Samuel Mayart

[1] Within a very short time, he decided to practice law in Ireland: he was called to the Irish Bar in 1616[2] and entered the King's Inns in the same year.

[1] Unlike most Irish judges of the time, he never became a substantial landowner, although he played some part in the development of the new town of Mountrath in County Laois in the early 1620s.

[1] His fitness for the office was questioned, but Sir Richard Bolton, soon to become Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer, and his son Edward, both vouched for his integrity and legal ability, and after some delay, he was appointed to the Common Pleas in 1626.

By a majority of five to two, the High Court judges declared that all tenures which were not hereditary were invalid, thus giving the Crown the necessary legal justification for its actions.

[2] The Plantation of Connacht was a personal project of Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford, the formidable and almost all-powerful Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and one to which he attached great importance.

His attitude is shown by his outrage when a minority of the English High Court judges ruled against the Crown in The Case of Ship Money (R v. Hampden) the following year.

[1] The author was widely believed to be Mayart's patron Sir Richard Bolton, by then Lord Chancellor of Ireland, but there is no firm evidence for this.