Hugh de Cressy (judge)

[1] This was probably at the request of the new Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford, a fellow Yorkshireman and a friend of Cressy.

[3] This was an attempt to provide a legal basis for the policy of widespread confiscation of land held by Roman Catholic landowners, especially in Connacht.

[4] This may have damaged his previously friendly relations with the formidable Strafford, who had instigated the case as a prelude to widespread seizure of land in Connacht, and resented any questioning of his policies, even by a High Court judge.

After the downfall and execution for treason of Strafford in 1641, Cressy, though by then he was an old man, continued with his judicial duties, attending the Irish House of Lords to give legal advice, and going regularly as the judge of assize to County Wexford.

[7] Their son Hugh Paulinus de Cressy, known to history as Serenus de Cressy (c.1605-1674), the name he was given at his conversion, was ordained a minister of the Church of England, then converted to the Roman Catholic faith, and became a Benedictine monk, a noted Church historian, and chaplain to Queen Catherine of Braganza.