Charles Calthorpe

Sir Charles Calthorpe (c. 1540 – 1616) was an English-born Crown official and judge in Elizabethan and Jacobean Ireland. Prior to his appointment to the Irish High Court in 1606, he had been Attorney General for Ireland for more than 20 years, despite frequent criticisms of his professional incompetence. He was a close political associate of the Lord Deputy of Ireland, Sir John Perrot: Perrot's downfall damaged his career, but he was eventually restored to royal favour.

Early life

He belonged to an old Norfolk family; his father was Sir Francis Calthorpe of Hempstead and his mother was Elizabeth Berney, daughter of Ralph Berney of Gunton Hall, near Suffield. His grandfather was Sir William Calthorpe (died 1494), High Sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk, who was probably the grandson of the earlier Sir William (died 1420) whose memorial brass can still be seen in All Saints Church, Burnham Thorpe. On their father's death in 1544 Hempstead, which had come to Charles's grandfather through his marriage to his second wife Elizabeth Stapleton, passed as to Charles's older brother William, who sold it in 1573.

The birthdate often given for Charles of 1524 is probably at least a decade too early: he was certainly described as an old man in 1611, but the Crown would hardly have retained the services of a judge who was turning 90.

Charles entered Lincoln's Inn in 1560. He gave readings on the law of copyhold at Furnivall's Inn, which were published in 1562. He was called to the bar in 1569 and became a Bencher of his Inn in 1582. He sat in the House of Commons as member for Eye in the Parliament of 1572. He also served as steward of Yarmouth and as a Justice of the Peace for Norfolk.

Attorney General

In 1584 he was appointed Attorney General for Ireland, and soon became a staunch political ally of the Lord Deputy, Sir John Perrot. His rewards for his support of Perrot included a lease for 21 years of Kilconnell Abbey, County Galway, and the town of Mallow, County Cork, which he later sold.

From the outset of his career in Ireland Calthorpe was subject to intense criticism from his political opponents, who accused him of partisanship, inefficient management of business, insufficient legal learning and undue deference to his Irish colleagues. Calthorpe had prosecuted the case with great vigour and there is no reason to doubt that he believed that Bird was guilty. O'Roghan however withdrew his evidence against Bird, and made charges of treason against Perrot. Sir William Fitzwilliam, the new Lord Deputy, set up an inquiry, but O'Roghan's charges were so wildly implausible that it seemed doubtful whether the inquiry could proceed. A second commission of inquiry was then set up into the manner in which the charges were made. Calthorpe sat on this commission, which proved to be a serious mistake when O'Roghan accused the commissioners of subjecting him to torture.

Fitzwilliam was now ordered by the English Crown to resume his own inquiry, and Calthorpe faced two serious charges: of wrongly pressing for Bird's conviction, and of acting corruptly in the examination of O'Roghan. He was suspended from office without pay between 1590 and 1592, and it was widely believed that he would be prosecuted. In February 1591, seeing that Perrot was doomed, he wrote to Burghley, the English elder statesman, pleading for his protection. Given that Burghley was a close associate of Fitzwilliam, he might seem an unlikely patron of Calthorpe, but Calthorpe was also an old friend of Burghley, who was generally inclined to moderation. In the event, it was decided that a severe censure of Calthorpe's conduct, finding that he had been "negligent, but not undutiful" was a sufficient penalty. His efforts to claim his arrears of salary however were firmly rebuffed. Calthorpe also suffered the embarrassment of seeing the conviction of Henry Bird publicly reversed. He was restored to office in the autumn of 1592, but his reputation never fully recovered. He wisely kept a low profile in public affairs thereafter. Molyneux, though of English parentage, had been born and raised in Calais and lived for some years in Bruges, where he married a Belgian wife. His enemies accordingly suggested that he was a foreigner and a Roman Catholic. Calthorpe, having questioned Molyneux, informed the Court that he was a Protestant Englishman, and as such fully qualified to hold public office.

Later life Complaints about his inefficiency mounted: in 1597 the Privy Council of Ireland lamented that none of the Law Officers, except the Solicitor-General for Ireland, Roger Wilbraham, did the Crown's business properly. Calthorpe began pressing for promotion to what he no doubt hoped would be the less stressful life of a High Court judge. He was offered the position of Chief Justice of Munster, but refused it: the work of that office was extremely onerous, and clearly, it did not appeal to him, especially as both he and his wife were in poor health. He sought the office of Chief Justice of the Irish Common Pleas instead. although Chichester's criticisms, and the complaints by the Privy Council about his inefficiency in 1597, suggest that he neglected his duties in his later years. This neglect was largely due to age and ill health.