Barnaby Skurloke or Skurlock (1520c.1587) was a prominent and politically influential lawyer in Ireland in the mid-sixteenth century. He held the office of

Attorney General for Ireland The Attorney-General for Ireland was an Irish and then (from the Act of Union 1800) United Kingdom government office-holder. He was senior in rank to the Solicitor-General for Ireland: both advised the Crown on Irish legal matters. With the es ...

, and was the first holder of the office to be so described. He was for a short time the acting

Lord Chief Justice of Ireland The Court of King's Bench (or Court of Queen's Bench during the reign of a Queen) was one of the senior courts of common law in Ireland. It was a mirror of the Court of King's Bench in England. The Lord Chief Justice was the most senior judge i ...

. In later life, he became a leading opponent of the Crown's policies and was imprisoned as a result.

Background

He was a native of

Bective, County Meath Bective (; sometimes known as Bective Bridge or Ballina) is a small hamlet and townland in County Meath, Ireland. Bective is situated on the left bank of the River Boyne and on the Clady River which joins the former in the east of the townland, ...

. His family name is an early form of Sherlock. The Scurlocks were originally from

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...

: a branch of the family came to Ireland with Strongbow in the 1170s. The Irish Skurlocks were associated mainly with Meath, and gave their name to Skurlockstown. An Edmund Scurlage was living in Dublin in 1406. Barnaby's parentage is obscure. Sir Henry Sidney in 1577 referred to his "father and grandfather" as having acquired substantial estates, and his father was probably the Barnabas Skurlock who received a grant of lands in Meath in 1529.Collins, Arian E. ''The Sherlocks of Ireland and Wales'' Bordertown Publishing San Diego 2011 p.16.

Career

Barnaby attended

Lincoln's Inn The Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn is one of the four Inns of Court in London to which barristers of England and Wales belong and where they are called to the Bar. (The other three are Middle Temple, Inner Temple and Gray's Inn.) Lincoln ...

and then returned to practice law in Ireland. In 1554

Mary I Mary I (18 February 1516 – 17 November 1558), also known as Mary Tudor, and as "Bloody Mary" by her Protestant opponents, was Queen of England and Ireland from July 1553 and Queen of Spain from January 1556 until her death in 1558. Sh ...

appointed him Attorney General for Ireland. He was the first Irish Law Officer to use that title, which replaced the earlier title of King's Attorney. On the accession of

Elizabeth I Elizabeth I (7 September 153324 March 1603) was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. Elizabeth was the last of the five House of Tudor monarchs and is sometimes referred to as the "Virgin Queen". El ...

, he was reappointed Attorney General and also acted briefly as Lord Chief Justice, pending a permanent appointment. He was soon removed from both offices: the cause of his dismissal as Attorney General was later stated to be

negligence Negligence (Lat. ''negligentia'') is a failure to exercise appropriate and/or ethical ruled care expected to be exercised amongst specified circumstances. The area of tort law known as ''negligence'' involves harm caused by failing to act as a ...

in performing his professional duties, and what would nowadays be called the "leaking" of

State secrets Classified information is material that a government body deems to be sensitive information that must be protected. Access is restricted by law or regulation to particular groups of people with the necessary security clearance and need to know, ...

. It has been suggested that his dismissal was the cause of his later opposition to the Crown. Whether or not this is true, it is clear that by 1560 the authorities, especially

Lord Deputy of Ireland The Lord Deputy was the representative of the monarch and head of the Irish executive (government), executive under English rule, during the Lordship of Ireland and then the Kingdom of Ireland. He deputised prior to 1523 for the Viceroy of Ireland ...

Thomas Radclyffe, 3rd Earl of Sussex Thomas Radclyffe (or Ratclyffe), 3rd Earl of Sussex KG (c. 15259 June 1583), was Lord Deputy of Ireland during the Tudor period of English history, and a leading courtier during the reign of Elizabeth I. Family He was the eldest son of Henr ...

, already regarded him as a troublemaker. From the 1550s on he was consistent in his opposition to the levying of ''cess'' (a

tax A tax is a compulsory financial charge or some other type of levy imposed on a taxpayer (an individual or legal entity) by a governmental organization in order to fund government spending and various public expenditures (regional, local, or n ...

to fund the military

garrisons A garrison (from the French ''garnison'', itself from the verb ''garnir'', "to equip") is any body of troops stationed in a particular location, originally to guard it. The term now often applies to certain facilities that constitute a mil ...

the Pale The Pale (Irish: ''An Pháil'') or the English Pale (' or ') was the part of Ireland directly under the control of the English government in the Late Middle Ages. It had been reduced by the late 15th century to an area along the east coast st ...

