Created Lord and Baron of Portlester on 5 Mar 1462.

Left no sons.

The family fortunes in Ireland peaked in the 1400's when Sir Edward FitzEustace was Lord Deputy of Ireland and his son, Sir Roland, was Lord Treasurer and Lord Deputy being given the title Lord Portlester. Thirty years later, Sir Thomas, nephew of Sir Roland, was made Lord Kilcullen by Henry VIII and then Viscount Baltinglass. His grandson James Eustace, the 3rd viscount, was a devout Catholic and joined the rebellion against Elizabeth defeating the English army at Glenmalure, on the Kildare-Wicklow border, but later lost his lands and titles. James Eustace's properties were forfeited but his life was spared when he fled to safety in Rome.

Eustace is one of the most distinguished of the names which came to Ireland at the time of the Anglo-Norman invasion. While not multiplying to the same extent as the Burkes, Butlers, FitzGeralds, Powers and other great Hiberno-Norman families, the Eustaces were numerous enough to be classed in Petty's census of 1659 among the principal Irish names in four baronies of Co. Kildare. Yet the name is by no means common today - in 1864 there were 20 Eustace birth registrations, in 1865 and 1866, 18 for each year; while in 1890 the figure was 9, compared with 330 for FitzGerald and 272 for Power or, to take a few less numerous ones at random, Bermingham 40, Comerford 30, Cusack 46. To take this a step farther, in 1890 in all of Ireland, there were 715 Ryan births recorded, 193 Hogan, 147 Cahill; 98 Jordan, 59 Caulfield, 76 Donnellan (also Donelan), 39 Ford, 16 McAndrew and 15 Lang births.
Whatever may be the cause of this numerical reduction since 1659, the elimination of the great, families of the name is due of course to their constant support of the Irish side in the struggles of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. So long as the English connection with Ireland was no more than a suzerainty and the effective control of the country was, in the hands of the Hiberno-Normans, as was the case up to the middle of the sixteenth century, the name Eustace was prominent in the sphere of government. There were many of them sheriffs, constables of castles and the like from 1200 onwards.
In the fifteenth century, Sir Richard Eustace was Lord Chancellor (a position held at different times by four other Eustaces); in 1454 Sir Edward FitzEustace was Lord Deputy; his son, Sir Roland, also Lord Chancellor, was created Baron of Portlester: he founded the Franciscan monastery of New Abbey in Co. Kildare. A century earlier, In 1356, another Eustace founded the Dominican priory at Naas. Sir Roland died in 1496, having occupied the position of Lord Treasurer for 38 years.

Appointments held by members of the Eustace Family.
1233 Lord Treasurer --Eustace, Canon of Chichester
1285 Justice Itinerant--Eustace Le Poer,
1327 Lord Treasurer--Robert FitzEustace of (?)
1426 Lord Chancellor--Sir Richard FitzEustace of Ballycotelan
1436 Lord Chancellor--Sir Richard FitzEustace of Ballycotelan
1452 Lord Deputy--Sir Edward FitzEustace of Castlemartin
1454 Lord Deputy--Sir Edward FitzEustace of Castlemartin
1454 Keeper of the Rolls--Roland FitzEustace, later Baron Portlester
1454 Lord Treasurer--Roland FitzEustace, later Baron Portlester
1462 Lord Deputy --Roland FitzEustace, Baron Portlester,
1472 Lord Chancellor--Roland FitzEustace, Baron Portlester
1482 Baron of the Exchequer--Oliver FitzEustace [his son),
1497 Lord Chancellor--Roland FitzEustace, Baron Portlester,

FitzEustace, Baron Portlester
Main Sources: EUSTACE, Viscount Baltinglass, in [Burkes Extinct]
Edward Fitz-Eustace, had issue:
Rowland FitzEustace, 1st Baron Portlester, lord of Kilcullen, Co. Kildare,
Lord Deputy and Lord High Treasurer of Ireland,
In 1455 he built the SE Chapel of St.Audoen's church (founded 1190), Cornmarket, Dublin (near Christ Church), it is named the "Portlester Chapel" after him, cr 1462, mar Margaret Dartas,
he and Margaret founded convent of Minors Friars (New abbey) at Castlemartin, Kilcullen, Co.Kildare, died 14th Dec 1496, effigies of him and Margaret were placed in the porch of St.Audoen's (at the base of the tower), though they were both actually buried at New abbey, [Burkes Extinct] says his grave stone survived in the 19th cent. in the churchyard of Ballycultane (now Cotlandstown), Co.Kildare, had issue:
1.Alison FitzEustace, step-sister of Eleanor Dowdall, married Garret Mor Fitzgerald, 8th Earl of Kildare and had issue [Elizabeth].
St. Audoen's survives, along with the Portlester Chapel and the effigies. It is the only medieval church surviving intact in Dublin. It is the Protestant church, not to be confused with a 19th cent. Catholic St. Audoen's nearby on High St.

