Robert Dillon (died 1597)

Sir Robert Dillon (c. 1540 – 1597) was a lawyer, judge and politician in the 16th-century Kingdom of Ireland. He came from a family with a distinguished record of judicial service, but his own career was dogged by accusations of serious wrongdoing, of which the most serious was that he had falsely condemned another judge to death.

Birth and origins

Robert was born about 1540, probably at Newtown in County Meath. He was the son of Thomas Dillon and his wife, Anne Luttrell. His father was the only son of Sir Bartholomew Dillon, Lord Chief Justice of Ireland. His mother, whom he was accused many years later of ill-treating, was a daughter of Sir Thomas Luttrell, Chief Jutice of the Irish Common Pleas. He must be distinguished from his great-uncle Sir Robert Dillon (died 1580), although the confusion is natural since the two men held the same judicial office, and the records of the King's Inns do not always distinguish between them.

Career

He was educated at Lincoln's Inn, where he was entered on the books in 1560. Here his lifelong enmity with Nicholas Nugent began: the two law students were reprimanded for brawling by the Benchers of the Inn, and bound to keep the peace.

His first official appointment came in 1569 when he became junior justice of Connacht, serving under Ralph Rokeby, the first Chief Justice of Connacht. In this capacity he favourably impressed Sir Edward Fitton, the Lord President of Connaught. When Fitton became Vice-Treasurer of Ireland, he secured Dillon's appointment as Chancellor of the Exchequer of Ireland. Two other powerful patrons were Adam Loftus, the Archbishop of Dublin, and Robert Weston, the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, who recommended Dillon for appointment as Master of the Rolls in Ireland, partly on account of his staunch adherence to the Church of Ireland. As Fitton's protege, Dillon was inevitably drawn into the bitter feud which erupted in 1572-3 between Fitton and Sir William FitzWilliam, the Lord Deputy of Ireland. FitzWilliam urged the Queen to imprison Dillon in the Fleet Prison, but Elizabeth I took Dillon's side in the dispute, reprimanded FitzWilliam, and persuaded him to resolve his differences with Fitton. Relations between Dillon and FitzWilliam became closer in later years.

After years of lobbying for a senior judicial post, involving at least one trip to London, he was at last made a justice of the Court of Common Pleas (Ireland) in 1577 and was knighted. Having been disappointed in his hopes of securing the higher office on the death of his great-uncle Robert in 1580, he was appointed as Chief Justice of the Common Pleas in 1581, following the execution of Nicholas Nugent. Nugent's execution greatly damaged the reputation of a man who had always been unpopular, and caused the Queen and Lord Burghley to regard him with suspicion. His puzzling decision to warn the future rebel Sir Brian O'Rourke not to come to Dublin in 1589, on the grounds that he would be arrested, inevitably led to accusations that he had fomented O'Rourke's rebellion, which broke out the following year. Although Dillon was not close to Sir John Perrot, FitzWilliam's successor as Lord Deputy, Perrot's downfall damaged his career as it led the Crown to scrutinise closely the conduct of all senior Irish officials, thus giving an opportunity to Dillon's numerous enemies to come forward.

William Nugent, Nicholas's nephew, a former rebel later pardoned and restored to favour, made complaints that Dillon had abused his position to prosecute members of the Nugent family, and in the summer of 1591 Nugent formally accused Dillon of maladministration of justice. The case was strong: in particular the charge that Dillon had wrongfully condemned William's uncle Nicholas Nugent, his predecessor as Chief Justice, to death for treason. Apart from their long-standing personal enmity, Dillon blamed Nugent for his failure to become Chief Justice. A colourful, though probably apocryphal story, was widely circulated that Dillon, after the execution, watching Nugent's corpse hanging from the gallows remarked "Friend Nugent, now I am even with you for coming between me and my place (i.e of Chief Justice)". Other charges included corruption in his role as a Commissioner for the settlement of Connacht, and rather incongruously, cruelty to his mother.

In the view of Roger Wilbraham, the Solicitor General for Ireland, there was little doubt that Dillon had been guilty of crimes dishonourable to a judge, but Wilbraham considered that

It was no policy that such against whom he had done service for her Majesty should be countenanced to wrest anything hardly against him unless it was capital.

Dillon was briefly imprisoned and suspended from office as a judge as a judge and commissioners were appointed to try the charges, but obstacles were constantly arising, and in November 1593 Dillon was pronounced innocent on all charges and reinstated. Dillon had become a very rich man, and there is no doubt that he used his wealth to placate influential members of the Privy Council with expensive gifts. In addition Elizabeth I and Burghley, previously hostile to Dillon, had decided that a purge of senior Irish officials would simply deprive them of valuable public servants, however questionable their conduct, a view first put forward by Roger Wilbraham. On 23 September 1594, the day of his successor's death, Sir Geoffrey Fenton wrote to Lord Burghley that Dillon was to be restored to the chief-justiceship, and this decision was confirmed by patent of 15 March 1594-5, which he retained until his death in July 1597.

Dillon died on 27 July 1597 and was buried at Tara, County Meath.

Reputation

Elrington Ball remarks that while Dillon's conduct as a judge was deplorable, he was an eloquent public speaker, and a man of some personal charm and humour.

Family

He married firstly Eleanor Alan, daughter of Thomas Alen of Kilteel Castle , County Kildare and his wife Mary Rawson, natural daughter of John Rawson, Viscount Clontarf. They had one son who predeceased his father. He married secondly Catherine Sarsfield, daughter of Sir William Sarsfield of Lucan Manor, who had been Lord Mayor of Dublin in 1566, and his wife Mabel FitzGerald, by whom he had fourteen children.

References

• Ball, Francis Elrington (1926), The Judges in Ireland 1221–1921, vol. 1 (1st ed.), London: John Murray
• Crawford, Jon G. (2004), "Dillon, Robert (c. 1540–1597)", in Matthew, Colin; Harrison, Brian (eds.), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, vol. 16, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 223–224, ISBN 0-19-8613660
• Smyth, Constantine (1839), Chronicle of the Law Officers of Ireland, London: Henry Butterworth