were generally treated with leniency, and some of them even retained office. In the event it was not necessary for the new Government to take any decision on Lowther's future: he was old and unwell, and died in the spring of 1660. He was buried in St. Michan's Church. Family Lowther married firstly Anne Parsons, daughter of Sir Lawrence Parsons of Birr Castle, the judge of Irish Admiralty Court and Baron of the Court of Exchequer (Ireland) and his wife Anne Malham; she died in 1634. Lowther and Parsons had close ties: each served as MP for Tallow, as Attorney General for Munster and as a Baron of the Exchequer, and both were clients of the Earl of Cork. He remained on good terms with Anne's family after her death: her mother, who died in 1646, appointed him one of the executors of her will, and left legacies to him and his second wife. He was remarried the following year to Margaret King, daughter of Sir John King of Boyle Abbey, MP for Roscommon and Clerk of the Crown and Hanaper, and his wife Catherine Drury, daughter of Robert Drury, and grand-niece of Sir William Drury, President of Munster. Margaret was a sister of Sir Robert King of Boyle Abbey, the poet Edward King (the subject of Lycidas by John Milton) and the writer Dorothy Durie. Like her sisters, Dorothy and Mary, Lady Charlemont, Margaret is said to have been a woman of considerable learning. She died in 1658. A son was born to his first marriage but must have died young since historians agree that he had no surviving issue. Character Lowther was a gifted lawyer and a shrewd and adaptable politician, but historians, in general, have had little good to say of him. O'Flanagan calls him "a most unprincipled man". Smyth says "He acquired a large landed property by steering with unprincipled craft through the boisterous ocean of contemporary troubles". Wedgwood, on the other hand, states that while he may have owed his rise to high office to patronage and a certain lack of scruples, he was well qualified by legal ability and strength of character for it. See also Lowther Baronets Richard Lowther (1532-1608) References 1589 births 1660 deaths People from Westmorland Members of Gray's Inn Irish MPs 1613–1615 Chief Justices of the Irish Common Pleas Members of the Privy Council of Ireland Kingdom of England people