Arthur Champion (died 23 October 1641) was an Anglo-Irish politician and landowner. He was murdered by Irish rebels early in the Irish Rebellion of 1641. [1]
Little is known of Champion's early life. By the mid-1630s, he was a merchant based in Dublin, engaged in the cloth trade through Chester. He had also become a moneylender and was among those advancing money to Richard Boyle, 1st Earl of Burlington in 1634, 1635 and 1636. This financial and mercantile activity enabled Champion to purchase land and by June 1639 he was living at Shannock, County Fermanagh. In 1639 he was appointed High Sheriff of Fermanagh, and following year he was made a justice of the peace and purchased the manor at Coole. In 1640 he was elected as a Member of Parliament for Enniskillen in the Irish House of Commons. However, parliamentary records do not show him making any speeches or sitting on any committees. [1]
Early on the morning of 23 October 1641, a group of Champion's Irish tenants, working to the orders of Rory Maguire, murdered Champion in one of the first events of the Irish Rebellion of 1641. [2] The group had arrived at Champion's Shannock house on the pretence of seeing him in his capacity as a justice of the peace; upon Champion's appearance, he was killed with knives. The rebels also killed several of Champions guests, including Thomas Ironmonger, Humphrey Littlebury and Christopher Lynas, and refused to allow their bodies to be buried for several weeks. News of the murder quickly spread in Ulster, enabling some Protestant settler communities to prepare to resist the rebels. [1]
Champion had married Alice Allen at the Church of St. John the Evangelist, Dublin on 27 May 1621. At the time of his death, Champion had £6,971 owed to him be debtors. In his will, he left money for the maintenance of services at the Church of Ireland's Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin. [1]
The Irish Confederate Wars, also called the Eleven Years' War, took place in Ireland between 1641 and 1653. It was the Irish theatre of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, a series of civil wars in the kingdoms of Ireland, England and Scotland – all ruled by Charles I. The conflict had political, religious and ethnic aspects and was fought over governance, land ownership, religious freedom and religious discrimination. The main issues were whether Irish Catholics or British Protestants held most political power and owned most of the land, and whether Ireland would be a self-governing kingdom under Charles I or subordinate to the parliament in England. It was the most destructive conflict in Irish history and caused 200,000–600,000 deaths from fighting as well as war-related famine and disease.
Sir Phelim Roe O'Neill of Kinard was an Irish politician and soldier who started the Irish rebellion in Ulster on 23 October 1641. He joined the Irish Catholic Confederation in 1642 and fought in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms under his cousin, Owen Roe O'Neill, in the Confederate Ulster Army. After the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland O’Neill went into hiding but was captured, tried and executed in 1653.
The Irish Rebellion of 1641 was a Catholic-led uprising in Ireland, whose demands included an end to anti-Catholic discrimination, greater Irish self-governance, and return of confiscated Catholic lands. Its timing was partially driven by the political dispute between Charles I and his opponents in England and Scotland, which the rebels feared would lead to an invasion and further anti-Catholic measures. Beginning as an attempted coup d'état by Catholic gentry and military officers, it developed into a widespread rebellion and ethnic conflict with English and Scottish Protestant settlers. It ultimately resulted in the 1641 to 1652 Irish Confederate Wars, part of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, with up to 20% of the Irish population becoming casualties.
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Sir Rory O'Moore, also known Sir Roger O'Moore or O'More or Sir Roger Moore, was an Irish landowner, and is most notable for being one of the four principal organizers of the Irish Rebellion of 1641.
Sir Richard Bingham was an English soldier and naval commander. He served under Queen Elizabeth I during the Tudor conquest of Ireland and was appointed governor of Connacht.
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Sir Herbert Charles Arthur Langham, 13th Baronet was an English landowner, photographer, ornithologist and entomologist.
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Connor Maguire, 2nd Baron of Enniskillen was an Irish nobleman from Ulster who took part in the Irish Rebellion of 1641. He was executed for high treason.
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The Treaty of Mellifont, also known as the Articles of Mellifont, was signed in 1603 and ended the Nine Years' War which took place in the Kingdom of Ireland from 1594 to 1603.
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The Maguire family is an Irish clan based in County Fermanagh. The name derives from the Gaelic Mac Uidhir, which is "son of Odhar" meaning "dun", "dark one". According to legend, this relates to the eleventh descendant of Colla da Chrich, great-grandson of Cormac mac Airt, who was monarch of Ireland about the middle of the third century. From the 13th to the 17th centuries, the Maguire’s were kings of Fermanagh.
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Sir William Cole was an English soldier and politician, who participated in the Plantation of Ulster and established a settler town at Enniskillen, County Fermanagh. Despite his initial loyalty to the Stuarts, he was a leading English Parliamentarian figure in the Irish Confederate Wars of the 1640s.