James Bathe

James Bathe (c.1500–1570) was an Irish judge of the Tudor era, who was notable for his service as Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer for thirty years under four successive monarchs. He was the grandfather of the 1st Earl of Roscommon, and of the noted musician William Bathe.

He was born at Beshellstown, Clonalvy, County Meath to a long established Anglo-Irish family, the main branch of which was settled at Athcarne, near Duleek. The family had a disputed claim to the title Baron Louth. Sir Thomas Bathe, an earlier Chief Baron, belonged to the same family, as did John Bathe, Chief Justice of the Irish Common Pleas. James entered Middle Temple in 1522 and was Master of the Revels in 1524.

In the early stages of his career he was a firm adherent of Gerald FitzGerald, 9th Earl of Kildare. In 1525 while in England he took the opportunity to present the Crown with a book on the reformation of the administration of Ireland. This step aroused the hostility of the increasingly powerful Cowley family: Robert Cowley, the head of he family, warned Cardinal Wolsey that the book was in fact an effort to persuade Henry VIII that there was no solution to Ireland's problems but the return to power of Kildare, who was then in temporary disgrace. Cowley wrote contemptuously that Bathe "knows as much about Ireland as I do about Italy", and should be "touched (i.e. rebuked) for his presumption.

He narrowly escaped being implicated in the rebellion of Silken Thomas, as, in addition to his former loyalty to Thomas's father the 9th Earl of Kildare, he was a friend of several of the rebels, and had recently married the daughter of John Burnell of Balgriffin, one of the ringleaders of the rebellion. Robert Cowley and his son Walter Cowley continued their attacks on him, arguing that he was unfit to be appointed to even a minor administrative post, for "his conduct is disagreeable to the duty of a true subject" (presumably this was an attack on his loyalty during the recent rebellion).

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