Thomas Sheridan

Sir Thomas Sheridan (1684–1746) was a Jacobite courtier and conspirator of Anglo-Irish background, known mainly for his role as an advisor to Charles Edward Stuart during the Jacobite rising of 1745. Life Sheridan was the eldest child of former Chief Secretary for Ireland Thomas Sheridan and his wife Helen Appleby. Appleby was the daughter of Thomas Appleby of Linton-on-Ouse, Yorkshire, although she was rumoured by contemporaries to be an illegitimate child of James II, and the Sheridans were consistent supporters of Stuart interests. They were an old Irish family originally from County Cavan; Sheridan's grandfather, Dionysius or Denis Sheridan, had converted to Protestantism in his youth and became vicar of Killasher under the patronage of Bishop Bedell. The extended family were part of a relict group of Protestant Ormondist Tories who continued to adhere to the Jacobite cause in Ireland. Following the 1688 deposition of James II, Sheridan's father joined the Jacobite court in exile in France. In 1710 Sheridan studied law at the Middle Temple, but later became involved in the Jacobite rising of 1715 as a courier. He was afterwards given a variety of conspiratorial or diplomatic missions on behalf of the Jacobite court, including the channeling of correspondence between Ireland and France.