Simon Fitz-Richard

Who is Simon Fitz-Richard?

Sir Simon Fitz-Richard was an Irish barrister and judge. He became Chief Justice of the Irish Common Pleas, and fought a long and successful campaign against the efforts of his political enemies to remove him from office.

He was probably a native of County Louth, where he later owned land. He was appointed Deputy Escheator of that county about 1315, and was given custody of the temporalities of the Archdiocese of Armagh in 1321. He appears as a Crown prosecutor in the 1320s and in 1326 he became the King's Serjeant. In 1331 he became justice of the Court of Common Pleas and in 1335 Chief Justice. He held lands in Louth and Ulster and at Gormanston, County Meath, and had a royal licence to export corn.

During the 1330s complaints were made to the English Crown about the poor quality of the Irish administration, and in particular about the deficiencies of the Irish-born judges. In 1337 Thomas Charlton, Bishop of Hereford, was appointed Lord Chancellor of Ireland, with specific instructions to replace those Irish judges who were considered to be unfit for office with English replacements.