Nicholas St Lawrence, 9th Baron Howth  Nicholas St. Lawrence, 9th Baron Howth (c.1550–1607) was a leading member of the Anglo-Irish nobility in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Despite openly professing his Roman Catholic faith, he enjoyed the trust of Elizabeth I and of successive Lord Deputies of Ireland, and was even forgiven by the English Crown for signing a petition against the Penal Laws. He was the eldest surviving son of Christopher, 8th Baron Howth and his first wife Elizabeth Plunket of Beaulieu House, County Louth. His date of birth is often given as 1555, but was probably some years earlier: Elrington Ball states that he was well into middle age when his father died, and in 1605 he was described as being "too old to be likely to live long". His early life cannot have been happy, as his father was notorious for his cruelty to his wife and children. In 1577 Nicholas's teenage sister Jane died after being severely beaten by their father, and his mother was so ill-treated that the Court of Castle Chamber (the Irish equivalen of. Star Chamber) granted her a judicial separation. Lord Howth was fined for his cruelty to his wife and daughter, and briefly imprisoned. According to a well-known legend Granuaile, the celebrated Pirate Queen of Galway in about 1575 arrived unannounced at Howth Castle for dinner, only to find the gates barred; in retaliation for the discourtesy she took the youthful heir hostage until the family apologised. Elrington Ball suggests that the story may be partly based on fact- but if the heir was a child at the relevant time this probably refers to Nicholas' eldest son Christopher, not to Nicholas himself. In the 1580s he lived at Platten in Meath, where his first wife Margaret had inherited property. He was knighted in 1588 and succeeded his father as baron the following year. In Elrington Ball's view Lord Howth "was devoted to the interests of the Pale and did not always find it easy to reconcile that with the requirements of Government. " This was especially true after it became public knowledge that he practiced the Roman Catholic faith. His initial relations with the Lord Deputy of Ireland, Sir William FitzWilliam, were friendly, and he was appointed guardian of the Pale in the Deputy's absence. Shortly afterwards relations between the two men cooled when Nicholas became involved in the long and bitter feud between the Nugent and Dillon families family, headed by Christopher, Baron Delvin on the one hand and Sir Robert Dillon, the Chief Justice of the Irish Common Pleas on the other.