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 in 1704 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 over 2,000 of them to defend themselves from the charge of high treason. Richard Prior and other Protestants choose to flee, forfeiting their land. 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 In 1690, James II’s loyalist army was defeated at the Battle of the Boyne and the Act subsequently repealed. Richard continued to live in Cambridge and on his death in 1726 [or 1736, according to other sources] appointed 'his loving nephew Thomas Prior' (Colonel Thomas Prior's son) his executor and trustee. Richard left Thomas Prior the 40 acres in Ely, property in Cambridge, and his portion of the Rathdowney estate, although by then the latter appears to have been heavily mortgaged.²⁾.