John Estrete

The Estrete (or Strete) family were prosperous citizens of fifteenth-century Dublin, who later acquired lands in Louth and Meath. The name is generally thought to be an early form of Street. John was the son of John Estrete senior and his wife Joanna (or Jeneta). He was married and had four sons and two daughters, but by 1488 only two of his children, George and Katherine, were still alive. It is not always clear whether the John Estrete referred to in legal deeds of 1480 and 1481 was the father or the son (the elder John Estrete died before 1488). It was almost certainly the father who had property dealings with Simon Walsh, skinner, in 1480/1. ==Career==

Early years He is known to have been practising in the Irish courts of common law by 1477. In 1478 he went to England and received a royal pardon for an unspecified offence. He probably owed this appointment to the influence of Gerald FitzGerald, the "Great Earl of Kildare", who was then beginning his effective control of the Irish Government, which he dominated with short intervals for 35 years. In about 1481 Estrete was entrusted with the management of the customs duties for the Port of Drogheda. In 1483 a statute of the Irish Parliament gave him first charge over any payment out of the revenues from the cocket (the official custom house seal) and customs of Dublin. In 1480 a John Estrete (he is referred to as "John Estrete senior", so this was most likely the judge's father rather than the judge himself) bought land in County Meath from Simon Walshe and his wife Juliana. Estrete also taught them Law French (the official language of the law courts until the seventeenth century), and Darcy was still writing it fluently fifty years later. This episode probably established Estrete's role as an intermediary between Kildare and the English Crown. The King's letter of instructions to Estrete, which was to be shown to Kildare, survives. ==Lambert Simnel==

After Richard's downfall at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, the new King Henry VII confirmed Estrete in office as Serjeant. He travelled to London in 1486 and had a personal audience with the King. He was still in England in attendance on the King the following year. When the Yorkist pretender to the Crown, Lambert Simnel (who falsely claimed to be a nephew of Edward IV and Richard III), appeared in Ireland in 1487 Kildare was his strongest supporter, and encouraged him to invade England and seize the throne. The King sent Estrete to Dublin with an invitation to Kildare to come to England to discuss his position; it appears that Henry was prepared to grant roughly the same terms which Kildare had demanded from Richard III. Kildare did not respond to the offer, and Simnel with an army raised by Kildare invaded England, only to see his cause crushed at the Battle of Stoke Field in June 1487. ==Later years==

While Simnel's supporters, including Kildare, his powerful father-in-law Rowland FitzEustace, 1st Baron Portlester, and most of the Anglo-Irish ruling class, were forced to sue for a royal pardon for their treason, which was granted in 1488, Estrete was regarded as a reliable King's man, who was described as "the King's servant and counsellor". He was appointed Master of the Irish Coinage and a Privy Councillor: Chrimes in his biography of Henry VII states that he was appointed to the Privy Council of Ireland, but other historians state that as a mark of special royal favour, he was made an English councillor. ==Christ Church Cathedral==

In 1485 Estrete established a chantry in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, where he endowed a priest to sing masses for the souls of his benefactors, Kildare and Portlester. For this purpose he granted certain lands and other property in trust to the Cathedral.Grattan-Flood, William A History of Irish Music Dublin Brown and Nolan 1905 In 1488 the grant was extended to provide for masses for the souls of the King, and for Estrete's parents, his brothers Patrick and Christopher, and his living and deceased children. Mass was to be sung every day in the Chapel of St Laurence O'Toole, with a high mass once a week. After Estrete's own death, mass was to be sung for him every year. ==References==