Sir Faithful Fortescue

Sir Faithful Fortescue (1581?–1666), was a royalist commander during the English Civil War.

Fortescue was second son of William Fortescue of Buckland Filleigh, Devon, and the descendant in the fifth generation of Sir John Fortescue, Lord Chief Justice.

In 1598 Fortescue's maternal uncle, Sir Arthur Chichester, went to Ireland in command of a regiment of infantry, and took with him Faithful Fortescue. In a brief memoir of his uncle, compiled after his death, printed by Lord Clermont, Fortescue says: ‘With the first Lord Chichester I had, from coming young from school, my education, and by him the foundation of my advancement and fortune I acquired in Ireland.’ In 1604 Sir Arthur Chichester was appointed Lord Deputy of Ireland, an office which he held until 1616. This was the period of the Plantation of Ulster, and Fortescue acquired offices and of lands in the north of Ireland. In 1606 he received a patent for life of the post of constable of Carrickfergus Castle, otherwise known as Knockfergus Castle, one of the major fortified places in the north of Ireland.

A few years later he obtained a grant from the crown erecting into the manor of Fortescue an extensive range of territory in Antrim, which had formerly belonged to the Irish chieftain Rory Oige MacQuillane (Rory Og MacQuillan). A part of this land he sold in 1624; the remainder, together with the property of Dromiskin in Louth, was handed down to his descendants. In the Irish parliament of 1613 there was gerrymandering by the creation of borough and county franchises among the new English and Scotch settlements in Ulster. Fortescue was elected to this parliament as member for Charlemont in the county of Armagh; in the subsequent parliaments of 1634 and 1639 he sat as member for the county of Armagh, while his eldest son succeeded him as representative of Charlemont.

...
Wikipedia