John Keppock
John Keppock (died 1404) was an Irish judge of the late fourteenth century, who held the offices of Lord Chief Justice of Ireland and Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer. He became a political figure of some importance.
He was the son of Simon Keppock of Drumcashel, County Louth. The Keppock (or Cappock) family settled in Louth shortly after the Norman Conquest of Ireland and were closely associated with the town of Ardee. The John Keppock of Ardee who died in 1412, and was a leading figure in that town's government, as well as serving as High Sheriff of Louth, was probably a cousin of the judge.[1]
Keppock was living in England in 1352, and acted there as counsel for the powerful Anglo-Irish Cusack family.[2] He returned to Ireland a few years later, and in 1356 he was appointed King's Serjeant in Ireland. In 1364 he became Lord Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer, and in 1367 Lord Chief Justice. In 1370 he stood down as Lord Chief Justice but remained an ordinary judge of the Bench.[2] In 1372 he was reappointed Lord Chief Justice, and he acted as deputy to the Lord Chancellor of Ireland in 1375. In 1382 he once more stood down as Chief Justice to become an ordinary judge of King's Bench.
In 1373–4, together with two colleagues, Walter Cotterell and William de Karlell, he conducted a lengthy inquiry into the English Crown's right to treasure trove in County Wexford and County Waterford,[3] which seems to have been expanded into a general inquiry into the Crown's prerogative rights in those two counties. The judges were also granted the power to arrest ships.[4] In 1374 Keppock was appointed to hear complaints from the citizens of Drogheda concerning the importation of corn.[5]
From 1377 onwards he was regularly summoned to sit in the Parliament of Ireland, evidence of his growing political standing. In December 1381, when Edmund Mortimer, 3rd Earl of March, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, was killed in a skirmish in County Cork, Keppock was one of the senior judges who summoned the temporal and spiritual peers to inform them of the Earl's death, and requested them to choose a Lord Deputy to take his place.[6]
Keppock married, sometime after 1358, the twice widowed Matilda Gernoun; her first husband had been William de Nottingham, son of Robert de Nottingham, who was several times Lord Mayor of Dublin, and her second husband was John Gernoun, Chief Justice of the Irish Common Pleas. Keppock and Matilda are not known to have had any children. He died in 1404.[2]
References[]
- ^ Murray, L.P. The Dawsons of Ardee Journal of the County Louth Archaeological Society (1933) Vol.8 No.1 p.22
- ^ a b c Ball, F. Elrington The Judges in Ireland 1221–1921 John Murray London 1926 Vol.1 p. 84
- ^ Hart, A.R. History of the King's Serjeants at Law in Ireland Four Courts Press Dublin 2000 p.19
- ^ Smyth, Constantine Joseph Chronicle of the Law Officers of Ireland London 1839 p.183
- ^ D'Alton, John History of Drogheda: with its Environs Dublin University Press 1844 Vol 2 p.96
- ^ D'Alton p.96
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- People from Ardee
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