John Plunket (judge)

Sir John Plunket (c. 1497 – 1582) was an Irish politician and judge of the Tudor era who held the office of Lord Chief Justice of Ireland.

Mary's regard for Plunket was shared by Elizabeth I who as soon as she succeeded her sister as Queen appointed him her Lord Chief Justice.

In 1565, after the long-standing feud between Thomas Butler, 10th Earl of Ormond and Gerald Fitzgerald, 15th Earl of Desmond had erupted into the conflict known as the Battle of Affane, Plunket was entrusted, together with the Lord Justice of Ireland, Sir Nicholas Arnold, with holding an inquiry into the causes of the dispute, and in 1567 he oversaw the confiscation of certain of the Desmond properties.

However, from about 1577 complaints were increasingly made about his unfitness for office due to his great age and ill health: he was called "an old man, and evil able to attend his place with diligence".

Not surprisingly he took his wife's side in the dispute and was accused by Edward of corruption and fraud as a result, to which charge he indignantly replied that he had served the Queen uprightly since the beginning of her reign and had never in his life written anything but the truth.

Although he was outwardly a member of the Church of Ireland, (his sister, Margaret, married John Garvey, Archbishop of Armagh), he is said to have practised the Roman Catholic faith in private.

[10] Plunket married firstly Elizabeth Preston; secondly Catherine, sister of Sir Thomas Luttrell; and thirdly Jenet Sarsfield.