Edward Waterhouse

Sir Edward Waterhouse (1535–1591) 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 (from 1566 to 1567 and from 1568 to 1569), 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 (died 1558), of Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, Auditor to King Henry VIII, and his wife Margaret Turner (died 1558/59), daughter of Henry Turner of Blunt's Hall, Little Wratting, Suffolk. John's brother Thomas Waterhouse (died 1557), "Gentleman-Priest" to King Henry, had been the rector of Ashridge Priory (the collegiate religious house of Boni Homines) 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.