellor were "utterly repudiated". Portlester and his allies, undeterred, continued their defiance of Lord Grey, and Grey, despairing of ever being able to establish his authority, left Ireland within the year.[4]

Soon afterwards Archbold was appointed a Baron of the Court of Exchequer for life, but he was later superseded.[5] He acted as Deputy Master of the Rolls in Ireland in 1479.[6]

Like most of the Anglo-Irish nobility he supported the claim of the pretender Lambert Simnel to the English Crown in 1487; Simnel's attempt to seize the throne ended with a crushing defeat at the Battle of Stoke Field. The victorious King, Henry VII, was merciful to the Irish rebels, as he was to Simnel himself and nearly all of them received a royal pardon the following year, including Archbold, who was reappointed to the Court of Exchequer at the same time.[7]

References

  1. ↑ MacLysaght, Edward Surnames of Ireland Irish University Press 1973 p.6
  2. ↑ Ball, F. Elrington The Judges in Ireland 1221-1921 John Murray London 1926 Vol. 1 p.185
  3. ↑ Ball p.185
  4. ↑ Alfred Webb A Compendium of Irish Biography (Dublin 1878)
  5. ↑ Ball p.185
  6. ↑ Smyth, Constantine Joseph Chronicle of the Law Officer of Ireland Dublin 1837 p.54
  7. ↑ Ball p.185
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