Sir Robert Travers (c. 1596 – 13 November 1647) was an Irish judge, soldier and politician of the early seventeenth century. Despite his unenviable reputation for corruption, he had a highly successful career until the outbreak of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, when he went into opposition to King Charles I. He fought on the side of the Irish Parliament, and was killed at the Battle of Knocknanuss. He was a nephew of the poet Edmund Spenser, and was the founder of a notable military dynasty.
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Background
Robert was born in County Cork about 1596, the eldest son of John Travers of Ballinamona, who was Registrar of the Consistory Court of Cork and of the Diocese of Ross, and his wife Sarah Spenser, sister of Edmund Spenser. His grandfather is recorded as one Brian Travers who came to Ireland from Lancashire in the middle of the sixteenth century. However, there is little evidence for this and a number of writers dispute the link to the Lancashire family. Sarah Spenser came to Ireland in about 1588 to keep house for her brother Edmund, who after the downfall of the Earl of Desmond was granted a part of the Desmond inheritance, including Kilcolman Castle. Edmund granted a portion of his lands to John and Sarah as a wedding gift. Both were buried at Cork in Saint Fin Barre's Cathedral, where Robert erected a memorial to them, but the building has been so much altered since then that no trace of the memorial survives. A St. Fin Barre’s chapter record dated 2 September 1623 shows that George Lee, Dean, and the Chapter, granted to Robert Travers, of Mooretown, in Ibawn, Esq., a place of burial in the south side of the chancel of our Church, next the south wall at the window now the most eastern of the same side, in which place John Travers, father of the said Robert, as well as Sara Spenser, als. Travers, mother of Robert, with his paternal grandmother, as also his two brothers are buried. In which place the said Robert, with our consent, heretofore had erected a marble tomb; until the next walls of the ruin being destroyed through age, in order that they may be repaired anew, the said monument was removed for a time for the sake of safety. The record notes that Sara Spenser is said to have been a sister of the poet.