Background
Talbot was the son of Sir William Talbot, 1st Baronet, a landowner and politician from Carton, County Kildare.
Talbot was the son of Sir William Talbot, 1st Baronet, a landowner and politician from Carton, County Kildare.
Like most other Old English families, the Talbots remained Roman Catholics after the Reformation. He sat for Wicklow County in the 1634 Irish Parliament. He served as officer in the Leinster Army.
During the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland he was forced to surrender Athlone to the advancing English Republican forces.
Following the outbreak of the Irish Rebellion of 1641, Talbot joined the Irish Catholic Confederates and was a leading member of the Moderate Faction on the Supreme Council.