SADLEIR, Thomas (d.1680?), of Sopwell Hall, Co. Tipperary, Ire.

Thomas Sadleir was a direct descendant of Sir Ralph Sadleir†, chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster under Elizabeth I. Although, as the youngest son of a youngest son, he did not succeed to any of the family’s landed wealth, Sadleir was able to use his family connections to secure a match with the widowed daughter of a St Albans gentleman.18Burke’s Landed Gentry of Ireland, 622; Vis. Beds. 1566, 1582 and 1634 (Harl. Soc. xix), 136-7. Yet he was to make his name (following the spelling of his ancestor) and his fortune through military service in the parliamentarian army in the 1650s.19Sig. Bodl. Tanner 53, f. 107v: 13 Aug. 1652. The details of his army career before 1649 are obscure: he has been identified both with one Lieutenant-colonel Sadler in the earl of Manchester’s Eastern Association army in 1643-4, and with a Captain Sadler who served in the west country in 1645; but neither identification is satisfactory: he does not appear in the records of Manchester’s army in 1644, and ‘Captain Sadler’ was probably a native of Wiltshire.20Firth and Davies, Regimental Hist.ii. 582; DIB; SP28/63-6, passim: CSP Dom. 1644-5, p. 401; Ludlow, Mems. i. 108-9. During the later 1640s Thomas Sadleir may have served in the New Model army in some capacity (although the records again remain strangely silent), as he seems to have acquired a certain military reputation by the autumn of 1649, when he was chosen by Oliver Cromwell to accompany him to Ireland as adjutant-general of foot.21SP28/62/3, f. 434; SP28/63/1, f. 30. Shortly afterwards, Sadleir joined Arthur Culme’s regiment as lieutenant-colonel, and on Culme’s death in May 1650 he took over command of the regiment as a full colonel.22SP28/64/2, f. 250; SP28/67/2, f. 313.

On active service in the spring of 1650, Sadleir repaid Cromwell’s trust by taking various castles in cos. Tipperary and Kilkenny which would have hampered the English campaigns against the strongholds of Clonmel and Waterford.23Abbott, Writings and Speeches, ii. 230, 234. In March 1651 Sadleir sailed for England in the company of Colonels Daniel Axtell* and Le Hunt, but was intercepted by royalists from the Scilly Isles, and held prisoner there until the islands were captured by Parliament’s forces later in the year.24Mercurius Politicus, no. 42 (20-7 Mar. 1651), 686. On his release (apparently none the worse for his detainment), Sadleir immediately returned to Ireland, where in the spring and summer of 1652 he negotiated articles for the surrender of Colonel Murtogh O’Brien in co. Clare, and Lord Muskerry in co. Kerry.25Ire. under the Commonwealth, i. 183, 224, 227-8. In August 1652 Sadleir was appointed governor of co. Wexford, and immediately began punitive expeditions against the remaining rebels in their bog and mountain retreats.26Bodl. Tanner 53, f. 107. In November of that year he was engaged in the expulsion of the Irish from the vicinity of Wexford City – a task which he completed within a month.27Ire. under the Commonwealth, ii. 296-7, 303.

Such efficiency seems to have boosted Sadleir’s standing with the parliamentary commissioners at Dublin. Appointments to various commissions followed, and he was chosen as sheriff of Wexford in 1652 and 1653, and received grants of land in Wexford thereafter.28Ire. under the Commonwealth, ii. 365, 451, 600; Bodl. Firth c.5, f. 113; Eg. 1762, f. 204v; Eg. 1761, f. 60. This government backing may also have reinforced Sadleir’s own local influence in the parliamentary elections in 1654, when he was returned with his colleague, Colonel Axtell, for the combined counties of Kilkenny, Carlow, Wexford and Queen’s. Ironically, Sadleir’s conspicuous loyalty may have been the reason the lord deputy (Charles Fleetwood*) chose to keep him in Ireland during the session, to guard against royalist unrest.29TSP ii. 445, 558. In October 1654 he was appointed as an assistant to the court of claims on articles, and assessment commissioner in co. Wexford.30Ire. under the Commonwealth, ii. 451; An Assessment for Ire. Sadleir’s ruthless efficiency not only enhanced his standing with the Dublin government, but also brought him to the attention of the lord protector: when an Irish brigade was brought across to England in 1655 to help crush Penruddock’s royalist rising, Sadleir was given command of the infantry.31Ludlow, Mems. i. 402, 429; CSP Dom. 1655, pp. 61, 166, 332. On his return to Ireland in the autumn, Sadleir was rewarded by the council of state with the gift of a gold medal and chain, and he was appointed governor of the strategically important city of Galway.32CSP Dom. 1655, p. 340; Henry Cromwell Corresp. 65, 74. Despite his lands in lieu of pay arrears being allotted in Tipperary, and his re-election as Member for the Leinster counties in 1656, for the next four years Galway was to be the centre of Sadleir’s political interest.33Cromwellian Settlement of Ire. ed. Prendergast, 92; Ire. under the Commonwealth, ii. 624; Burton’s Diary, i. 288-9. He appears to have left the region only once, to attend the brief second sitting of the second protectorate Parliament, and the only evidence for this is his addition to the committee for Ireland on 22 January 1658.34CJ vii. 580b.

