Thomas Cranley DD a.k.a. Thomas Craule (c. 1340–1417) was a leading statesman, judge and cleric in early fifteenth-century Ireland, who held the offices of Chancellor of Oxford University, Archbishop of Dublin and Lord Chancellor of Ireland. Early career He was born in England about 1340; little seems to be known about his family. He entered the Carmelite order. He is recorded as a Fellow of Merton College, Oxford, in 1366. He became Warden of New College in 1389 and Chancellor of the University of Oxford in 1390. He was a Doctor of Divinity and a judge. Irish career In 1397, on the death of Richard Northalis, he was made Archbishop of Dublin and arrived in Ireland the following year. After the accession of King Henry IV, Cranley undertook a diplomatic mission to Rome, and was made Lord Chancellor of Ireland in 1401. When Henry's son Thomas, Duke of Clarence, was made Lord Deputy of Ireland, Cranley was appointed to his council. A letter which he sent to the King around the end of 1402 painted a grim picture of the state of English rule in Ireland. Cranley assured the King of his absolute loyalty to both the King and his son, but implored the King to send over money and men since "your son is so destitute of money that he has not a penny in the world ... and his soldiers have departed from him, and the people of his household are on the point of leaving". The King, who was generally short of money, is not known to have responded to this plea. Cranley himself could probably have contributed something to the Deputy's expenses: certainly, he was sufficiently well off to lend the Mayor of Dublin 40 marks in 1402. On the other hand there is no doubt that Crown revenue in Ireland was at a very low ebb, which contributed to the weakening of English rule in Ireland through the early fifteenth century. The pressure of official business, combined with the effects of ill health and old age, made Cranley increasingly unfit to perform his duties, and in his later years the functions of the Chancellor were usually carried out by his deputies, first Thomas de Everdon, then Laurence Merbury, and then Roger Hawkenshaw. Cranley resigned as Chancellor in 1410, but in 1413 the new King Henry V reappointed him to that office. This is a tribute