In 1444 he was appointed lord-deputy of Ireland under James, earl of Ormonde; and in 1449, previously to entering upon office in Ireland, Richard, duke of York, the new viceroy, again appointed the Baron of Delvin as his deputy. As deputy, he convened parliaments at Dublin and Drogheda in 1449. In 1452 he was appointed seneschal of Meath; he died before 1475. He married Catherine, daughter and heiress of Thomas Drake of Carlanstown, co. Meath, and had issue three sons. His eldest son, James, died before his father; James's son Christopher (d. 1493) became eleventh Baron Delvin, and father of Richard Nugent, twelfth baron Delvin [q. v.]
[Pedigree of the Nugent Family by D'Alton; Historical Sketch of the Nugent Family, 1853, printed by J. C. Lyons; Burke's Peerage; Lodge's Peerage of Ireland, continued by Archdall, s.v. Westmeath, i. 215; Gilbert's History of the Viceroys of Ireland.]
NUGENT, RICHARD, twelfth Baron Nugent (d. 1538?), was son and successor to Christopher, eleventh baron, by Elizabeth or Anne, daughter of Robert Preston, first viscount Gormanston [see under Nugent, Sir Richard, d. 1460?]. He succeeded his father as twelfth Baron Delvin in 1493. He had summonses to the Irish parliament in 1486, 1490, 1493, and 1498. But in 1498, when the parliament was summoned to meet at Castle Dermott on 28 Aug., Lord Delvin neglected to appear, and was fined 40s. for non-attendance. His loyalty to the English crown was very strict, and he was constituted, on 25 June 1496, by the lords justices and council, commander and leader-in-chief of all the forces destined for the defence of Dublin, Meath, Kildare, and Louth from the attacks of the native Irish. In 1504, when Gerald, eighth earl of Kildare, the lord-deputy, marched against the lord of Clanricarde, who had formed a confederacy of several Irish chiefs in opposition to the royal authority, Delvin accompanied the earl. At a council of war held by the lord-deputy within twenty miles east of Knocktough, where a battle was to be fought, Delvin promised ‘to God and to the prince’ that he would ‘be the first that shall throw the first spear among the Irish in this battle.’ ‘According, a little before the joining of the battle (in which he commanded the horse), he spurred his horse, and threw a small spear among the Irish, with which he chanced to kill one of the Burkes, and retired’ (Lodge). The battle of Knocktough, or Cnoc Tuagh, resulted in a decisive victory for Kildare and his companions. In 1505 Delvin was entrusted with the custody of the manors of Belgard and Foure. In 1515 the lord-deputy appointed him a justice of the peace in Meath, and seven years later he joined the council. He signed the letter addressed by the council of Ireland to Wolsey on 28 Feb. 1522, thanking him for the care he was taking of Ireland, and begging that five or six ships might be sent to keep the sea betwixt them and the Scots, as they were afraid that, in consequence of the departure of the Earl of Surrey and the king's army, the Irish rebels would receive help from Scotland, and prove too strong. When in 1524 an indenture was drawn up between the king and the Earl of Kildare, the earl promised not to ‘procure, stir, nor maintain any war against the Earl of Ormond, the Baron of Delvin, nor Sir William D'Arcy’ (State Papers, Ireland). In 1527 Delvin, on the departure of Kildare from Ireland, was nominated lord-deputy, and for a time conducted the government with success. But in 1528 Archbishop Inge and Lord-chief-justice Bermingham reported to Wolsey that the vice-deputy had not the power to defend the English from the raids of the native Irish; but, notwithstanding this inability, the people were far more charged and oppressed by him than they had been under the Earl of Kildare. They ascribed Delvin's weakness to the fact that he was not possessed of any great lands of his own. The writers mention that the council had divers times advised the vice-deputy to beware especially of the Irish chief, Brian O'Connor (fl. 1520–1560) [q. v.], and to pay him the subsidy that he and his predecessors had long received rather than to run into further danger of war. Despite this advice, when in 1528 the Irish chief was preying on the borders of the Pale, the vice-deputy ordered a yearly rent due to him out of certain lands in Meath to be withheld. This procedure led to a conference on 12 May, at the castle of Rathin in that county, belonging to Sir William D'Arcy, when, by stratagem, the vice-deputy was seized and detained a close prisoner at O'Conor's house. Many of the vice-deputy's men were slain, wounded, and made prisoners in endeavouring to rescue him. On 15 May the council of Ireland reported the misfortune to Wolsey. Walter Wellesley of Dangan Castle and Sir Walter Delahyde of Moyclare were subsequently deputed to expostulate with O'Conor, and to procure Delvin's liberation; but all arguments proved ineffectual. Another lord-deputy was appointed to administer the government, and Lord Delvin remained in confinement until O'Conor's pension was restored to him, by order of the government, on the following 25 Feb.
Delvin was again governor of Ireland for
