Thomas Sheridan

Sir Thomas Sheridan, the elder (c. 1646 – 17 March 1712) was an Anglo-Irish lawyer, political author and Jacobite, who served as the Chief Secretary for Ireland between 1687 and 1688.

Early life Sheridan was born in St. John's, County Meath, Ireland, the fourth son of Reverend Dennis Sheridan, the Church of Ireland rector of Killesher parish, County Fermanagh. His siblings included William Sheridan, Patrick Sheridan the Anglican bishop of Cloyne and Margery Sheridan, wife of Colonel Meredith Gwyllym of Ballyconnell. He was brought up as a Protestant within the established church. By the summer of that year, with suspicion around the Popish Plot mounting, Sheridan issued a second edition of his book with a preface that denied that he had any sympathy for subversive political movements. His speech before the Commons was later published. Despite this affair, Sheridan retained royal favour and was commissioned by Charles II to produce proposals for farming the Irish revenue. In 1682, Charles awarded Sheridan a lump sum of £1,000 and an annual pension of £500.

Later career and death After the Glorious Revolution, in January 1689 Sheridan followed James II into exile in France. Here he authored several works of Jacobite propaganda, including a formal defence of James' reign; the draft of The king of Great Britain's case was produced in 1692 but remained unpublished. He penned a defence of the Catholic clergy after their banishment from Ireland in 1697, and in 1709 he wrote a manuscript entitled Political reflexions on the history and government of England, a uncompromising defence of royal absolutism. He also translated A Survey of Princes by Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac.

Sheridan died at the exiled Stuart court at Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye near Paris on 17 March 1712.

Family At some point around, 1684 Sheridan married Helen Ravenscroft (née Appleby), widow of George Ravenscroft, the developer of English lead crystal, and the daughter of Thomas Appleby and Helen Gascoigne of Linton-on-Ouse in Yorkshire. There were three children from the marriage, all of whom were raised as Roman Catholics: Therese Helen, Mary and Sir Thomas Sheridan junior who became tutor to Prince Charles Edward Stuart.