John de St Paul  John de St Paul ( 1295 – 1362), also known as John de Owston and John de Ouston, was an English-born cleric and judge of the fourteenth century. He was Archbishop of Dublin 1349–62 and Lord Chancellor of Ireland 1350–56. He had previously been Master of the Rolls in England 1337–40. Apart from a brief period of disgrace in 1340, he enjoyed the confidence of King Edward III. He was described as a zealous advocate of English policy in Ireland, but also as a pragmatic statesman, who was willing to conciliate the Anglo-Irish ruling class. He did much to enlarge and beautify Christ Church, Dublin, although virtually no trace of his work survives, having been destroyed by the Victorian rebuilding of the Cathedral . The St Paul family are thought to have come to Yorkshire from Guienne. They may have had a family connection to the Counts of Saint-Pol, since Marie de St Pol, Countess of Pembroke, often employed John as her attorney. He was born about 1295, probably at Owston, South Yorkshire. He was most likely the son of Thomas de St Paul, and brother to Robert de St Paul, Lord of the manor of Byram cum Sutton. He was said by some to be illegitimate, although this was later contradicted. He was appointed a clerk in the English Chancery in around 1318 and became rector of Ashby David in Lincoln in 1329, the first of numerous clerical benefices he was to receive, of which probably the most important was the office of Archdeacon of Cornwall. From 1334 he was regularly appointed guardian of the Great Seal in the absence of the Lord Chancellor and in 1337 he became Master of the Rolls. He was granted a house in Chancery Lane in the city of London in 1339. He was briefly Lord Keeper of the Great Seal in 1339. In 1340 King Edward III, while engaged in the Siege of Tournai, received numerous complaints of acts of corruption and maladministration committed by his officials. He returned to England with great speed, and dismissed most of the offending officials, including St Paul, who was imprisoned and deprived of the Mastership of the Rolls. After a personal plea for clemency on his behalf by the Archbishop of Canterbury, John de Stratford, St Paul was soon released from custody, but he was not restored to the Mastership. In 1349 he was made Archbishop of Dublin.