Sir Maurice Eustace

Sir Maurice Eustace (c.1590 – 22 June 1665) was an Irish politician, barrister and judge of the seventeenth century who spent the last years of his career as Lord Chancellor of Ireland. This was an office for which he felt himself to be unfit, and in which he was generally agreed to have been a failure.

Eustace was born between 1590 and 1595, at Castlemartin, County Kildare, eldest of the three sons of John FitzWilliam Eustace, Constable of Naas (died 1623). Little appears to be known of his mother. The Eustaces of Castlemartin were a branch of the prominent "Old English" FitzEustace family who held the title Viscount Baltinglass, but unlike their Baltinglass cousins the Castlemartin branch of family played no part in the Desmond Rebellions, most of them being noted for their loyalty to the Crown. Maurice in time was to recover much of the property forfeited by his cousins. In religion the family seem to have been divided in sympathy; his granduncle, also named Maurice Eustace, was denounced to the authorities as a Jesuit in 1581 and executed. The judge himself, though a Protestant, was exceptionally tolerant in matters of religion. Alater Sir Maurice Eustace, first and last of the Eustace baronets, belonged to the same branch of the family: he should not be confused with a third Sir Maurice Eustace who was the Lord Chancellor's nephew, nor the Lord Chancellor's natural son, yet another Maurice.

Eustace attended Trinity College Dublin, and after graduation he became a fellow of the University, lecturing in Hebrew; in his will he left a legacy to maintain a Hebrew lecture at Trinity. However he had set his mind on a legal career and after two years resigned the fellowship and entered Lincoln's Inn. He was also determined on a career in politics and through his father had made a useful contact in the Lord Deputy of Ireland, Oliver St John, 1st Viscount Grandison.

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