Kilcullen: Four miles (6 km) south of Droichead Nua is the little town of Kilcullen beside the River Liffey. Nearby at New Abbey is the Portlester tomb, which carries sculptured effigies of the fifteenth-century Baron Portlester and his wife.

The Surnames of Co. Kildare
The Eustaces
Second only to the Fitzgeralds in power and influence in Kildare was the Eustace family. The first of the family, the Norman lord, Fitzeustace, is said to have settled at Castlemartin as early as 1200. There were several branches of the family in Kildare and Dublin. The family had castles and lands at Kilcullen, Brannockstown and Nicholastown as well as an estate near Ballymore. Roland Eustace was created Baron Portlester in 1462 and was to play a prominent part in the War of the Roses and, later, in the government of the Pale.
The main branch of the family was Catholic and James, the 3rd Viscount, protesting against the persecution of their religion, supported Mary, Queen of Scots, and fought with Spanish allies near Naas. Following his defeat he was forced into exile in Spain. The present house at Castlemartin was built around the old Eustace castle. The town of Ballymore-Eustace on the Kildare/Wicklow border is especially identified with the family. It was situated in an important area of the Pale, and the family established castles around the town and owned a number of estates in the area at Craddockstown, Coughlanstown, Punchestown and Blackhall.

http://tudorhistory.org/secondary/henry7/c8.html
In the spring of 1492, however, the king having by that time fully satisfied himself of the fact that he had given underhand support to Perkin Warbeck -- "the French lad," as the earl called him, writing to Henry to disavow it -- at length dismissed him from that office and appointed Walter Fitzsimons, Archbishop of Dublin, in his room. The whole govern ment of Ireland at the same time changed hands. Kildare's father-in-law, Baron Portlester, was deprived of the offices of Lord Chancellor and Lord Treasurer, which he held together, the former being conferred on Alexander Plunket and the latter upon James Ormond, soon afterwards knighted for his services to the king, a bastard son of the fifth Earl of Ormond. The long reign of the Geraldines in Ireland, who by favour of the House of York had borne sway for nearly forty years, was at length interrupted for a time.

http://community-2.webtv.net/@HH!ED!D3!3AEED4312BE...LLalpha03/page2.html
Roland, son of Sir Edward FitzEustace, the Lord Deputy, was born about 1430, and was destined soon to become one of the principal men in Ireland during the Wars of the Roses.
He was trained as a barrister, and by 1454 had been appointed Chief Clerk to the King's Bench and Keeper of the Rolls. Later that year he was chosen by the Viceroy, the Duke of York, to be Lord Treasurer, a post he held for thirty-eight years.
He was knighted in 1459, and in 1462 was created by Edward IV, Baron Portlester.1 The following year he was appointed Lord Deputy to the absent Viceroy, the Duke of Clarence.
He was Lord Chancellor from 1472 to 1480 and again from 1486 to 1492. He was Captain of the Brotherhood or Guild of St. George, a body constituted by Act of Parliament in 1472 for the better defense of the Pale.
... It was headed by the 7th Earl of Kildare,
under whom were the elected Captain and eleven other peers and knights, with 120 mounted archers, 40 horsemen and 40 pages.
They had power to make laws and to arrest rebels, and were not dissolved until 1494.
... In 1473, Portlester became a Member of the Fraternity of Arms.
1. Portlester was one of the first Irish peers to be so created by Letters Patent. The only peerages so granted before 1500 being those of the
. . . Earls of Ulster, Carrick, Kildare, Louth, Ormonde, Desmond and Waterford; Viscount Gormanston 1478; andBarons Trimleston 1462, Portlester 1462, and Ratowth 1468.
In 1467 ... he had narrowly escaped execution.
... The Queen, who had been offended by the Earls of Desmond and Kildare,
... contrived that the Earl of Worcester should be sent to Ireland as Lord Deputy.
... Desmond was at once quite unjustly accused and beheaded ... Kildare was attainted; and Portlester charged with treason.
... He offered wager by battle, but his accuser, Sir John Gilbert, fled. With the result that Portlester was completely exonerated by Parliament ... and Sir John attainted.
... Worcester himself was beheaded on Tower Hill in 1470.
The great 8th Earl of Kildare succeeded his father in 1477
... and was appointed Lord Deputy. Portlester,
Although many years his senior, became his firm friend and later his father-in-law.
... The Earl so on held the famous Parliament of Naas ... which refused to recognize the King's representative, Lord Henry Grey.
... He and Portlester found themselves in serious trouble ... but were eventually forgiven. Although Portlester was replaced as Lord Chancellor, by the Bishop of Meath.
... He refused however to hand over the Great Seal to his successor. And another had to be made before the affairs of State could be carried on.
Kildare and Portlester were ardent Yorkists. After the Lancastrian victory at Bosworth in 1485 ... they regarded the new King Henry VII as merely an illegitimate Welsh adventurer.
... When therefore, there arrived in Ireland the Yorkist claimant Lambert Simnel. After a thorough examination ... appeared to be the undoubted son of the Duke of Clarence. He was crowned -in Dublin in 1487.
Kildare and Portlester went to England to support the Yorkist claim. But it ended disastrously at Stokeon-Trent. ... Once again they received a royal pardon.
... Portlester being confirmed as Lord Treasurer, and once more as Lord Chancellor ... by the Tudor King. He seems to have previously assigned, in 1482 ... the office of Chief Baron of the Exchequer to his son, Oliver.
In 1492, the quarrels among the Anglo-Irish at last enabled Henry to displace Kildare and his Council. Portlester soon found himself threatened with a hostile enquiry into the Treasury accounts. He had however run his course, and died in 1496.
He was a generous benefactor of the Church. In 1455, he added the Portlester Chapel at the east end of St. Audoen's Church. It was then the wealthiest parish in Dublin. And in 1486, he founded the Franciscan New Abbey of Grey Friars at Kilcullen.
He was a benefactor of St Malcolyn's, Hollywood (.three miles south of Ballymore Eustace.). And a co-founder of the Guild and Chantries of St Columb, Skreen, and the Chantries at Piercetown, Laundey and Greenoge. He refounded the Guild of English Merchants Trading in Ireland.
He married three times.
+ 1st, Elizabeth... dau of - John Brune
+ 2nd, ~1463 Joanna Bellew (.or Joan.) ...widow of Christopher Plunkett, 1st Lord Killeen, dau of Bellew - of Bellewstown
+ 3rd, ~1467 Margaret D'Artois ... widow of John Dowdall, son of Sir John Dowdall - of Newtown and also the widow of Thomas Barnewall, dau and co-heiress of Jenico D'Artois. She predeceased him, and was buried at St Audoen's - Dublin.
His two sons,
... Oliver and Richard (perhaps illigitimate) predeceased him by only a year or so.
He had four daughters, probably all by his third wife.

