Robert Jacobe

He was a close friend and political associate of Sir John Davies, the Attorney General for Ireland; both were key figures in the Irish administration during this period.

After the Flight of the Earls he warned in a famous phrase that "there are 2000 idle men that had no means but to feed on the gentlemen of this country....he was accounted the bravest man that comes attended with most of these followers ".

[9] He appears to have thought that the killing of Sir Cahir O'Doherty in 1608 would restore peace; yet the following year he was fearful of the possible return of Hugh O'Neill and the consequences for Ulster: "there are great probabilities that all the people of that province would easily run into rebellion if Tyrone (O'Neill) should return, or if any munition or aid should be sent to them from foreign parts".

In 1612 he wrote a lengthy memorandum on the weakness of English rule in Ireland, for which he proposed two main remedies: the restoration of a standing army, and the expulsion of the Irish chiefs from troublesome parts of the country, and their replacement by large numbers of settlers.

During the so-called "Native's Rebellion" of 1615, a conspiracy by Hugh McShane O'Neill and other Irish nobility to massacre English and Scottish settlers in Ulster, he kept his composure.

His widow Mary quickly remarried the well-known politician and poet Christopher Brooke, though she continued to use the title Lady Jacob.

In 1617 he wrote a warm and encouraging letter to his good friend and colleague Sir John Davies about the sad condition of Davies' son Jack, who was deaf and dumb, and generally thought to be mentally deficient: " If your son Jack were now put into the hands of some skilful men, he might be brought to speak.