John Parker

John Parker (c.1500–1564) was an English-born merchant, politician and judge in Tudor Ireland. He held the offices of Constable of Dublin Castle and Master of the Rolls in Ireland; to be appointed to the latter office was a notable achievement for a man who began his career as a cloth-maker and had no legal qualifications which would fit him for judicial office. He may have been the John Parker who graduated from King's College, Cambridge in 1522.

He seems to have been a sincere religious reformer, although like many reformers he personally did very well out of the Dissolution of the Monasteries. He received Selskar Abbey in Wexford, Rosbercon Abbey in Kilkenny (although he apparently never lived there, and let it decay into a ruin), Holmpatrick Abbey near Skerries, County Dublin and Tircroghan in Westmeath. However, he was restored to royal favour in 1556.

Dispute with the Earl of Sussex

Parker's later years were overshadowed by his bitter quarrel with the Lord Deputy, Thomas Radclyffe, 3rd Earl of Sussex. Initial relations between the two men seem to have been friendly enough: Parker entertained Sussex at Holmpatrick Abbey soon after the latter's arrival in Ireland, and they went together on an expedition against Shane O'Neill the next year.

Another source of contention was religion: Sussex, who had originally been appointed Lord Deputy by the devoutly Catholic Queen Mary I, was a very lukewarm Protestant: his first royal commission from Mary had included an injunction to suppress all Irish heretics and Lollards, and Parker, as an extreme Protestant reformer, had been obliged to seek a royal pardon for his recusancy.

Character Elrington Ball describes Parker as an extraordinary individual who from his modest beginning as a merchant in a small English town, despite having no legal training, rose to become a senior Irish statesman and judge, powerful enough to challenge the Earl of Sussex and able to win the respect of other leading figures in the Irish administration, such as Sussex's successor Nicholas Arnold.