John Perrot
Sir John Perrot (c. 1527 - September, 1592), lord deputy of Ireland, was borne by Mary Berkley, who soon after married Thomas Perrot, a Pembrokeshire gentleman.
Early Life
Born at Harroldston and reputed to be a son of Henry VIII (whom he was said to resemble), Perrot was attached to the household of William Paulet, 1st marquess of Winchester, and thereby gained his introduction to the king. Before the promise of advancement could be fulfilled, the king died, but Perrot did receive a knighthood at the coronation of the king's successor, Edward VI.
In June 1551 he visited France in the train of the Marquis of Northhampton, which had been sent to arrange the marriage of the king to the infant daughter of Henry II of France. His skill as a knight and in the hunt fascinated the French king, who sought to retain him for reward, but Perrot declined and on his return to England his debts were paid by Edward VI.
During the reign of Mary, Perrot suffered a brief imprisonment in the Fleet with his uncle, Robert Perrot, on a charge of sheltering heretics at his house in Wales. He declined to assist the Earl of Pembroke in seeking out heretics in south Wales, but went on to serve with him at the capture of St Quentin in 1557. In spite of his Protestantism he was granted the castle and lordship of Carew in Pembrokeshire, and at the beginning of Elizabeth's reign the naval defence of South Wales was entrusted to his care.
Munster
In 1570 Perrot reluctantly accepted the newly created post of lord president of the rebellious Irish province of Munster. He landed at the port of Waterford in February of the next year and, during the course of a vigorous campaign in which he pursued the rebel James Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald, the province was reduced to peace. In one notable incident, a challenge to single combat was offered by Perrot to the frustratingly elusive Fitzmaurice, which the rebel declined with the comment, "For if I should kill Sir John Perrot the Queen of England can send another president into this province; but if he do kill me there is none other to succeed me or to command as I do." Soon after, Perrot suffered and ambush by the rebels, who outnumbered his force ten to one, but was saved when the attackers retired, having mistaken a small cavalry company for the advance party of a larger force. In 1572 he had the satisfaction of receiving Fitzmaurice's submission.
Perrot's presidency was marked by over 800 hangings - most of them by martial law - but it can be judged overall as fairly successful. He did resent the reinstatement after the rebellion of the chief nobleman of Munster, Gerald Fitzgerald, 15th Earl of Desmond, and having vainly sought his own recall he departed Ireland without leave in July 1573. Upon presenting himself at court he was permitted to resign his office, in which he was succeeded by Sir William Drury. He returned to his Welsh home, where he became fully occupied with his duties as vice-admiral of the Welsh seas and as a member of the council of the marches. In 1578 he was accused by the deputy-admiral, Richard Vaughan, of tyranny, subversion of justice and of dealings with pirates; but he evidently retained the confidence of the crown, for he was made commissioner for piracy in Pembrokeshire in 1578, and in the next year was put in command of a naval squadron charged with the interception of Spanish ships on the Irish coast.
Lord Deputy of Ireland
In 1582, the recall of Arthur, Lord Grey de Wilton, left vacant the office of lord deputy of Ireland, to which Perrot was appointed in 1584; at about the same time, Sir Richard Bingham was appointed governor of Connaught. Perrot's chief instructions concerned the Plantation of Munster, according to which the confiscated estates of the defeated Earl of Desmond - some 600,000 acres - were to be parcelled out at nominal rents, on condition that the undertakers of the plantation establish English farmers and labourers to build towns and work the land.
Before his government had time to embark on the plantation enterprise, Perrot got wind of raids into Ulster by the Highland clans of Maclean and MacDonnell at the invitation of Sorley Boy MacDonnell, the Scoto-Irish constable of Dunluce Castle. In response the lord deputy marched into the northern province at the head of an army, but Sorley Boy escaped him and crossed over to Scotland, only to return later with reinforcements. Perrot was roundly abused by Elizabeth for launching such a rash and unadvised campaign, but by 1586 Sorley Boy had been reduced to a mutually beneficial submission.
The establishment of the plantation of Munster was to prove a painfully slow affair, but in 1585 Perrot did enjoy success on the perfecting of the composition of Connaught, an unusually even-handed contract between the crown and the landholders of that province, by which the queen was to receive certain rents in return for settling land titles and tenant dues. Of similar significance in that same year was the opening of parliament at Dublin, the first since 1569; the spectacle was enhanced by the attendance of many Gaelic lords, and high hopes were held for the coming sessions. Even though the act for the attainder of Desmond (which rendered the rebel's estates at the disposal of the crown) was passed, Perrot's legislative programme soon ran into difficulty, particularly over the suspension of Poynings' Law, and at the close of parliament in 1587 he was so utterly frustrated with the influence of factions within both houses (orchestrated to a large degree by Sir Thomas Butler, Earl of Ormond) that he sought a recall to England, which was eventually granted.
