Thomas Cusack (Irish judge)

Sir Thomas Cusack (1490–1571) was an Anglo-Irish judge and statesman of the sixteenth century, who held the offices of Master of the Rolls in Ireland, Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and Chancellor of the Exchequer of Ireland. He was one of the most trusted and reliable Crown servants of his time, but led a somewhat turbulent private life. He was an ancestor of the Duke of Wellington. He is also memorable as the fourth of the six husbands of Jenet Sarsfield.

He was the eldest son of John Cusack of Cussington,County Meath, and his first wife Alison de Wellesley, youngest daughter of Sir William de Wellesley of Dangan Castle and his wife Ismay Plunkett. Both his parents came from long-established families of the Pale; he was a cousin of an earlier Thomas Cusacke who was Attorney General for Ireland in 1480, and Lord Chief Justice of Ireland from 1490 to 1494. After Alison's death John remarried Elinor Delahide of Moyglare Hall, County Kildare.

Thomas had four younger brothers and seven sisters, including Mary, a nun who became the last Abbess of Lismullen, Catherine, who married Nicholas Wafer, an employee of Silken Thomas and later notorious as the killer of Archbishop John Alen , and Thomasine, who married Christopher Dowdall of County Louth, and was the mother of James Dowdall. James, a future Lord Chief Justice of Ireland was a favourite with Thomas, who encouraged him to pursue a legal career.

Dangan Castle, ancestral home of Thomas Cusack's mother, Alison

...
Wikipedia