Life
1583-1652; ed. Winchester and New College, Cambridge; fellow, 1598; DCL, 1610; advocate of Doctors’ Commons, 1611; judge of faculties in prerogative court of Ireland, 1617; resigned office; returned to English; practised in admiralty court; kings advocate, 1623; master of requestions extraordinary, 1626; judge of admiralty of Dover, 1636; subsequently judge of Cinque Ports; fought for Charles I; knighted, 1644; wrtings on law and naval history; also, A Defence of the English system adopted for governing Ireland [q.d.]. ODNB
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Works
The Poore Vicar’s Plea: Declaring that a Competencie of Meanes is Due to them out of the Tithes of their Seuerall Parishes Notwithstanding the Impropriations (1620; rep. Amsterdam 1979); Historia navalis antiqua, libris quatuor (1633); Two tracts: with a prefatory account of the authors and these works (1704); A Defence of the English system adopted for governing Ireland [q.d.].
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Commentary
Anon. [Patrick Lynch], Life of St Patrick [Maynooth] (Dublin: Fitzpatrick 1810), names Ryves as the author of a tract answering David Rothe, defending English adminstration in Ireland and in which he also denies that St. Patrick ever lived on the basis that his name is not anywhere mentioned in contemporary histories. The author [Lynch] includes the following comment in a footnote: ‘After the discovery of America, in 1492, and its subsequent partition among the European powers, adventurers from every part of France, Spain, Germany, and Great Britain flocked thither in abundance. Such of the British fortune-hunters as had not courage enough to encounter the perils of the ocean, came to Ireland, which was then, as now, the land of promise, for all English, Scotch, and Welch [sic] settlers, and survitors. Of this class was Thomas Ryves; he was educated at Oxford, came over to Ireland, and was made one of the masters in chancery, and judge of the prerogative court. In these situations he was eminently serviceably in giving full and efficient vigor to the laws in the time of Sir Arthur Chichester. Bishop Nicholson and Mr Harris tell us Ryves wrote “A defence of the English system adopted for governing Ireland”, in which he frees his royal master from the imputation of tyranny and oppression, in burning images and suppressing the schools of popish priests and encouraging the conviction of several great persons, both clergy and laity, on the evidence of PERJURED WITNESSES. This infamous production in justification of a most infamous government, was written by Ryves, in answer to the [“]ANALECTA, or a Collection of the Sufferings of the catholics, during six months of Lord Chicester’s administration, &c., &c.[”], by the Most Rev. David Rothe, of Kilkenny, cath. bishop of Ossory and vice-primate of Ireland. [ftn., pp.18-19.]
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References
COPAC lists The poore vicars plea: declaring that a competencie of meanes is due to them out of the tithes of their seuerall parishes notwithstanding the impropriations (1620; rep. Amsterdam 1979); Historia navalis antiqua, libris quatuor (1633); Two tracts: with a prefatory account of the authors and these works (1704).
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