William Darcy

Sir William Darcy (c.1460–1540) was a leading Anglo-Irish statesman of the Pale in the early sixteenth century; for many years he held the office of Vice-Treasurer of Ireland. He wrote an influential treatise, The Decay of Ireland, which led to his being called "the father of the movement for political reformation in Ireland". He was a colourful and flamboyant character, whose exceptional height gave rise to his nickname "Great Darcy".

Background and early career He was born at Platten in County Meath, son of John Darcy IV of Platten and his wife Elizabeth Plunkett, daughter of Christopher Plunkett, 2nd Baron Killeen and Elizabeth Welles. The Darcys of Platten were a junior branch of the family of Baron Darcy de Knayth, and had become one of the leading families of the Pale through intermarriage with other landed families such as the Plunketts and St Lawrences. Through his mother, he was a great-grandson of Sir William Welles, Lord Chancellor of Ireland. The family held five manors in Meath, valued at £150 in total, of which Rathwire (now Killucan and Rathwire in County Westmeath) was the most substantial, and smaller holdings in County Louth. The King's Inns, Ireland's first law school, was not founded until a year after Darcy's death, but a rudimentary form of professional instruction for barristers was provided by senior Irish judges. Darcy lodged at the house of the King's Serjeant, John Estrete, with whom he studied those English legal texts which were considered to be essential for the education of those students (by no means all of them) who intended to practice law. Estrete himself has written one of these texts, Natura Brevium.

Darcy proposed no remedy for the misgovernment of Ireland, although it was clear that he regarded the great power of the Earl of Kildare as a threat to the Crown (the Earl could of course have pointed out that Darcy himself owed everything he had to the Kildare dynasty). Although he deplored the increasing Gaelic influence on the Anglo-Irish and refused ostentatiously to adopt any Gaelic fashion, he was personally tolerant enough in racial matters – he spoke fluent Irish and married one of his daughters to Sir Hugh O'Donnell, one of the most prominent leaders of Gaelic Ireland. and secondly Catherine Simon. He had at least three sons by his first marriage: George (died 1531) who married Jane Riccard, and by her was the father of Maud, Baroness Skryne John (died 1558) Christopher - and three daughters: Eleanor, who married Robert Plunkett, 5th Baron of Dunsany a daughter who married Richard Golding, Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer Margery, who married Sir Hugh Duff O'Donnell (Aodh Dubh) of County Donegal, one of the dominant Gaelic leaders in Ulster.

Nicholas Darcy was still holding Platten under the Cromwellian regime in 1654, despite being described as a Papist.

The life of Maud Darcy, Baroness Skryne

Sir William was given the wardship of James Marward, titular Baron Skryne, (grandson of his first wife Margaret and her first husband), and married him to his granddaughter Maud, a decision he must have later regretted when Maud, according to popular belief, had her husband murdered in 1534 by Richard FitzGerald, whom she later married (Richard was the half-brother of Darcy's old enemy, the 9th Earl of Kildare). Richard was executed for his part in the Silken Thomas Rebellion. Maud herself was convicted of treason and sentenced to death, but later pardoned.

Soon afterwards she remarried Sir Thomas Cusack, Lord Chancellor of Ireland, by whom she had thirteen children. In notable contrast to her troubled earlier marital history, this was a happy and scandal-free marriage. The couple are commemorated together in the Cusack family monument in Trevet Church, County Meath. She died sometime before 1560.