# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Carew, John (d.1362)

1904 Errata appended.
​CAREW, Sir JOHN (d. 1362), justiciar of Ireland, appears to have been the grandson of Sir Nicholas Carew, lord of Mulesfold in Berkshire (Parl. Writs. i. 103, 104), and son of Sir John Carew, who married, first, Eleanor, daughter of Sir William Mohun (d. 1296?), in whose right her husband became lord of Mohuns Ottery, Stoke Fleming, and other manors in Devonshire; secondly, Johanna or Joan, according to Prince the daughter of Gilbert, lord Talbot (see also Cal. Geneal. ii. 539, 547; Cal. Inq. post Mort. i. 135, 308; Abbrev. Rot. Orig. ii. 38, 140). The elder Sir John Carew seems to have died in 1323-4 (C.I.P.M. i. 308), leaving a son bearing the same name, and probably the offspring of his first marriage (Prince; but cf. the genealogies in Philips and Macleane, which make the younger Sir J. Carew son of Joan, and only heir to the Mohun estates on the death of his elder brother Nicholas in 1324). His widow, Joan, in later years one of Queen Philippa's ladies, was still living in June 1335. On his father's death the younger John Carew was still a minor, as appears from the fine levied upon him two years later (1326-7) for attempting to possess himself of Mulesford Manor (Abbrev. Rot. ii. 38, 300). He perhaps came of age in 1332, when he was summoned to Ireland to defend his estates, and given the custody of three 'villæ' in Devonshire (Lib. Mun. Hib. iv. 82; Abbrev. Rot. Orig. ii. 64). The name of Sir John Carew does not, however, appear prominently till 1345-1346, when he was appointed one of the three 'custodes pacis' for the county of Carlow, and about the same time entrusted to negotiate with the Irish rebels. In 1349 he was king's escheator in Ireland, and during the course of the same year was chosen to succeed Walter de Birmingham as justiciar, an office which, however, he held barely a year (L.M.H. ii. 197; Gilbert, Viceroys, 205), as we find Sir Thomas Rokeby occupying the post in December. In 1352, 1355, and 1356 he reappears with the title of 'Escheator Hiberniæ.' Shortly after (1359) he was summoned to attend a great council at Waterford (Irish Close Rolls, 77), and in 1361 was called to Westminster to consult on the projected Irish expedition of Lionel, afterwards duke of Clarence, who had married the heiress of the Earls of Ulster (Rymer, vi. 319). He appears to have accompanied the prince on this occasion, and to have died a year later, in 1362 (Cal. Inq. post Mort. 247), or, according to Prince's account, on 16 May 1363. He married, if we may trust the last authority, Margaret, daughter of John, lord Mohun of Dunstar, by whom he had two sons: John, who is variously reported to have died before Calais (?1347) and in 1353 (Macleane and Phillips), and Leonard, who perhaps died in 1370 (C.I.P.M. ii. 303), and was succeeded by his son, Thomas Carew, a noted warrior in the early years of the next century. This Thomas, baron Carew, must have been a minor at the time of his father's death (Irish Rolls, 866), and it is not till the reigns of Henry IV and Henry V that he begins to figure prominently as a statesman and a soldier. His mother is said to have been Alice, daughter of Sir Edmond Fitzalan (Phillips and Macleane). According to Prince he was present at the battle of Agincourt, but his name is not to be found in the 'Roll' published by Sir Harris Nicolas. The same authority tells us that he was made captain of Harfleur, and appointed to defend a passage over the Seine in 6 Henry V. He is probably to be identified with the Baron Carew who was commissioned to guard the Channel at the time of the Emperor Sigismund's visit to England (Williams, Gesta Henrici V, 93 n.), and with the 'Thomas Carew, Chevalier,' who is found at the head of a large number of men-at-arms in 1417, 1418, and 1423 (Privy Council Acts, ii. and iii.; Norman Rolls). He married ​Elisabeth, daughter of Sir William Bonvile of Shure (Parson), and appears to have died in 1430-1 (C.I.P.M. iv. 131). By her he left a son Nicholas, baron Carew, father of Sir Edmund Carew [q.v.], whose younger sons founded the families of Carew at Hacombe and Antony (Phillips). Besides their English estates, the Carews held large landed possessions in Ireland, especially the barony of Idrone in Carlow; but these appear to have been lost for the most part in the course of the fourteenth century.
[Prince's Worthies of Devon, ed. 1701, 149, 150; Gilbert's Viceroys of Ireland, 205, 217; Liber Munerum Publ. Hibernia (L. M. H.), ed. Lascelles, i-iv; Close and Patent Rolls of Ireland; Calendarium Inquisitionum post Mortem (C.I.P.M.), i-iv.; Abbreviationes Rotulorum Orginalium, i. ii.; Parliamentary Writs, i. ii.; Calendarium Genealogicum, ed. Roberts, ii. 539, 641; Proceedings and Ordinances of the Privy Council. ed. Nicolas, i, ii. iii.; Collins's Peerage, ed. Brydges. iii. 3; Life of Sir Peter Carew, ed. Macleane; Norman Rolls ap. Record Reports, xli. 715. 717. 720; Phillips's Pedigrees.]
T. A. A.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.54 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
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| 53 54 | i ii i | 10 f.e. 35 47 24 | $\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,$ Carew, Sir John: for Macleane read Maclean |