Baron Ratoath

It was created in 1468 for Sir Robert Bold, who died without male heirs in 1479.

It was granted by King Edward IV,[1] as a reward for Bold's loyal service to the King and his father Richard, Duke of York during the Wars of the Roses, in which he had fought for the House of York both in England and Ireland.

[4] In 1470 he was sent to England by the Privy Council of Ireland to report to the King on the state of the Irish government, and returned with a list of instructions for improving its efficiency.

In 1472, rather surprisingly, he was accused by his enemies of forgery, in that the purported answers he had brought from the King to the Council had been falsified, but, having produced testimony that the answers were genuine, he was declared innocent by Act of Parliament.

His second wife was Ismay Serjeant, daughter of Sir Robert Serjeant, and co-heiress with her sister Joan of the manor of Castleknock; she was the widow of Sir Nicholas Barnewall, Lord Chief Justice of Ireland.