Thomas Ryves [Sir]

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; authored a tract claiming ‘competence’ from parish tithes (The Poore Vicar’s Plea, 1620) - making reference to tithes in Ireland; also, A Defence of the English system adopted for governing Ireland [q.d.]. ODNB

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Bibliographical details
Two Tracts: Tract I. Entitled, De non temerandis ecclesiis, &c. By Sir Henry Spelman Knight. Tract II. The Poor Vicar’s Plea for Tythes, ... &c. By Thomas Ryves, Doctor of the Civil Laws. With a prefatory account of the authors and these works (London: Printed for Awnsham and John Churchill, at the Black Swan in Pater-Noster-Row 1704), [60], 128; 120pp. 8vo [19cm]. Note: “De non temerandis ecclesiis, churches not to be violated. A tract of the rights and respects due unto churches. Written to a gentleman, who having an appropriate parsonage, imployed the church to prophane uses, and left the parishioners uncertainly provided of divine service in a parish there adjoining. Written by Sir Henry Spelman, Knight. The sixth edition has separate dated t.p. (imprint as per collective t.p.) on leaf c8r; “The poor vicar”s plea; declaring, that a competency of means is due to them out of the tythes of their several parishes, notwithstanding the impropriations. Written by Thomas Ryves, Doctor of the Civil Laws’ has a separate titlepage with ornament and imprint ‘London: printed for A. and J. Churchill at the Black Swan in Pater-Noster-Row. MDCCIV’, and begins new register and pagination: title page has semi-colon after ‘plea’; variant titlepage has full stop after ‘plea’. (Details from COPAC/Discovery Hub - online; access 31.12.2025.)

See note on titles by other writers concerned with Irish tithes incl. Henry Grattan [q.v.] and Edward Stopford (Bishop of Meath) - infra.

Historiae navalis mediae libri tres / Autore Tho: Rivio, Regis in Anglia advocato, 2 vols. in 1 (Londini: [Printed by G. Emerson?] apud Richardum Hodgkinsonne, et vaeneunt in vico vulgariter dicto Little-Britaine anno Domini, MDCXL. [1640]), ([8], 167pp, [1], 32, pp.169-299, [1, (8⁰) [author conjectured by STC];

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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 [q.v.], 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:

[Lynch, St. Patrick - cont.:] ‘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); Do. in Two tracts: with a prefatory account of the authors and these works (1704). Historia navalis antiqua, libris quatuor (1633). There is not citation for A Defence of the English System Adopted for Governing Ireland.

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