Jerome Alexander
Sir Jerome Alexander (c.1585–1670) was an English-born barrister, judge and politician, who spent much of his career in Ireland (after he had been professionally ruined in England), and became a substantial Irish landowner.
[1] His precise date of birth is uncertain, but he was stated in 1637 to be several years older than Sir Maurice Eustace, who was born in the early 1590s.
He was, unlike many barristers, very litigious on his own behalf, and, in 1626, the Star Chamber found him guilty of tampering with evidence in one of his own lawsuits; he was disbarred, fined and given a prison sentence.
He was a friend and client of the wealthy and influential young nobleman James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormonde, who granted him the use of Kilcooly Abbey in County Tipperary for his dwelling.
Strafford, who became almost all-powerful in Ireland, and who was well aware that Alexander had been professionally disgraced in England, vetoed his appointment as an extra judge of assize in 1637.
[5] He refused him leave to go to England, and when Alexander went anyway he was imprisoned in the Fleet Prison, nor following his release was he able to return to Ireland until after Strafford's downfall.
He was an active Royalist, and attempted to raise troops to subdue the rebels; at the same time, he was among those who urged the King, if necessary, to make an alliance with the Irish Confederacy.
[2] He made his peace with the new regime, and acquired an estate in County Westmeath; but in view of the rewards he received in 1660, (even if, as he complained, they were not overly generous), there is no reason to doubt that he remained a Royalist at heart.
On the Ulster assizes, to which he was regularly assigned, he became noted for severity against non-conforming Protestants: his ally John Bramhall, Bishop of Derry wrote that if the non-conformists "could not love him, they began to fear him".
[1] It has been suggested that he had an equally harsh attitude towards Roman Catholics, but was unable to show similar severity towards them, due to the relaxed attitude of the Duke of Ormonde, now Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, who recognised that as Catholics comprised the large majority of the country's population, a generous if unofficial measure of toleration of that faith was inevitable.
This suggests that Alexander, like many Protestants of his time, was prepared to turn a blind eye to recusancy when it was practised by his own friends or relatives, and even to marry into an openly Catholic family himself.
[9] The Duke of Ormonde, who was a merciful man by the standards of the time, is known to have disapproved of Alexander's notorious severity in criminal trials, and this is said to have ended their friendship.
