as one of the most experienced lawyers in Ireland in 1576, when he was referred to as "one of the Queen's learned counsel". He seems to have suffered serious ill-health around this time, being described as "aged and sickly" (56 was a considerable age then). The cess controversy Serious political trouble arose in the following year, when there was renewed opposition by the Anglo-Irish gentry to the cess. Skurlock was chosen, with Henry Burnell and Richard Netterville, to travel to London to petition the Queen for its abolition, on account of the ruinous cost it imposed on the gentry of the Pale. The Lord Deputy, Sir Henry Sidney, argued that the petition was a defiance of the Royal Prerogative. The Queen agreed and the three petitioners were imprisoned in the Fleet Prison. They were soon released, after having made an abject apology to the Queen and the Lord Deputy, although they did not drop their opposition to the cess. His last years seem to have been peaceful enough, apart from a dispute with the Lord Justice of Ireland, Sir Henry Wallop in 1584 over the right of Skurlock's sons to take possession of the manors of Skurlockstown and Ifernock. His date of death is not recorded but he was still living in 1586. Family He married a daughter of the Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, Sir John Plunket, and they had at least two sons: Oliver, who held the manor of Skurlockstown, and Walter, who was Attorney General for Connaught from 1601 to 1613. The Barnaby Scurlock who surrendered his estate in 1622 and had it regranted to him was probably a grandson of the elder Barnaby. Character In character, he was described as "learned, modest and discreet" although his enemy Lord Deputy Sidney, while admitting his "credit and influence", called him a man who had grown "old and crafty", and was given to "indecent and undutiful speech". References People from County Meath 1520 births 1580s deaths 16th-century Irish politicians 16th-century Irish lawyers People of Elizabethan Ireland