Life
1583-1652; ed. Winchester and New College, Cambridge; fellow, 1598; DCL,
1610; advocate of Doctors’ Commons, 1611; judge of faculties in prerogative
court of Ireland, 1617; resigned office; returned to English; practised
in admiralty court; kings advocate, 1623; master of requestions extraordinary,
1626; judge of admiralty of Dover, 1636; subsequently judge of Cinque
Ports; fought for Charles I; knighted, 1644; wrtings on law and naval
history; also, A Defence of the English system adopted for governing
Ireland [q.d.]. ODNB
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Works
The Poore Vicar’s Plea: Declaring that a Competencie of Meanes is
Due to them out of the Tithes of their Seuerall Parishes Notwithstanding
the Impropriations (1620; rep. Amsterdam 1979); Historia navalis antiqua,
libris quatuor (1633); Two tracts: with a prefatory account of
the authors and these works (1704); A Defence of the English system
adopted for governing Ireland [q.d.].
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Commentary
Anon. [Patrick Lynch], Life of St Patrick [Maynooth]
(Dublin: Fitzpatrick 1810), names Ryves as the author of a tract answering David Rothe,
defending English adminstration in Ireland and in which he also denies
that St. Patrick ever lived on the basis that his name is not anywhere
mentioned in contemporary histories. The author [Lynch] includes the following
comment in a footnote: ‘After the discovery of America, in 1492,
and its subsequent partition among the European powers, adventurers from every part of France, Spain, Germany, and Great Britain flocked thither
in abundance. Such of the British fortune-hunters as had not courage enough
to encounter the perils of the ocean, came to Ireland, which was then,
as now, the land of promise, for all English, Scotch, and Welch [sic]
settlers, and survitors. Of this class was Thomas Ryves; he was educated
at Oxford, came over to Ireland, and was made one of the masters in chancery,
and judge of the prerogative court. In these situations he was eminently
serviceably in giving full and efficient vigor to the laws in the time
of Sir Arthur Chichester. Bishop Nicholson and Mr Harris tell us Ryves
wrote “A defence of the English system adopted for governing Ireland”,
in which he frees his royal master from the imputation of tyranny and
oppression, in burning images and suppressing the schools of popish priests
and encouraging the conviction of several great persons, both clergy and
laity, on the evidence of PERJURED WITNESSES. This infamous production
in justification of a most infamous government, was written by Ryves,
in answer to the [“]ANALECTA, or a Collection of the Sufferings of the catholics,
during six months of Lord Chicester’s administration, &c., &c.[”],
by the Most Rev. David Rothe, of Kilkenny, cath. bishop of Ossory and
vice-primate of Ireland. [ftn., pp.18-19.]
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References
COPAC lists The poore vicars plea: declaring that a competencie
of meanes is due to them out of the tithes of their seuerall parishes
notwithstanding the impropriations (1620; rep. Amsterdam 1979); Historia
navalis antiqua, libris quatuor (1633); Two tracts: with a prefatory account
of the authors and these works (1704).
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