Edward Waterhouse
Sir Edward Waterhouse was an English-born administrator in Ireland during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. He was the first to hold the office of Chief Secretary for Ireland, and served as Chancellor of the Exchequer of Ireland from 1586 to 1589. He represented and shared fully in the Protestant complexion of the English government in Ireland, and himself bore arms against the risings in Munster and elsewhere driven by the rivalries of the Butler and FitzGerald families and other factions. He contributed significantly to the successes of the English army in Ireland through his administration, and made important contributions to policy regarding the future of Ireland and its English plantations. A loyal servant of Sir Henry Sidney and friend of his son Sir Philip Sidney, he was on close and trusted terms with Sir Francis Walsingham as friend, agent and intelligencer, and with Walter Devereux, and managed the affairs of Robert Devereux in childhood after his father's death. In later years he worked closely with Sir John Perrot, and brought to near-completion his Treatise of Irelande as a template for that realm's reorganization and further plantation under English governance. His career may be traced through very numerous entries in the Calendar of State Papers for Ireland, in the context of the Elizabethan military campaigns.
Family details
Edward Waterhouse was the fourth-born, but third surviving, of six sons of John Waterhouse, of Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, Auditor to King Henry VIII, and his wife Margaret Turner, daughter of Henry Turner of Blunt's Hall, Little Wratting, Suffolk. John's brother Thomas Waterhouse, "Gentleman-Priest" to King Henry, had been the rector of Ashridge Priory elected 1529, and of Quainton in Buckinghamshire. After the Dissolution, the former Ashridge Priory became the residence of Princess Elizabeth until her arrest in 1554. Thomas the priest asked to be buried near his mother at St Mary's Church, Hemel Hempstead: his brass is lost, but was figured by Sylvanus Morgan. John entertained King Henry at Hemel, who at his request incorporated the Vill under a Bailiff, granting its seal, weekly markets and annual fair, etc.The family home at that time was The Bury, the capital manorial seat, of Helmstedbury, a former monastic possession of Ashridge Priory's: a long lease having been granted in 1535 by Thomas Waterhouse, as rector, to his brother John and to his nephew Richard Combes, with right to occupy, a subsequent royal grant was made to Combes in 1540. Some footings can be seen in Gadebridge Park at Hemel Hempstead, between the Norman church and the brick mansion of 1790 now called "The Bury". The stated association of John with the manor of Whitchurch, Buckinghamshire near Quainton, appertains correctly to his son John Waterhouse, Edward's eldest brother, who purchased that manor in 1581 from Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, and settled it upon his son Thomas.
According to Edward's grand-nephew, the King met Edward in his boyhood and foretold that "he would be the crown of them all, and a man of great honour and wisdom, fit for the service of princes". He was educated at the University of Oxford, to which he was admitted at the age of twelve: there he shone in the arts of oratory and poetry, before his entry into the Court where he devoted himself to politics and statecraft.
Following his parents' deaths in 1558-1559, although it is clear from his mother's will that his father was buried at Watford, beside whom she wished to lie, their memorial was set up in St Peter's church, Berkhamsted. A corner of Berkhamsted church became the family chapel: Edward's brothers Thomas , who lived in that town, and John, and others of the Waterhouse family, were buried there.
Career
Chief Secretary for Ireland
Spending several years in sworn service in the household of Princess Elizabeth, Edward Waterhouse became attached to the sphere of Sir Henry Sidney. In 1565 he accompanied Sidney to Ireland as private secretary on his first term as Lord Deputy of Ireland, 1565-1571, developing a loyal friendship with him and being employed in many confidential transactions. He was immediately appointed clerk of the Castle Chamber at Dublin, and was granted a lease of land in Monasterevin in County Kildare. In 1570 he was instrumental in obtaining a charter for the town of Carrickfergus, of which he was made a freeman.Service to Walter Devereux
Having left Ireland in 1570, during the First Desmond Rebellion against the further extension of English government, Waterhouse remained absent at the 1571 succession of Sir William FitzWilliam as Lord Deputy, until in 1573 he assisted Walter Devereux, 1st Earl of Essex in his prepensed attempt to establish plantation in County Antrim. He urged the reappointment of Sidney, and strongly advocated to Francis Walsingham, the English Secretary of State, that Essex, untainted by the native factional interests, was the right man to complete the conquest of Ireland out of Ulster. This venture, disliked by FitzWilliam, kept Waterhouse busy in Dublin in 1574 arranging army provisions. In that year he advocated that even the most senior ecclesastical appointments should be given to military men, "for here is scarce any sign of religion, nor no room for justice, till the sword hath made a way for the law."To this period belongs Waterhouse's manuscript policy document on Means to quiet the northern part of Ulster, in which he proposed the development of a close economic interdependence between north-western England, through trade in minerals and coals out of Newcastle, and the reciprocal development of Irish fisheries, as a means to counteract the unsettling incursions of the Scots upon northern Ulster. One of the early drafts of the Treatise of Irelande survives in his handwriting.
With Sidney's reappointment in 1575, he returned to his position as Secretary and, despite being accused of corruption, was awarded a daily pension of ten shillings in June 1576. He had won the trust of the Earl of Essex, often representing him at Court, and attended the earl's deathbed in September 1576. In his moving account of those events, he tells how the dying earl wept as he said "My good Nedd, thou arte faiethfullest that ever I knewe, and the frendliest and honestest". Waterhouse had some charge of the affairs of Robert Devereux, the future 2nd Earl, and he wrote to Sidney describing the support of the queen and nobles towards the boy. The sermon preached at the earl's funeral, published together with various epitaphs, was prefixed by an Epistle by Waterhouse addressed to Robert Devereux holding up to him the example of his father, which epistle was reprinted in full by Raphael Holinshed in the 1577 edition of his Chronicle. The second son of Sir Nicholas White also came into his care.
Missions
Waterhouse continued work on Sidney's behalf, often representing causes in London. In 1576-77 he made great efforts to justify the much-resented tax for the upkeep of royal army garrisons within the Pale, but was strongly opposed by envoys of the Anglo-Irish gentry. Through the summer of 1577 in London he followed Sidney's detailed instructions, working with Walsingham over Irish matters. Following his divorce from his first wife, Elizabeth Villiers, in March 1577/78, he was sent to England again on official business with further instructions in May 1578, before Sidney's removal as Lord Deputy later in the year. Waterhouse continued as secretary and commissioner for the government in Ireland under Sir William Drury. Over the next two years he accumulated further official appointments, notably as Customs officer for wines in Irish ports in February 1579, and as Receiver of casual profits for the Crown, and Exchequer Commissioner of the army, in June 1579: at the same time his pension was re-granted for life.Having such an official and active role in the military response to the Second Desmond Rebellion, at the time of Drury's death in October 1579 he was appointed to the Privy Council of Ireland. These appointments coincided with the interim administration of Sir William Pelham, Lord Justice of Ireland, whose ruthless operations held in check the risings in Munster and Meath. Fuller effused, "when many of the Privy Council, terrified with the greatness of the Earl of Desmond, durst not subscribe the instrument wherein he was proclaimed Traitor; Sir Edward among some others boldly signed the same..." In their wake, having served in Munster, Waterhouse was appointed Water Bailiff of the River Shannon in June 1580 - to be overseen from the Connaught Tower, a stronghold in the outer defences of Athlone Castle - and for other headquarters he had the lease of lands of Pierston and elsewhere in co. Meath, in 1580, and a grant of the manor and castle of Downasse in summer 1582.