Sir William Bathe (c. 1530-1597) was an Irish judge and landowner. He is commemorated by the Dowdall Cross in Duleek, County Meath, which was erected by his widow Janet (or Jennett) Dowdall in 1601.[1] He should not be confused with his much younger cousin William Bathe of Drumcondra Castle, who was a Jesuit and noted musicologist.
William was the eldest son of John Bathe, Chief Justice of the Irish Common Pleas, and Margaret Darcy, daughter of Thomas Darcy.[2] The Bathes were a long-established family which settled in County Meath, and had several branches in Meath and Dublin: William's branch of the family lived at Athcarne, near Duleek, which William inherited in about 1559; he built Athcarne Castle (which is now a ruin) in 1590. He also rebuilt Duleek bridge.[2]
Athcarne Castle in 1820
He entered Lincoln's Inn in 1557, and was called to the Bar there in 1563.[2] In 1562 he was one of a number of law students who wrote and presented to the English Crown a book describing what they called the "wretched condition" of English rule in the Pale.[3]The Queen and her ministers naturally took offence at these strictures on their Irish government, and regarded those responsible for the book with suspicion; but unlike some of the other students involved, notably Henry Burnell and Richard Netterville, William was never an active opponent of the Crown.[3] He subsequently became an office holder, and as such was required to swear the usual oath to recognise Queen Elizabeth I as head of the Church of Ireland. It is not known whether, like his cousins the Bathes of Drumcondra, at least two of whom became priests, he privately inclined to the Roman Catholic faith, although his father had been in high favour with Elizabeth's Catholic sister Queen Mary, while his wife was a cousin of the Catholic martyrJames Dowdall.[1]
He returned to Ireland before 1567, and entered the King's Inns.[3] He was a lessee of the Inns under the new lease of 1567. There was a barrister's chambers in the Inns later called "Justice Bathe's old chamber", which may well have been William's (or possibly his father's).[3] He was appointed Recorder of Drogheda in 1567.[3] He was a noted authority on the law of municipal corporations. He became a judge of the Court of Common Pleas (Ireland) in 1581.[2] He acted as the judge of assize in Ulster in 1591-2, but shortly afterwards his health declined seriously: it was said that both his judgment and his memory failed, and his work had to be done by colleagues or temporary judges, although he apparently remained on the Bench until his death in 1597. He was remembered as "a man of much distinction".[1]
He married Janet Dowdall, daughter of Patrick Dowdall of Termonfeckin, County Louth, but had no issue, and so Athcarne passed at his death to the next eldest brother, James. The Bathe family lived at Athcarne until about 1700.
Janet in 1601 erected the impressive memorial to her husband called the Dowdall or Wayside Cross, which can still be seen in Duleek, as well as a number of other memorial crosses in the area, including one near Athcarne itself. She remarried Oliver Plunkett in the year 1600.[1]
Sources
Ball, F. Elrington The Judges in Ireland 1221-1921 John Murray London 1926
D'Alton, John King James' Irish Army List Reprinted The Celtic Bookshop Limerick 1997
The Dublin Penny Journal 1833 Vol.1 No. 28
Kenny, Colum King's Inn and the Kingdom of Ireland Irish Academic Press Dublin 1992
William Bathe was a Anglo-Irish Jesuit priest, musician and writer.
Duleek is a small town in County Meath, Ireland.
Dowdall is an Irish surname. The earliest forms of spelling were: Dowdell, Dowdale and Dowdle. Dowdall was first used as a surname in Yorkshire, certainly by the time of the Norman conquest of England.
The chief justice of the Common Pleas for Ireland was the presiding judge of the Court of Common Pleas in Ireland, which was known in its early years as the Court of Common Bench, or simply as "the Bench". It was one of the senior courts of common law in Ireland, and was a mirror of the Court of Common Pleas in England. The Court of Common Pleas was one of the "four courts" which sat in the building in Dublin which is still known as the Four Courts, apart from a period in the fourteenth century when it relocated to Carlow, which was thought to be both more central and more secure for the rulers of Norman Ireland.
John Bathe was an Irish barrister and judge. He was a member of a famous legal dynasty, and had a distinguished career under the Tudors, holding office as Solicitor General for Ireland and Chief Justice of the Irish Common Pleas.
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John Bathe (1536-1586) was an Irish lawyer and statesman of the sixteenth century. He held several important offices, including that of Attorney General for Ireland and Chancellor of the Exchequer of Ireland. He was a member of a prominent landowning family from County Dublin, and himself added to the family estates. His children included the Jesuit William Bathe, who was a noted musicologist.
Sir William Warren was an Irish landowner, statesman and soldier of the late sixteenth century. He is mainly remembered now for having facilitated the much-discussed marriage of Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone and his third wife Mabel Bagenal, which took place at Warren's home, Drumcondra Castle, in 1591.
Athcarne Castle is a ruined Elizabethan castle outside the town of Duleek in County Meath, Ireland.
Dowdall Cross is a wayside cross and National Monument located in County Meath, Ireland.
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