Background
He was a grandson of Anthony Street Leger.
He was a grandson of Anthony Street Leger.
Sir William spent several years abroad. Having received a pardon from King James I and extensive grants of land in Ireland, he was appointed President of Munster by Charles I in 1627. He warmly supported the arbitrary government of Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, actively assisting in raising and drilling the Irish levies destined for the service of the king against the Parliament.
In the great Irish Rebellion of 1641 he bore the chief responsibility for dealing with the insurgents in Munster.
But the forces and supplies placed at his disposal were utterly inadequate. His reputation in the minds of Irish nationalist historians is that he executed martial law in his province with the greatest severity, hanging large numbers of rebels, often without much proof of guilt.
In 1843 Daniel O"Connell quoted him as saying about the harsh policy adopted by the government in Dublin: "The undue promulgation of that severe determination to extirpate the Irish and papacy out of the kingdom, your Lordship rightly apprehends to be too unseasonably published" in a such sense that he approved of the policy of extirpation. O"Connell went on "This Saint Leger was himself one of the chief extirpators".
The quotation can also be read in another sense, in that Street Leger"s use of the words "undue", "severe" and "too unseasonably" point to his disapproval of such a policy.
As a landowner, Street Leger"s Irish property would have been worthless without Irish labourers and tenant farmers to work on lieutenant Whether Street Leger ordered or approved of the murders by his force is still unproven. He was still struggling with the insurrection when he died at Cork in 1642.
He was a member of the Irish House of Commons from 1634, as Member of Parliament for County Cork.