Robert Travers (MP)
Despite his unenviable reputation for corruption, he had a highly successful career until the outbreak of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, when he went into opposition to King Charles I.
[1] A St. Fin Barre’s chapter record[3] dated 2 September 1623 shows that George Lee, Dean, and the Chapter, granted to Robert Travers, of Mooretown, in Ibawn, Esq., a place of burial in the south side of the chancel of our Church, next the south wall at the window now the most eastern of the same side, in which place John Travers, father of the said Robert, as well as Sara Spenser, als.
In which place the said Robert, with our consent, heretofore had erected a marble tomb; until the next walls of the ruin being destroyed through age, in order that they may be repaired anew, the said monument was removed for a time for the sake of safety.
By 1625 Sir Edward Villiers, who was briefly Lord President of Munster, was writing in despair that the Crown could not trust the conduct of the Admiralty to "such a one" as Travers, and referred pointedly to his Castle Chamber conviction for corruption.
The Parliament of Ireland set up a rival court at Kinsale with Travers as its judge; not surprisingly, further accusations of corruption were made against him.
The rebels claimed to have the King's approval for their actions, and although this was probably untrue, it is clear that Charles never ruled out the possibility of employing the Confederate Army.
Parliament's suspicions were confirmed by the Cessation of 1643, whereby James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormonde, the Irish Royalist commander, signed a ceasefire with the Confederates, which was repeatedly renewed.
[15] He married first in 1618 Catherine, daughter of Gerald Nangle of Kildalkey and his wife Anne Scurlock; their only child seems to have died young.
Before 1638, he married secondly Elizabeth, daughter of Richard Boyle, Archbishop of Tuam, a first cousin of the Earl of Cork, and his wife Martha Wight.
By this second marriage, he had four children: Some genealogies also show a third daughter, Alice, who married Sir John Philpot of Newmarket and was the maternal grandmother of Charles Bunworth.
