James Dillon, 3rd Earl of Roscommon

James was born about 1605[1] in Ireland, the eldest son of Robert Dillon and his first wife Margaret Barry. His father was the 2nd Earl of Roscommon. His family was Old English and descended from Sir Henry Dillon who came to Ireland with Prince John in 1185.[2] His family held substantial lands in Meath, Westmeath, Longford and Roscommon. James's mother was a daughter of David de Barry, 5th Viscount Buttevant. Her family, the de Barry family is another Old English family. Her ancestor John Barry was created Viscount Buttevant by Richard II in 1385.[3]

James was one of five brothers including two half-brothers, one from each of the two other marriages of his father.

Nothing seems to be known about his sisters.

His father's family were traditionally Roman Catholic, which is why his father, despite his record of loyalty to the Crown, was never fully trusted by King Charles I of England. James, however, was converted to the Church of Ireland by James Ussher, Archbishop of Armagh.[9]

On 24 January 1620 his grandfather was raised to the peerage with the title of Baron Dillon of Kilkenny-West, in the Peerage of Ireland.[10] in a ceremony performed by the Lord Deputy Oliver St. John in the Presence Chamber of Dublin Castle on 25 January.[11]

On 5 August 1622 James's grandfather was further honoured by being created Earl of Roscommon.[12] In consequence of this advancement, Robert, the heir apparent, James's father, was styled Lord Kilkenny-West, as a courtesy title from 1622 to 1641.

In late September or early October 1636 James Dillon married Elizabeth Wentworth, daughter of Sir William Wentworth and Anne Atkins at Lowton Hall, Essex.[13] She was a sister of Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford, the formidable and (for a while), all-powerful Lord Deputy of Ireland. James's father was a staunch supporter and a personal friend of Strafford, and the marriage was clearly intended to strengthen English rule in Ireland through family alliances between leading English and Anglo-Irish families.[14]

James and Elizabeth had a son:

• Wentworth (1637–1685), 4th Earl and a poet of renown.[15][16]

In 1639 James Dillon was elected Member of Parliament for County Longford in the Parliament of Ireland.[17]

In March 1641 James's grandfather died[18] and his father succeeded as the 2nd Earl. His tenure was, however, a short one as he died on 27 August 1642 in Oxmantown, a residential area in Dublin's Northside.[19] James succeeded as the 3rd Earl of Roscommon.[20] He had to abandon his seat in the lower house and gained a seat in the House of Lords.

He died at Limerick in October 1649, at the house of Bishop Bramhall, of an accidental fall down a flight of stairs.[21] According to legend his son, then in exile at Caen, knew of his death at the moment it happened, although the official news of the death did not reach him until two weeks later.[22]

• Aubrey, John (1696), Miscellanies, London: Edward Castle
• Beatson, Robert (1806). A Political Index to the Histories of Great Britain and Ireland. 3 (3 ed.). London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme. – Scotland & Ireland
• Burke, John (1832), A General and Heraldic Dictionary of the Peerage and Baronetage of the British Empire, 2 (4th ed.), London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley – Ibbetson to Zouche (for Roscommon)
• Burke, Bernard (1866), A Genealogical History of the Dormant, Abeyant, Forfeited and Extinct Peerages of the British Empire (New ed.), London: Harrison (for Strafford)
• Burke, Bernard (1949), A Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Peerage and Baronetage of the British Empire (99th ed.), London: Burke's Peerage Ltd. (for Charles I)
• Cokayne, George Edward (1895), The complete peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, extant, extinct, or dormant, 6 (1st ed.), London: George Bell and Sons – N to R (for Roscommon)
• Gillespie, Stuart (2004), "Dillon, Wentworth, fourth Earl of Roscommon", in Matthew, Colin; Harrison, Brian (eds.), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 16, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 226–228, ISBN 0-19-8613660
• House of Commons (1878), "Members of Parliament", Parliamentary Papers, London: H. M. Stationery Office, 62 (for the subject MP)
• King, Bruce (1982), Seventeenth Century English Literature, New York: Schocken books
• Lodge, John (1789), The Peerage of Ireland, 4, Dublin: James Moore – Viscounts (for Dillon)
• Pepys, Samuel (1893), Wheatley, Henry Benjamin (ed.), The Diary of Samuel Pepys, 1, London: George Bell and Sons – 1 January 1659/60 to 30 March 1660/1
• Smyth, Constantine (1839), Chronicle of the Law Officers of Ireland, London: Henry Butterworth (for Table of reigns)
• Webb, Alfred (1878), "Dillon, Theobald, Viscount", Compendium of Irish Biography, Dublin: M. H. Gill & Son, p. 149
• Wedgwood, Cicely Veronica (1961). Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford 1593–1641. A Revaluation. London: Jonathan Cape.