Thomas Cantock

O'Flanagan, writing in 1870, complained that the biographer of Cantock was faced with an almost complete lack of information about his life.[1] Somewhat more is known about him today: in particular a petition to the King in 1305 to be forgiven his debts throws some light on his official duties, and on the disturbed conditions in Ireland in the previous decade.[2]

He was English by birth, and was probably a son of Roger de Quantock, a prominent merchant of Bristol.[3] Roger de Cantock, who visited Ireland during Thomas's tenure as Lord Chancellor, possibly to solicit a favour from him, was probably his brother; he is thought to have had four brothers in all. He was often known by the title "Master Thomas": at the time this usually meant that he had a university degree. He began his career as a clerk in royal service; he was sent by King Edward I on a mission to Scotland in 1288.[4]

He was known to be a man "learned in the law", who had some unspecified appointment at the Royal Courts in Westminster,[5] and had acted as deputy to the Master of the Rolls in 1290, and no doubt this was the reason why he was appointed Lord Chancellor of Ireland. He served from 1292–1294, and he held the office again from 1306–1308. He visited England regularly on official business connected with Ireland, and on occasion addressed the English Parliament on the state of Irish law. He was Canon of Emly and prebendary of Mollagymon, Cashel, County Tipperary. He was elected Bishop of Emly in 1306, and installed as bishop in a ceremony at Christchurch Cathedral, Dublin,[6] which was followed by a banquet at which he feasted first the nobility, and then the citizenry of Dublin with a magnificence "unheard of in those times".[7] In 1307 he was granted a third part of the manor of Ballyfermot by William Fitzwilliam and his wife Avice, who were members of the family which in time would come to own most of Dublin south of the River Liffey.[8] He is also known to have acquired lands at Chapelizod.

At the Parliament of Ireland held in 1305 a number of minor complaints of misconduct were made against him, but none of them seem to have stuck.[9] He died on 4 February 1309.

O'Flanagan states that from the little that is known of him he seems to have been popular and hospitable.[10] According to Smyth,[11] during his tenure as Lord Chancellor a serious fire destroyed all the Irish Chancery records; this is almost certainly a reference to the Great Fire of Dublin of 1304, which destroyed much of the medieval city.[12]

Our most intimate glimpse of him is in an petition to the King in 1305 to be forgiven his debts. He asks the King to have regard to the great costs he incurred in the time of trouble when John FitzGerald, 1st Earl of Kildare captured Richard de Burgh, 2nd Earl of Ulster. As the office of Justiciar of Ireland was vacant, Cantock set as many of this own men as he could to guard the land and when his funds turned out to be insufficient he borrowed £5 from one Richard de Cardiff. He had also borrowed substantial sums for the marriages of two royal wards, Jordan Dardiz and Albert de Kenley.[13] The earlier part of the petition refers to the period of four months in 1294-5 when Kildare captured and imprisoned Ulster in Lea Castle "to the disturbance of the whole country", until the Irish Parliament secured his release.[14]