Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 50.djvu/172

 he may possibly have been the author of some of the concluding entries.

, twenty-first, or more properly ninth, (1550?–1607), his eldest son, born about 1550, was knighted by Sir William Fitzwilliam in 1588; but he incurred some suspicion as a discontented person by the eagerness with which, two years later, he joined the Nugents in attacking Sir Robert Dillon, chief justice of the common pleas, for maladministration (Cal. State Papers, Ireland, Eliz. v. 98). He had the honour of entertaining the lord deputy, Sir William Russell [q. v.], for one night on his arrival in Ireland on 31 July 1594, and subsequently, in May 1595, attended him on an expedition against Fiagh MacHugh O'Byrne [q. v.], the outlaw of the Wicklow glens; and for his services on that occasion the deputy thought he deserved ‘some few words of thanks from her majesty.’ He earned the commendation of the Lords-justices Loftus and Gardiner for his promptness in obeying their order in 1598 to assemble the gentlemen of county Dublin ‘to consider of a course for some provision to be made for the soldiers intended to be laid at Naas under Sir Henry Bagenal.’ But his alacrity in this respect did not prevent him from complaining directly to Sir Robert Cecil, in October 1600, of the spoils committed by the soldiery upon the inhabitants of the Pale. Being a Roman catholic, though at one time he apparently conformed to the established church, he resented the increased rigour of the laws against his co-religionists that followed the accession of James I; and on 8 Dec. 1605 he signed a memorial to the Earl of Salisbury praying that the penal laws might be rather restrained than extended. He died early in May 1607, and was buried with his ancestors in the abbey of Howth. He married, first, Margaret or Allison, fifth daughter of Sir Christopher Barnwell of Turvey, by whom he had Sir Christopher (1568?–1619) [q. v.], his successor; Thomas, who served in the Spanish army in the Netherlands; and, according to Lodge, Richard and Mary (? Margaret), the wife of William Eustace of Castlemartin, co. Kildare. His second wife was Mary, daughter of Sir Nicholas White of Leixlip, master of the rolls, widow of Robert Browne of Mulrankan, co. Wexford, and also of Christopher Darcy of Platin, by whom he had, according to Harl. MS. 1425, f. 104, the above-mentioned Richard, Americ, Edward, Margaret (married to Viscount Gormanston), and Allison (married to a Luttrell).

[Lodge's Peerage, ed. Archdall, iii. 196–9; D'Alton's Hist. of Dublin, pp. 127–9; Cal. State Papers, Ireland, Eliz. i. 172, 175, 210, 213, 276, 318, ii. 115, 118, 129, iii. 10, 20, iv. 235, 415, 419, 576, v. 15–27, 98, 317, vii. 342, James I, i. 365, ii. 147; Cal. Carew MSS. i. 311, ii. 58, 133, 148, 354, iii. 62–84, 221, 228, 475; Cal. Fiants Eliz. Nos. 260, 542, 2117, 2345, 2445, 3601, 3657, 4515, 5134, 5342, 6044, 6692.]  ST. LAWRENCE, CHRISTOPHER, twenty-second, or more properly tenth,  (1568?–1619), eldest son of Sir Nicholas St. Lawrence, twenty-first baron Howth [see under, twentieth ], was born about 1568. According to a story recorded by D'Alton (Hist. of Dublin, p. 136), he was, when very young, kidnapped by the celebrated Grace O'Malley [q. v.] in retaliation for a supposed act of inhospitality towards her on the part of his father or grandfather. A picture said to represent this incident is preserved in Howth Castle. He displayed great aptitude in military exercises, and accompanied his father on an expedition into Wicklow against Fiagh MacHugh O'Byrne, when he showed some boldness by capturing two of Fiagh's followers in April 1595. Subsequently he paid a visit to England, and, returning to Ireland with Sir Conyers Clifford on 4 July 1597, he was given a company of foot, and for the next two years was chiefly employed on the borders of King's County in holding the O'Conors in check. He acquired a reputation as an active but somewhat quarrelsome officer, though there was no truth in the report that he stabbed Sir Samuel Bagenal ‘about the lie or such like brabble’ (, Letters, p. 23). He served under the Earl of Essex in Leinster in 1599, and distinguished himself by swimming across the Barrow in order to recover some stolen horses, and returned with one of the marauders' heads. He was present at the siege of Cahir Castle, and, having repulsed a sortie of the garrison, was one of the first to enter the place. He accompanied Essex, to whom he was greatly attached, to England, and is said to have offered to revenge him personally on Lord Grey de Wilton and Sir Robert Cecil (, iii. 796). In April 1600 he was sent to reinforce the president of Munster, Sir George Carew; but later in the year he accompanied Lord-deputy Mountjoy into Leix, and in October he was slightly wounded in an encounter with the forces of O'Neill in the neighbourhood of Carlingford. On the news of the arrival of the Spaniards he was despatched into Munster, but his attempt, in conjunction with the president, to intercept O'Donnell failed. At