William Alysaundre

William Alysaundre (died after 1313) was an Irish judge and Crown official in the reigns of King Edward I of England and his son.[1]

He was living in Dublin in 1286.[1] In 1299 he was appointed High Sheriff of Kildare, apparently the first recorded holder of the office.[1] In 1300 he was appointed one of the four itinerant justices for County Louth (John de Ponz being another).[2] He went on circuit as itinerant judge in County Tipperary, and an order survives in the Close Rolls of 1306 for the payment of his half-years' salary of £10 in connection with his duties as a judge in that county. In 1301 he was also acting as justice itinerant in County Cork.[2] He was appointed a justice of the Court of the Justiciar of Ireland in 1311.[1]

He was Deputy Justiciar of Ireland in 1313.[1] In that capacity he went on assize to Tipperary yet again (sitting in Cashel) with Walter de Thornbury, the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, in March.[3] While they also heard civil cases, and the warrant of appointment refers only to such cases,[3] the main business of the assize was the trial of William Ohassy for the murder of John de Nash, for which he was found guilty and condemned to be hanged.

The two judges apparently held a second assize in Cork City in early August. Shortly afterwards Thornbury lost his life in a shipwreck, on his way to the Papal Court at Avignon to secure election as Archbishop of Dublin. Alysaundre's own date of death is not recorded.