Sir William Drury

Margaret Anne Cusack

An Illustrated History of Ireland

1868

start of chapter | Chapter XXVI

Sir William Drury was made Lord President of Munster, 1576, in place of Sir John Perrot. Sir Nicholas Malby was installed in the same office in Connaught; but the barbarities enacted by his predecessor, Fitton, made the very name of president so odious, that Sidney gave the new Governor the title of Colonel of Connaught. The Earl of Desmond and Drury were soon at variance. Sidney says, in his Memoir, that the Earl "was still repyning at the government of Drury." After causing great apprehension to the governors, the Lord Deputy sent the whole party to Kilkenny, and found the "Earl hot, wilful, and stubborn; but not long after, as you know, he and his two brothers, Sir John and Sir James, fell into actual rebellion, in which the good knight, Sir William Drury, the Lord Justice, died, and he, as a malicious and unnatural rebel, still persisteth and liveth."

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