Sir John Meade, 1st Baronet

He was unusual among the lawyers of his time for his lack of ambition to become a judge of the High Court, despite being generally regarded as a barrister of "excellent parts (qualities)".

In matters of religion, he seems to have been, by the standards of his time, a man of very tolerant views: although he was himself a Protestant, he damaged his career by marrying Elizabeth Butler, who was a Roman Catholic, as his third wife.

[4] By his third marriage he also became a member of the great Butler dynasty, although this proved to be something of a mixed blessing as far as his career went, as he married into a largely Roman Catholic branch of the family.

In 1685 he sat on a controversial Commission of Oyer and Terminer in County Tipperary to try a number of people charged with spreading false rumours of an impending massacre of Protestants.

[2] He became Attorney General to the Duke of York (the future King James II of England), and Chief Justice (Seneschal) of the Palatine court of Tipperary.

He sat in the Irish House of Commons, first for Trinity College Dublin in the Patriot Parliament of 1689, and then for County Tipperary for the rest of his life.

In contrast to the "treacherous and ungrateful" Osborne, Romney remarked that Meade "has done very well, and is a man of most excellent parts: all the exception (objection) that can be made against him is that his wife is a Papist.

Redman was a Cromwellian army officer, who had purchased substantial lands in Ireland from his brother-in-law Captain John Joyner, who had begun his career as a cook in the household of King Charles I of England, and later served as Mayor of Kilkenny.