James Fleming (bef. 1442–

1492 Year 1492 ( MCDXCII) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. 1492 is considered to be a significant year in the history of the West, Europe, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Spain, and the N ...

) was an Irish nobleman, who sat as a member of the

House of Lords The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by appointment, heredity or official function. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminste ...

in the Irish Parliament in 1491 and also served as

High Sheriff of Meath The High Sheriff of Meath was the British Crown's judicial representative in County Meath, Ireland, from the conquest until 1922, when the office was abolished in the new Free State and replaced by the office of Meath County Sheriff. The sheriff ...

. James was the son of William Fleming, a younger son of the 2nd Baron, and his wife, the former Janet Rochfort. He succeeded to the title of his first cousin once removed, Thomas Fleming, 6th Baron Slane, in 1471. The family estates, which had been taken into royal custody, were restored to him by an Act of Parliament in the session of 1471-2. He was also given leave of absence to go to England. He was Sheriff of Meath in 1471-2. He was one of the eleven Irish

barons Baron is a rank of nobility or title of honour, often hereditary, in various European countries, either current or historical. The female equivalent is baroness. Typically, the title denotes an aristocrat who ranks higher than a lord or knigh ...

who came to

Greenwich Greenwich ( , ,) is a town in south-east London, England, within the ceremonial county of Greater London. It is situated east-southeast of Charing Cross. Greenwich is notable for its maritime history and for giving its name to the Greenwich ...

Henry VII of England Henry VII (28 January 1457 – 21 April 1509) was King of England and Lord of Ireland from his seizure of the crown on 22 August 1485 until his death in 1509. He was the first monarch of the House of Tudor. Henry's mother, Margaret Beauf ...

's summons in 1489; to their embarrassment, they were served at the table by the former pretender to Henry's Crown,

Lambert Simnel Lambert Simnel (c. 1477 – after 1534) was a pretender to the throne of England. In 1487, his claim to be Edward Plantagenet, 17th Earl of Warwick, threatened the newly established reign of Henry VII (1485–1509). Simnel became the ...

, whose cause most of the Irish nobility including Lord Slane had supported. After the downfall of Simnel's cause at the

Battle of Stoke The Battle of Stoke Field on 16 June 1487 may be considered the last battle of the Wars of the Roses, since it was the last major engagement between contenders for the throne whose claims derived from descent from the houses of Lancaster and Yo ...

in 1487, the King treated him with great clemency, pardoning him and giving him a job in the Royal kitchens, from which he was eventually promoted to the office of Royal Falconer. The Irish nobility had been treated with similar mercy, and almost all of them received a royal pardon, but clearly, the King could not resist playing a joke on Simnel's former allies, who, he once remarked, would "Crown an ape" to gain more power. Lord Slane married Elizabeth Welles, daughter of Sir William Welles (d. 1463), Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and his wife Anne Barnewall; Elizabeth, who had previously been married to the second Baron Killeen, died in 1506. Their children were: *

Christopher Fleming, 8th Baron Slane Christopher Fleming (bef. 1474–1517) was an Irish nobleman, who was Lord High Treasurer of Ireland from 1514 until his death. He succeeded as 8th Baron Slane in 1492. Family Christopher was the eldest son of James Fleming, 7th Baron Slane. H ...

* two younger sons, Thomas Fleming and Sir George Fleming, from whom later Barons of Slane were descended. The '' Annals of Ulster'' state that James' death was due to the first recorded Irish outbreak of

sweating sickness Sweating sickness, also known as the sweats, English sweating sickness, English sweat or ''sudor anglicus'' in Latin, was a mysterious and contagious disease that struck England and later continental Europe in a series of epidemics beginning ...

, Ireland having apparently escaped the first English epidemic of 1485. However, it has been suggested more recently that the actual cause of death was

typhus Typhus, also known as typhus fever, is a group of infectious diseases that include epidemic typhus, scrub typhus, and murine typhus. Common symptoms include fever, headache, and a rash. Typically these begin one to two weeks after exposure. ...

.'' Annals of Ulster'', vol.iii, ed. B. MacCarthy, Dublin, 1895, pp. 358ff; ''

Annals of Connacht The ''Annals of Connacht'' (), covering the years 1224 to 1544, are drawn from a manuscript compiled in the 15th and 16th centuries by at least three scribes, all believed to be members of the Clan Ó Duibhgeannáin. The early sections, commenci ...

'', ed. A. M. Freeman, Dublin, 1944, pp. 594ff.

References

Sources

*G. E. C., ed. Geoffrey F. White. ''The Complete Peerage''. (London: St. Catherine Press, 1953) Vol. XII, Part 1, p. 8-9. {{DEFAULTSORT:Slane, James Fleming, 7th Baron 1492 deaths 15th-century births 15th-century Irish politicians Deaths from sweating sickness Barons in the Peerage of Ireland Members of the Irish House of Lords