).Kenny, Colum ''King's Inns and the Kingdom of Ireland'' Irish Academic Press Dublin 1992 pp.55-66 His enemy Sir Henry Sidney later said that Barnaby had made a fortune as Attorney General.Bagwell p.329 Despite his opposition to ''cess'', Skurlock was surprisingly well-regarded by the authorities: he was on the commission to execute

martial law Martial law is the imposition of direct military control of normal civil functions or suspension of civil law by a government, especially in response to an emergency where civil forces are overwhelmed, or in an occupied territory. Use Marti ...

in Meath in 1564, and was party to the renewal of the lease of the

King's Inn The Honorable Society of King's Inns ( ir, Cumann Onórach Óstaí an Rí) is the "Inn of Court" for the Bar of Ireland. Established in 1541, King's Inns is Ireland's oldest school of law and one of Ireland's significant historical environment ...

in 1567. The

Lord Chancellor of Ireland The Lord High Chancellor of Ireland (commonly known as Lord Chancellor of Ireland) was the highest judicial office in Ireland until the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922. From 1721 to 1801, it was also the highest political office of ...

, Sir

William Gerard Sir William Gerard (1518–1581) was an Elizabethan statesman, who had a distinguished record of government service in England, Wales and most notably in Ireland. He sat in the House of Commons for Chester for many years, and was Vice-President ...

, described him as one of the most experienced lawyers in Ireland in 1576, when he was referred to as "one of the Queen's learned counsel". He seems to have suffered serious ill-health around this time, being described as "aged and sickly" (56 was a considerable age then).

The cess controversy

Serious political trouble arose in the following year, when there was renewed opposition by the

Anglo-Irish Anglo-Irish people () denotes an ethnic, social and religious grouping who are mostly the descendants and successors of the English Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland. They mostly belong to the Anglican Church of Ireland, which was the establis ...

gentry to the cess. Skurlock was chosen, with

Henry Burnell Henry Burnell (c. 1540–1614) was an Irish judge and politician; he served briefly as Recorder of Dublin and as a justice of the Court of King's Bench. Though he was willing to accept Crown office, he spent much of his career in opposition to t ...

and

Richard Netterville Richard Netterville (–1607) was an Irish barrister and politician of the Elizabethan era. He was noted for his willingness to oppose the Crown, especially on its taxation policies, and as a result, he was imprisoned several times. Background He ...

, to travel to London to petition the Queen for its abolition, on account of the ruinous cost it imposed on the gentry of the Pale. The Lord Deputy,

Sir Henry Sidney Sir Henry Sidney (20 July 1529 – 5 May 1586), Lord Deputy of Ireland, was the eldest son of Sir William Sidney of Penshurst, a prominent politician and courtier during the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI, from both of whom he received ...

, argued that the petition was a defiance of the

Royal Prerogative The royal prerogative is a body of customary authority, privilege and immunity, recognized in common law and, sometimes, in civil law jurisdictions possessing a monarchy, as belonging to the sovereign and which have become widely vested in th ...

. The Queen agreed and the three petitioners were imprisoned in the Fleet Prison. They were soon released, after having made an abject apology to the Queen and the Lord Deputy, although they did not drop their opposition to the cess. His last years seem to have been peaceful enough, apart from a dispute with the

Lord Justice of Ireland The Lords Justices (more formally the Lords Justices General and General Governors of Ireland) were deputies who acted collectively in the absence of the chief governor of Ireland (latterly the Lord Lieutenant) as head of the executive branch of ...

, Sir

Henry Wallop Sir Henry Wallop (c. 1540 – 14 April 1599) was an English statesman. Biography Henry Wallop was the eldest son of Sir Oliver Wallop (d. 1566) of Farleigh Wallop in Hampshire. Having inherited the estates of his father and of his uncle, Sir John ...

in 1584 over the right of Skurlock's sons to take possession of the manors of Skurlockstown and Ifernock. His date of death is not recorded but he was still living in 1586.

Family

He married a daughter of the

, Sir John Plunket, and they had at least two sons: Oliver, who held the manor of Skurlockstown, and Walter, who was Attorney General for

Connaught Connacht ( ; ga, Connachta or ), is one of the provinces of Ireland, in the west of Ireland. Until the ninth century it consisted of several independent major Gaelic kingdoms (Uí Fiachrach, Uí Briúin, Uí Maine, Conmhaícne, and Delbh ...

from 1601 to 1613. The Barnaby Scurlock who surrendered his estate in 1622 and had it regranted to him was probably a grandson of the elder Barnaby.Aitken Vol.1 p.165

Character

In character, he was described as "learned, modest and discreet" although his enemy Lord Deputy Sidney, while admitting his "credit and influence", called him a man who had grown "old and crafty", and was given to "indecent and undutiful speech".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Skurloke, Barnaby Lawyers from County Meath 1520 births 1580s deaths 16th-century Irish politicians 16th-century Irish lawyers People of Elizabethan Ireland