Nicholas White

Sir Nicholas White (c.1532 – 1592) (or Whyte) was an Irish lawyer, judge, privy councillor and government official during the reign of Elizabeth I. Background and early career White was descended from a noted family of The Pale. His father, James White of Waterford, who was the steward of the earl of Ormond, had been poisoned while in London, as was the earl, in 1546. Nicholas owed his early advancement to Ormond's influence: in recognition of James's loyalty, the earl left £10 for the boy's education at the Inns of Court. White entered Lincoln's Inn in 1552, and he was called to the Bar in 1558; during the course of his studies he was a tutor to the children of Sir William Cecil, later Lord Burghley. He then returned to Ireland and was elected a member of the Irish Parliament for County Kilkenny in 1559. He was justice of the peace for County Kilkenny in 1563 and in the following year was named Recorder of Waterford. In 1567 he bought Leixlip Castle as his base near Dublin. He had stayed in correspondence with Cecil, and became an important confidant of his and thus an influential commentator on Irish affairs. In 1568 he was given the right to travel to England and had a notable interview with Mary, Queen of Scots, at Tutbury in February 1569. They discussed her use of the English language and her needlework. White noted her "pretty Scottish speech" and recorded the motto embroidered on her cloth of estate, "En ma fin est mon commencement", My End is in My Beginning. White may have published an English translation of the Argonautica in the 1560s, but no copy has survived.