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Richard Prior
Richard Prior, Colonial Thomas Prior’s eldest son, inherited his father’s Irish lands and an estate in the northern English county of Derbyshire on the death of his sister Isabella Stubber and her husband.1)
In 1685, the Catholic James II succeeded his more pragmatic brother Charles II and in 1689 passed an Act of Attainder. This Act not only reversed the land grants to Protestants such as the Priors, but condemned thousands of them as traitors. Richard Prior and other Protestants had to flee, leaving behind land and possessions, or be executed. Richard fled to Cambridge, to property there that he had inherited from his father as well as some 40 acres in Ely. In 1690, James II’s loyalist army was defeated at the Battle of the Boyne and the Act subsequently repealed. It is not known if Richard ever returned to Ireland, but on his death the Irish estate passed to Thomas, his oldest surviving brother and the most famous of the family.
Sources: Tom M-P booklet; Burke's