William le Petit

William le Petit, or  Lepetit (died after 1359) was an Irish judge who was very briefly Lord Chief Justice of Ireland. He is notable  for  having been  pardoned for homicide.

He is referred to as King's Serjeant in 1338 and as  Attorney General for Ireland in 1343, although the two offices were easily confused in this era,  due to the lack of precision about their respective roles. He was a justice of the Court of King's Bench (Ireland) in 1347 and in 1359 briefly replaced John de Rednesse as Lord Chief Justice.

He had  two powerful patrons in James Butler, 2nd Earl of Ormond, and his wife Elizabeth Darcy, who employed le Petit as her attorney. It was at their request that le Petit in 1351 received a royal pardon for killing  Robert de Lynham; little is  known of the circumstances of the crime.

References

Category:Attorneys-General for Ireland
Category:14th-century Irish people
Category:Lords Chief Justice of Ireland
Category:Serjeants-at-law (Ireland)