The intrusion of an army stalwart such as Sadleir seems to have been taken as an affront by the president of Connaught, Sir Charles Coote*, who was keen to establish himself as the dominant figure in the west of Ireland. There were two factors which made relations between the two men difficult in the late 1650s. First, by the summer of 1656 Sadleir had become interested in acquiring estates in co. Galway, buying up debentures from his own men, acquiring land from the transplanted Irish and petitioning for further grants from the government: this sent a clear signal to Coote that Sadleir intended to become a permanent presence in the region.35DIB; Ire. under the Commonwealth, ii. 614. Secondly, it soon became clear that Sadleir was happy to encourage the Baptists in Galway, and even tolerated Quakers in his garrison. In the summer of 1657 the minister of Galway complained:

Our Anabaptists in Galway are now as high as if all Ireland was theirs. Colonel Sadleir’s lady is dipped [re-baptized] for certain and they glory therein and are become most insolent. I suppose no minister must live in Galway unless he can submit and comply with that party. The governor, out of respect to his wife, is wholly theirs.36Henry Cromwell Corresp. 281-2.

Coote, with his Presbyterian sympathies and desire for stability in the west of Ireland, may well have been alarmed at the hot-bed of fanatics which Sadleir was fostering in Galway, but on a day-to-day level he had little choice but to co-operate with him. In August 1656 the two men worked together to rebuild of the fortifications of Galway, and in July 1657 they were both involved in improvements to Henry Cromwell’s* newly-acquired estates in the county.37NLI, MS 758, f. 101; TSP vi. 400. They shared the seats for cos. Galway and Mayo in the elections in January 1659, and later in the same month Coote queried whether Sadleir could be spared to attend Parliament, considering his importance in keeping the Galway garrison in order.38TSP vii. 601. After the collapse of the protectorate in May, however, relations between the two men deteriorated quickly. At the end of June Sadleir was re-appointed as a colonel by the army’s friends, in August he was ordered to eject all Irish Catholics from Galway, and in October he signed the letter from the Irish officers approving the conduct of John Lambert* and Charles Fleetwood in suppressing the Rump Parliament.39CJ vii. 696a-b; CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 12; CSP Ire. 1647-60, p. 692; Ire. under the Commonwealth, ii. 705; Firth and Davies, Regimental Hist., ii. 583; Clarke, Prelude to Restoration, 70. When Coote and his allies moved against Edmund Ludlowe II* and the radical officers in December, Sadleir was an early victim. Responding to a request by Coote, Sadleir travelled to the nearby town of Tyrellan, only to discover himself under arrest while Galway was occupied by the insurgents.40Ire. under the Commonwealth, ii. 614; Ludlow, Mems. ii. 187; Clarke, Prelude to Restoration, 115. It is probable that Sadleir was then imprisoned and cashiered by Coote and his allies, but the appearance of his name among those subscribing a subsequent declaration issued by the Connaught officers, denouncing the army and supporting the restoration of the Rump, raises the possibly that he may have changed sides.41CSP Ire. 1647-60, p. 709; Ire. under the Commonwealth, ii. 614n; Declaration of Sir Charles Coot (1660), 4 (E.1013.14); DIB; Clarke, Prelude to Restoration, 116.

In the months following the Restoration, Sadleir’s loyalties remained suspect, and he was arrested for conspiracy in the summer of 1660.42CSP Ire. 1660-2, p. 45; Ire. under the Commonwealth, ii. 614. Such concerns appear to have been unfounded, however, as it is clear that Sadleir had by this time decided to make his peace with the new regime. His position in Ireland remained relatively prosperous: although he lost some of the land holdings lands, he retained his possessions in cos. Galway and Tipperary, including his seat at Kinelagh Castle, which he had renamed Sopwell Hall, after his father’s estate in Hertfordshire. In 1662 he remarried, taking as his second wife the widow of the Cork landowner, ‘kingling’ and veteran Old Protestant politician, Vincent Gookin*.43Burke’s Landed Gentry of Ireland, 622. Sadleir was active as MP for co. Tipperary in the Irish Parliament from 1661 at least until the beginning of 1663, and on the dissolution of the Parliament in 1666 he was appointed high sheriff for the county.44CJI i. 593, 622-740; ii. 89, 129, 203; Burke’s Landed Gentry of Ireland, 622; Ire. under the Commonwealth, ii. 614. He died in around 1680, leaving one son and three daughters. His descendants, the Sadleirs of Castletown, Tipperary, included the Reverend Francis Sadleir, a nineteenth century provost of Trinity College Dublin.45Burke’s Landed Gentry of Ireland, 623.