William Brabazon, 1st Earl of Meath (158018 December 1651) was an Anglo-Irish peer. Brabazon was descended from an

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family that was seated in Leicestershire from the reign of the Henry III, and came to Ireland in the 1530s. He was the second but eldest surviving son of Edward Brabazon and Mary Smythe, daughter of Thomas Smythe,

Clerk of the Green Cloth The Clerk of the Green Cloth was a position in the British Royal Household. The clerk acted as secretary of the Board of Green Cloth, and was therefore responsible for organising royal journeys and assisting in the administration of the Royal ...

. His father had been created Baron Ardee in 1616. His grandfather, also William Brabazon, had served as Vice-Treasurer of

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

for 23 years and the family acquired large estates there. Brabazon was knighted in 1604 by

James I James I may refer to: People *James I of Aragon (1208–1276) *James I of Sicily or James II of Aragon (1267–1327) *James I, Count of La Marche (1319–1362), Count of Ponthieu *James I, Count of Urgell (1321–1347) *James I of Cyprus (1334–13 ...

. On 7 August 1625 he succeeded his father as Baron Ardee. He was made a member of the Privy Council of Ireland in 1627 and held various appointments in the government of Ireland. He also served as

Custos Rotulorum ''Custos rotulorum'' (; plural: ''custodes rotulorum''; Latin for "keeper of the rolls", ) is a civic post that is recognised in the United Kingdom (except Scotland) and in Jamaica. England, Wales and Northern Ireland The ''custos rotulorum'' is t ...

County Dublin "Action to match our speech" , image_map = Island_of_Ireland_location_map_Dublin.svg , map_alt = map showing County Dublin as a small area of darker green on the east coast within the lighter green background of ...

. On 16 April 1627 he was created Earl of Meath in the

Peerage of Ireland The Peerage of Ireland consists of those titles of nobility created by the English monarchs in their capacity as Lord or King of Ireland, or later by monarchs of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It is one of the five divisi ...

, with remainder in default of male heirs to his brother Sir Anthony Brabazon and his male heirs. In 1631 at Kilruddery House (which is still the family home) he hosted the marriage of his widowed sister Elizabeth to Sir John Bramston, the

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(a belated love marriage which their father had forbidden many years earlier, but of which her brother evidently approved). In 1644, at the height of the

Wars of the Three Kingdoms The Wars of the Three Kingdoms were a series of related conflicts fought between 1639 and 1653 in the kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland, then separate entities united in a personal union under Charles I. They include the 1639 to 1640 B ...

, Brabazon was sent by the Irish Parliament to the

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court at

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to consult with

Charles I Charles I may refer to: Kings and emperors * Charlemagne (742–814), numbered Charles I in the lists of Holy Roman Emperors and French kings * Charles I of Anjou (1226–1285), also king of Albania, Jerusalem, Naples and Sicily * Charles I of ...

. He was subsequently taken prisoner by the Parliamentarians and imprisoned in the

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for 11 months. He married Jane Bingley (died 1644), the daughter of Sir

John Bingley John Bingley (born 10 November 1941) is a former Australian rules footballer who played for St Kilda in the Victorian Football League The Victorian Football League (VFL) is an Australian rules football league in Australia serving as on ...

MP, Comptroller of the Musters and Cheques, and his first wife Anne Henshaw, and together they had one son, Edward. Edward succeeded his father in his titles in 1651.John Debrett, ''Debrett's Peerage of England, Scotland, and Ireland'' (1836), 432.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Meath, William Brabazon, 1st Earl of Year of birth uncertain 1651 deaths 17th-century Anglo-Irish people Members of the Privy Council of Ireland

William William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...