Edmund de Clay

Edmund de Clay (died after 1389) was an English-born lawyer and judge who served as Lord Chief Justice of Ireland and Chief Justice of the Irish Common Pleas.[1]

He was born in Nottinghamshire, and later became a landowner there.[2] By 1383, he had the reputation for being "learned in the law" and in that year he became Serjeant-at-law.[3] He is known to have been most reluctant to take up this office, probably because it would involve him in heavy expenses, and he did so only after King Richard II issued a warrant commanding de Clay, along with two other leading advocates, John Hill and Sir John Cary,[4] to be admitted to that rank by a specified day.[5]

In 1385 he was sent to Ireland with a large retinue to take up office as Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. He was transferred to the more senior office of Lord Chief Justice of Ireland in 1386.[6] He had returned to England by 1389, when he was living on his estates in Nottinghamshire; later he is recorded as sitting on a commission of oyer and terminer. His date of death is not recorded,[7]