Thomas Archbold


Thomas Archbold, or Thomas Galmole was a goldsmith and silversmith, who also qualified as a lawyer, and rose to become a senior Crown official and judge in Ireland in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. He was Master of the Mint in Ireland for many years.

Background

He was born in Dublin, to a long-established Dublin family. The Archbold family were among the earliest English settlers in Ireland. William Archbold, a senior member of the Royal household who was appointed one of the Irish Barons of the Exchequer in 1378, was his ancestor. A royal writ of 1400, concerning the appointment of one William Archbold as Constable of the fort of Newcastle Mackynegan in County Wicklow, names no less than five members of the Archbold family, all living in Dublin, as sureties for his good conduct. Richard Archbold, Constable of Dublin Castle in the 1480s, may also have been a relative of Thomas. Although the sources are clear that he was a member of the Archbold family of Dublin, he was also called Thomas Galmole. Presumably this was a business debt, rather than a Crown one. He had workshops in both Dublin and Waterford.

The Grey controversy

He was appointed Attorney General for Ireland, or Narrator Regis, in 1478 and in the same year he was made Master of the Royal Mint in Ireland, an appointment confirmed by a statute of the Irish Parliament.
Image:Elizabeth [Great Seal Ireland.jpg |200px|Sketch for a Great Seal of Ireland]Sketch for a Great Seal of Ireland, designed by Nicholas Hilliard for Queen Elizabeth I

Judge

Soon afterwards Archbold was appointed a Baron of the Court of Exchequer for life, but he was later superseded. What legal qualifications he had is unclear. He acted as Deputy Master of the Rolls in Ireland to Thomas Dowdall in 1479, when Dowdall was in England on official business. He continued in office as Master of the Mint.

Simnel's Rebellion

[Image:Lambert simnel.jpg|thumb|Lambert Simnel in Ireland]
Like almost all of the Anglo-Irish ruling class, he supported the claim of the pretender Lambert Simnel to the English Crown in 1487. Simnel's attempt to seize the throne ended with his crushing defeat at the Battle of Stoke Field. The victorious King, Henry VII, was merciful to the Irish rebels, as he was to Simnel himself, who was taken into the Royal Household as a servant: nearly all the rebels received a royal pardon the following year, including Archbold, who was restored to his seat on the Court of Exchequer at the same time.
He was reappointed Master of the Mint in 1506, with power to act through a Deputy, possibly because of his advancing age.