page_title: Christopher St Lawrence, 10th Baron Howth
section_title: Service with Mountjoy
hierarchical_section_title: Christopher St Lawrence, 10th Baron Howth / Service with Mountjoy
caption_attribution_description: 'Sir Charles Blount (1563-1606), later 8th and last Lord Mountjoy
context_page_description: Christopher St Lawrence, 10th Baron Howth was an Anglo-Irish statesman and soldier of the Elizabethan and Jacobean era. His personal charm made him a favourite of two successive English monarchs, and he was also a soldier of some ability who fought under the Earl of Essex and Lord Mountjoy during the Nine Years' War. However his bitter quarrels with the Lord Deputy of Ireland, his feuds with other leading families of Anglo-Irish families the Pale, and his suspected involvement in the conspiracy which led to the Flight of the Earls, damaged his reputation beyond repair. He is best remembered for the legend that he was kidnapped by the "Pirate Queen" Granuaile when he was a small boy.
context_section_description: In 1600 he was sent to assist Sir George Carew in his  military campaign in Connaught. His reputation as a soldier grew, but so did his reputation for violence: he was said to have engaged in a brawl with Thomas Butler, 10th Earl of Ormond and Donogh O'Brien, 4th Earl of Thomond. The supposed cause was that Christopher was over-friendly with Ormond's wife  (presumably  this was his third wife, Helena Barry, whom he married in  1601).
  When Lord Mountjoy arrived in Ireland, charged with the task of ending the Nine Years' War, Christopher accompanied him on an expedition against the O'Mores of Laois. In October 1600  he fought at the Battle of Moyry Pass and was wounded. He was  Mountjoy's right-hand man in central Ireland during the following months, although he later  complained that his services were ill-rewarded. In August 1601 he was in Ulster; when the news came of the Spanish landing he was sent to intercept Hugh Roe O'Donnell, but failed in the attempt. At the Battle of Kinsale, which marked the climax of the Nine Years' War, he was entrusted with preventing the Irish and Spanish armies from joining together, and was successful in the mission.
  He is next heard of in Dublin,  and then   briefly became governor of Monaghan. On the submission of Hugh O'Neill to Lord Mountjoy, which brought the Nine Years' War to an end, his garrison was reduced. It appears that he was accused of treasonable correspondence with O'Neill, and wrote to Robert Cecil asking for leave to come to London to clear his name.
  Meeting with no response, either to his demands to be allowed to clear his name, or  to his request for a sign of royal favour, he decided to seek employment abroad, a decision no doubt made easier by the recent break-up of his marriage to Elizabeth Wentworth. The new Lord Deputy, Sir Arthur Chichester, was persuaded to plead on Christopher's   behalf  with Cecil,  urging that he be given employment in Ireland, but nothing was done  for him and he entered the service of Archduke Albert  in the Spanish Netherlands. Chichester was concerned that other young nobles would follow his example, but in the event his foreign service was cut short by his father's death in May 1607.
caption: Charles Blount. 8th Baron Mountjoy
exif: {}