Thomas Coote (Irish politician)

After King James II, who had been deposed in the Revolution landed in Ireland in 1689, Thomas was attainted by the Patriot Parliament and his property was forfeited.

He moved to England and apparently thought of settling there permanently; but in 1690, following the downfall of King James's cause at the Battle of the Boyne, he returned to Ireland.

[7] Patrick Hurley, a law student at Gray's Inn, was charged with conspiracy and perjury in that he had fraudulently petitioned the Crown for £1000 as compensation for malicious damage for money supposedly stolen from him by highwaymen.

[10] According to Ball, the trial records indicate that Coote showed himself an active and conscientious judge, questioning all the witnesses vigorously,[11] although Comyn states that his summing up was rather brief.

[13] In 1705 he caused some controversy by delivering a charge to a grand jury against seditious books, which was thought by his political opponents to be an attack on the Tory party.

[14] In the event he kept his office for another three years, and was drawn into the bitter feud between the Crown and Dublin Corporation in 1713–4, on which, together with some of his colleagues, he signed a number of reports which were seen as partisan.

[15] On the death of Queen Anne, her Irish judges were removed from office en bloc, on account of their political sympathies,[16] and some were threatened with impeachment.

For most of them, including Coote, the disgrace was temporary:[17] his loyalty to the new dynasty was not seriously in question, and he was extremely popular: the author John Dunton called him "a man who was universally loved".