On his death in 1496, Thomas, his nephew, son of his brother Richard, succeeded to his estates but the title became extinct.

Index to the Journals of Kildare Archaeological Society
Portlester, Baron of, Sir Roland Eustace:
Volume I : 119, 121, 123.  Volume II : 53, 125-126, 268-269, 428, 439.  Volume III : 314-317.  Volume IV : 65.  Volume XII : 133, 219. 
Portlester, Manor of, Co. Meath:
Volume II : 126.  Volume III : 300-301, 311, 314-316, 484.  Volume IV : 242, 335.  Volume V : 406 fn.

Eustace, or FitzEustace, Sir Roland, Lord Portlester, was descended from a branch of the Geraldines to whom Henry II. had granted the country round Naas. In 1454 he was appointed Deputy to Richard, Duke of York; and again in 1462 he filled the same office for the Duke of Clarence. Subsequently he was tried for plotting with the Earl of Desmond, and acquitted. Created Lord Portlester, he married Margaret, daughter of Janico d'Artois, by whom he had two daughters; the elder married Gerald, 8th Earl of Kildare. He held the office of Treasurer of Ireland for many years, and was in 1474 appointed to the custody of the great seal, which six years afterwards he refused to surrender when the King granted the post to another. This was for a time a great hindrance to public business, until the King authorized the construction of a new great seal for Ireland by Thomas Archbold, Master of the King's Mint in Ireland, and that in Eustace's hands was "damned, annulled, and suspended," while his acts as Treasurer were also repudiated. A turbulent spirit was at that period shown by many of those who should have been foremost among the King's supporters. Eustace refused to give up the seal; his son-in-law Kildare positively declined to admit a new Lord-Deputy, Lord Grey; James Keating, Constable of Dublin Castle, broke down the drawbridge, and defied the Deputy and his three hundred archers and men-at-arms to gain admittance; and the Mayor of Dublin proclaimed that no subsidy should be paid the Earl; while a parliament held at Naas repudiated Lord Grey's authority; and one summoned at Trim declared the proceedings of Kildare's parliament at Naas null and void. Lord Portlester died 14th December 1496, and was buried at Cotlands town, County of Kildare. Two monuments were erected to his memory - one in the new abbey, Kilcullen, which he had founded in 1460; the other in St. Audoen's Church, Dublin, where he had built a chapel to the Virgin.