Wise (Wyse), Andrew (d. 1567), vice-treasurer of Ireland, was a younger son of Sir William Wise of Waterford and his wife Elizabeth Plunket. Andrew continued the family tradition of public service and by autumn 1548 was involved in supervising payments to royal soldiers. By 1550 he was deputy to the vice-treasurer of Ireland Sir William Brabazon (qv) and on 20 January 1551 was appointed joint vice-treasurer with Brabazon. He also married Brabazon's daughter. On 7 June 1551 he was made constable of Limerick castle in succession to his father. About this time, he bought the former monastic site at Bective, Co. Meath, for £1,188. However, in September 1551 the royal auditors found that Wise and Brabazon could not produce the warrants authorising their expenditure of £11,859 out of the Irish revenues. They were held jointly liable for this huge sum. In July 1552 Brabazon died, leaving Wise to become sole vice-treasurer, but also solely liable for the debt to the crown. This probably contributed to his decision to divorce his first wife and marry Mary, daughter of Sir Thomas Cusack (qv), lord chancellor of Ireland. They had a daughter, Mary.
The authorities in London rightly suspected that the Irish finances were being managed corruptly. Indeed, throughout the 1540s all of the leading members of the Irish government had systematically undervalued crown property in Ireland and tolerated non-payments of crown rents in order to benefit themselves and their clients. Wise was unfortunate in that he achieved prominence at a time when officials were beginning to investigate the Irish finances; and as the chief financial minister in the Irish government, he became the natural focus for such investigations. However, his colleagues in Dublin vouched for his integrity and he was allowed to continue as vice-treasurer. He remained sufficiently concerned to convey his estate at Bective to a number of trusted friends in 1552 for fear that the crown would seize it from him.
In October 1553 he was summoned to London and was probably imprisoned in the Fleet soon after, due to irregularities in his accounts. He was formally dismissed as vice-treasurer in February 1554 and was told he would remain imprisoned until he repaid the money he owed to the crown. In September 1555 he was found guilty of malpractice in the court of star chamber, and was bound to remain a prisoner in the Fleet until he paid a sum of over £10,000 to the crown. At this point, he stated that he had made unauthorised payments out of the Irish exchequer of £5,000 to the then lord deputy of Ireland, Sir Anthony St Leger (qv). As a result, he appears to have been released in November 1556 in order to prove this claim. In September 1557 he showed bills to the English privy council, upholding his contention. These sums were deducted from his debt to the crown and imposed on St Leger instead. However, he was returned to the Fleet until he paid the remainder of his debts. In September 1558 the crown ordered the Irish government to seize his lands there, but his preemptive conveyance of his estate at Bective appears to have thwarted these designs.
Shortly after the accession of Elizabeth I, he was released in January 1559, possibly because he and his cronies portrayed themselves as victims of religious persecution from the previous reign. However, the new queen was notoriously careful about money and, presumably after becoming more acquainted with the circumstances of Wise's fall, had him returned to the Fleet in May. About this time, his second wife having died, he married Anne, dowager countess of Sussex and daughter of Sir Philip Calthorpe. They had three children. This was a very surprising match given that Wise remained in disgrace and deeply in debt. The fact that the dowager countess had been divorced acrimoniously from her first husband in 1555 suggests that the newlyweds were previously engaged in an adulterous affair.
In 1563 Wise appears free, and by February 1564 he was working for a commissioner inquiring into the state of the Irish administration. His sudden change in fortune was due to the success of his former father-in-law, Cusack, in gaining the queen's trust. Cusack had also been implicated in the financial scandals that had destroyed Wise's career. During 1564–6 the two men sought repeatedly but unavailingly to be cleared of their long-standing convictions for financial impropriety. Wise also tried unsuccessfully to regain the vice-treasurership of Ireland. He died 6 December 1567. Following his death, his daughter from his second marriage, Mary, and his widow, Anne, contested ownership of his estate at Bective.