Samuel Mayart

Sir Samuel Mayart (1587–c.1646) was an English-born judge in seventeenth-century Ireland, who also had some reputation as a political theorist.

Early career He was born in Ipswich, Suffolk, in 1587, the son of Gilbert Mayart, who was of Flemish origin. and entered the King's Inns in the same year. He became Treasurer of the King's Inns in 1633. Nor was Strafford a man to tolerate any questioning of his policy, even by his colleagues in Government. Judges in his view, both Irish and English, were Crown servants like any others: their function was simply to serve the King, and they were expected to give judgment in favour of the Crown in any case where the King's rights were questioned. His attitude is shown by his outrage when a minority of the English High Court judges ruled against the Crown in The Case of Ship Money (R v. Hampden) the following year. Mayart's colleague De Cressy also risked Strafford's anger through his dissent, although the two men were old friends. In 1641 the Commons voted that he be compensated for his loss of salary, which had been reduced in 1629.

Political writings In 1644 Mayart was drawn into a major political controversy after an anonymous treatise entitled A Declaration setting forth how and by what means the laws and statutes of England came to be of force in Ireland (1643) was published, arguing the case that there had always been an independent Irish Parliament, which must give its assent to any English laws passed for Ireland. Since the matter was politically sensitive, the House of Lords asked the judges to advise them on the form of a report on the treatise.