Wood— 7*/^e Office of Chief Governor of Ireland, 1172-1509. 21l 



in 1312, though a sohition of this case may be found in the argument of 

 Mi\ Roberts, who was Ulster King-of-Arms in the time of Charles I. He 

 says that upon the repair of John Wogan (1312) to England, Edmund le 

 Botiller was by letters patent appointed to govern Ireland as a Lieutenant of 

 Wogan, but refused it (as it seems) because he had been formerly Chief 

 Governor of Ireland. "This appears by Patent Eoll, 6 Ed. II, among the 

 Eolls of the Exchequer in Ireland, where, on the margin of the Eoll, at the 

 foot thereof, and at the end of the first commission, is wiitten vacat, qtda 

 idem Edmundus illani commissionem noluit accipere. And then, immediately 

 after the said commission, follows another there enrolled, whereby he is 

 made Gustos terrae Ribcrniae " (Carte, Life of Ormond, Introduction, p. lix). 

 It may be argued from this that the office of a Deputy was considered as 

 being inferior to that of a Custos, and that as Botiller had been appointed 

 Custos in 1304, he refused to take an inferior post in 1312. 



That there was a dilTerence between a Custos and a locum tenens or 

 Deputy is clear from an entry in the Justiciar's Eoll, 23 Edward I (p. 50 in 

 Calendar), where the petitioner says that he had complained before " the 

 now Custos of Ireland, then locum tenens of the Chief Justiciar." This refers 

 to Thomas FitzMaurice, who was first Deputy to William Dodiiigeseles and then 

 Custos. 



It seems to me that the of!ice of CusLos difiered from that of a Deputy in 

 that the former was an emergency Governor — a term which seems to indicate 

 more clearly than any other the temporary nature of the appointment. 



The last Governor to be appointed as Custos was E. de Kent in 1399, 

 when Eichavd II was recalled in haste to England to meet Eichard Tudor, 

 and from that time an emergency Governor was called " Justiciarius." From 

 this time till 1449 we find the term " Justiciarius " applied not only to a 

 Chief Governor, but also to an emergency Governor, and great care must be 

 taken to distinguish between the Justiciar or Chief Governor appointed by 

 the King and the Justiciar or emergency Governor appointed by the Council. 



From 1449, however, the term Justiciar only occurs as indicating an 

 emergency Governor ; and from the time in the reign of Henry VII when 

 the statutes commenced to be made in English, this officer has been termed 

 Justice or Lord Justice. In 1509, on the death of Henry VII, the Council 

 elected the Earl of Kildare, who had been Deputy to Prince Henry, to be 

 "your Justice and Governor here," as a temporary appointment till the new 

 monarch should e.xpress his pleasure. V>y the Act of 33 Henry VIII 

 (sess. 2, c. 2), it was ordered that in the cases of emergency comprehended by 

 the Statute FitzEmpress, the Council should choose an Englishman, not being 

 a spiritual person, if any should be found in the realm, and if not, then to 



