of his judgeship. Hence in 1718, when the opinion of the judges was taken upon the king's prerogative touching the marriages of members of his family, he differed from the other judges in favour of the prince. This, however, did not prevent his promotion. He became lord chief baron 16 Nov. 1723, and lord chief justice of the common pleas 27 May 1725. Charges were made against him in 1729 of having corruptly assisted in prison Thomas Bambridge [q. v.], the warden of Newgate, who had been convicted before him for misconduct in the management of the gaol. A committee of the House of Commons investigated the charges and acquitted Eyre. He was the intimate friend of Godolphin, Marlborough, and Walpole and Burnet, and appears to have been a peculiarly haughty man. He died 28 Dec. 1735, and was buried in St. Thomas's, Salisbury, 7 Jan. 1736. By his wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Edward Rudge of Warley Place, Essex, who died in 1724, he had three sons and one daughter.
[Foss's Lives of the Judges; Burnet's History of his own Time; Redington's Treasury Papers, 1707–14; Hoare's Wiltshire; Luttrell's Diary; State Trials, vols. xv. and xvii.; Raymond's Reports, 1309, 1331.]
EYRE, Sir SAMUEL (1633–1698), judge, came of a legal family, his grandfather, Robert, having been a bencher and reader of Lincoln's Inn, and his father being a barrister, Robert Eyre of Salisbury and Chilhampton, who married Anne, daughter of Samuel Aldersey of Aldersey in Cheshire. He was born in 1633, baptised 26 Dec., and was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in June 1661. Under the patronage of the Earl of Shaftesbury, whose adviser he was, he attained some professional eminence. He was made a serjeant 21 April 1692, and succeeded Mr. Justice Dolben in the king's bench 6 Feb. 1694, but was not sworn in until 22 Feb. When Charles Knollys's claim to the earldom of Banbury came before the House of Lords in 1698, Eyre was called on, along with Chief-justice Holt, to state to the house the grounds upon which he had given judgment in favour of Knollys, who being tried in the king's bench in 1694 for murder had pleaded his privilege as a peer. This the two judges refused to do, the matter not coming before the house on writ of error from the king's bench. They were threatened with committal to the Tower, but the matter dropped. Eyre died on circuit at Lancaster of an attack of colic 12 Sept. 1698 (or 10th according to Luttrell). A monument was erected at Lancaster to him, and his body was removed to St. Thomas's, Salisbury, the family burial-place, 2 July 1699. He married Martha, daughter of Francis, fifth son of Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecote, Worcestershire, by whom he had four sons (the eldest, Sir Robert Eyre [q. v.], was judge of the queen's bench) and two daughters. His wife brought him considerable property.
[Foss's Lives of the Judges; Hoare's Wiltshire; State Trials, vol. xii.; 1 Raymond's Reports, 10.]
EYRE, THOMAS (1670–1715), jesuit, of the family settled at Eastwell, Leicestershire, was born on 23 Dec. 1670. He studied at the college of St. Omer, was admitted into the Society of Jesus in 1687, and was professed of the four vows on 8 March 1705–6. He was chaplain to the court of James II at St. Germain; became professor of theology at Liège (1701–4), and in 1712 was socius to the provincial of his order. He died in London on 9 Nov. 1715. Dr. Kirk believed him to be concerned in a biography of James II.
[Foley's Records, vi. 238; Kirk's Biog. Collections, manuscript quoted in Gillow's Bibl. Dict.; Oliver's Jesuit Collections, p. 87.]
EYRE, THOMAS (1748–1810), catholic divine, son of Nathaniel Eyre, esq., was born in 1748 and educated in the school established at Esquerchin in connection with the English College at Douay. After being ordained priest he was retained in the college as a professor. In 1775 he returned to England and was placed in charge of the congregation on the Stella estate in the parish of Ryton, Durham. He began in 1791 to collect materials for a continuation of Dodd's ‘Church History of England,’ but the destruction of the English catholic establishments abroad called him to a more active life and prevented him from proceeding with the work. About 1792 he was appointed to the mission of Pontop Hall, near Lanchester, Durham. In 1794 a number of the students who had been driven from Douay were established in the new college at Crook Hall, Durham, which was temporarily placed under Eyre's direction. The Rev. John Daniel [q. v.], president of Douay College, arrived at Crook Hall in the following year, and by virtue of his office assumed the charge of the students. A few days afterwards, however, Daniel resigned, and Eyre was appointed president of Crook Hall. The institution flourished under his management, and in 1808 the professors and students removed to the larger college which had been built for them at Ushaw, four miles from Durham. There Eyre died on 8 May 1810.
He published: 1. ‘The Instruction of Youth in Christian Piety,’ Newcastle, 1783,