As lord deputy, Perrot had established peace and deserved well of Elizabeth; but his rash and violent temper, coupled with unsparing criticism, not to say abuse, of his associates, had made him numerous enemies. A hastily conceived plan for the conversion of the revenues of St Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin to fund the erection of two colleges had led to a sustained quarrel with Adam Loftus, archbishop of Dublin, which Perrot exacerbated by interfering with Loftus' authority as lord chancellor.
Perrot had also interfered in Bingham's government of Connaught, and in May 1587 be actually struck Sir Nicholas Bagenal, the elderly knight marshal, in the council chamber at Dublin (an incident blamed on his drunken temper). Elizabeth decided to supersede him in January 1588, but it was only six months later that his successor, the experienced Sir William Fitzwilliam, arrived in Dublin. After his return to England Perrot's enemies continued to work his ruin, which was finally precipitated by a treacherous intrigue, of the kind that marred the final decade of the queen's reign.
Ruin
Perrot was appointed to the privy council upon his return to England, where he maintained his interest in Irish affairs through correspondences with several members of the council at Dublin. During the period after the defeat of the Spanish Armada it was not difficult to raise suspicions over a man's loyalty, with vague suggestions about his religion and his closeness to Spanish authority; when it came to Perrot, the suggestions were anything but vague, since a former priest and condemned prisoner, Dennis O'Roghan, presented Fitzwilliam with correspondence purportedly addressed by Perrot during his time as lord deputy (with his signature attached) to King Philip II of Spain and the Duke of Parma, in which certain treasonable promises and bargains were put forward concerning the future of England, Wales and Ireland.
Fitzwilliam eagerly set up an investigation, but the prisoner had a record of forgery, and it seemed that the allegations would run into the sand. Rather than let the matter lie, it was decided (probably at Perrot's urging) to pursue an inquiry into the manner in which the allegations had been raised in the first place, a process that would tend to embarrass Fitzwilliam. Accordingly, a commission was established, including several of Perrot's favourites on the Irish council, who set about their interrogation of the prisoner.
It was at this point that the affair took a wretched twist: the prisoner made allegations of torture against the commission members, and before long Fitzwilliam was back leading his investigation with strict instructions from the queen to forward the findings to the Privy Council in London, where a decision would be taken on how to proceed. For Perrot it was the moment of crisis, and further allegations were soon made, most notably by his former secretary, of his frequent use in private conversation of violent language against the queen; allegations were also made about his prior knowledge of the rebellion in 1589 of Sir Brian O'Rourke (later extradited from Scotland and hanged at London), which had occurred under the government of Bingham in Connaught.
Perrot was confined to the Tower, and his trial before a special commission on charges of high treason came on in 1592. The forged letters and the evidence concerning the O'Rourke rebellion played their part in the prosecution case, but it was the evidence of his remarks about Elizabeth that really determined the outcome of the jury's deliberation. He was said to have called the queen a "base bastard piskitchin", and to have made disparaging remarks on her legitimacy on many occasions. Perrot protested his loyalty and, in reaction to a hectoring by prosecution counsel, eloquently cried out, "You win men's lives away with words". But his defence fell into confused blustering, and a verdict of guilty was returned. His sentencing was put off for some months, and it was expected that the queen would grant a pardon; in September 1592 Perrot died while in custody in the Tower.
Whether or not there was a single guiding hand in these events, their consequence was that several experienced native-born members of the Irish council, who had been allied in some degree with Perrot, were replaced with English members inclined to take a harder line in dealing with Gaelic Ireland. Fitzwilliam was thus able to pursue a policy opposed in crucial aspects to Perrot's, and the northern lords (including Hugh O'Neill) found themselves subject to increasing government encroachment on their territories, which resulted in the outbreak of the Nine Years War (1595-1603).
Family
Perrot was twice married, to Anne Chayney of Kent who bore his son and heir Thomas, and to Jane Pruet of Devonshire who bore him three children. After his death the attainder on his property was lifted so that his son could inherit. Perrot also fathered several bastard children, including Sir James Perrot (1571-1637), whose manuscript A life of Sir John Perrot was published in 1728.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
