Christopher St Lawrence, 2nd Baron Howth

He was a key figure in fifteenth-century Irish politics, and one of the strongest supporters in Ireland of the House of York, who seized the English Crown in 1461.

[2] He was the patron of Richard Ingram, an early mining explorer, and at a meeting of the Privy Council in 1450 was himself granted the right to search within his lordship for lead and tin, and if any was found to take the profits for three years.

He quarrelled with the citizens of Wicklow Town over the ownership of a quantity of salt which he alleged they had seized unlawfully, and had them outlawed as a result; he also used his influence to have the Irish Parliament pass legislation to exempt some of his lands from taxation.

He was knighted before 1442, and became a member of the Privy Council of Ireland in 1455, with an extra payment of £10 "out of the new customs" and from that date on played a crucial part in the defence of Dublin.

[2] In the same year he was given the power to exact tolls on all those using Howth harbour to defray the costs of protecting shipping from the "French, Bretons, Scots and other nations" (his eldest son many years later is found claiming the exclusive right to levy tolls at Howth against a rival claim by Dublin Corporation, although he accepted the unfavourable verdict of an arbitrator).

The same year he sat on a commission to inquire into the alleged failure of the Sheriff of County Dublin to adequately defend the county (his own eldest son Robert was Sheriff the following year), and in 1458 he sat on another commission to inquire into the conduct of the Walsh family of Carrickmines Castle, whose loyalty to the Crown was suspect.

Richard's son, the victorious King Edward IV, confirmed Howth in his office as Constable of Dublin, and recognised his right to sit in the Irish House of Lords.