Richard Boyle, 1st Earl of Cork

Richard Boyle is a name given to several very important historical figures.

Perhaps most important is the First Earl of Cork (1566-1643) Portrait at the National Portrait Gallery, London, England, also known as the Great Earl of Cork.

He competes with great political theorist Thomas Hobbes? as being somebody banished from many history books for political reasons.

Whereas Hobbes has been at least partially rehabilitated, Boyle's history is consigned mostly to out of print books which either glorify him or villify him, or worse still, just mention that other books do this, without succeeding in significantly clarifying the picture (but those books are also out of print, which is pehaps even worse.

There is no question that Boyle was one of the most important figures in Anglo Irish history, and his descendants put his legacy firmly in the category of a significant player on the world stage, albeit that perhaps influences made their mark in later life and after his death, through unrecorded and perhaps permanently lost influences on family, friends and enemies, all of which were very numerous.

His was an extraordinary 'rags to riches' story, the poor lad from Canterbury in Kent, England, going to Ireland at 22 with next to nothing and becoming one of the richest people on the planet, through means which some have described as sharp wits, others as deception and ruthlessness, others as ridiculous good fortune, and still others as sheer dogged determination and patience.

Got a job dealing with properties reverting to the Crown in the absence of legal heirs

He was thus in a good position to direct some of these his own way.

Married a rich heiress

mprisoned for embezzlement and theft, he managed to receive a royal pardon

Appointed clerk of the council of Munster by Elizabeth I in 1600

Created Earl of Cork in 1620

Oliver Cromwell is reported to have said of Richard Boyle 'If there had been an Earl of Cork in every province it would have been impossible for the Irish to have raised a rebellion.'

Bought Sir Walter Raleigh estates (42,000 acres for £1,500, a tiny price, even then!) in the counties of Cork (including Lismore Castle), Waterford, and Tipperary in 1602

In later updates to this entry I will cover:

Wives, children (14 of them, several daughters married off into European nobility, sons, two of which were famous) as well as his career and later descendants, at least one of which was famous, and wars, public and private.

Bibliography:

Nicholas P. Canny 'The Upstart Earl'

D. Townshend, 'The Life and Letters of the Great Earl of Cork (1904)'