The Treason and Trial of Sir John Perrot

THE TREASON AND TRIAL OF SIR JOHN PERROT

Sir John Perrot by an unknown artist (c.1730s). The portrait of Perrot is thought to have been commissioned by Sir Herbert Pakington (d. 1748) of Westwood, Worcestershire. By permission of the late sixth Baron Hampton, Richard Pakington.

THE TREASON AND TRIAL OF SIR JOHN PERROT

ROGER TURVEY

UNIVERSITY OF WALES PRESS CARDIFF 2005

© Roger Turvey, 2005 British Library in Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 0-7083-1912-2 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without clearance from the University of Wales Press, 10 Columbus Walk, Brigantine Place, Cardiff, CF10 4UP. www.wales.ac.uk/press

The right of Roger Turvey to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 79 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. The publishers wish to acknowledge the financial support of the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales in the publication of this book.

Printed in Wales by Dinefwr Press, Llandybïe

In memory of my Father David Joseph Howard Turvey 1929–2003 Halen Daear Cymru

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CONTENTS

PREFACE ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

ix xi xiii

PART ONE: TREASON 1 2 3 4 5

SIR JOHN PERROT LORD DEPUTY OF IRELAND COURTIER AND PRIVY COUNCILLOR ENEMIES AND FRIENDS ACCUSATION AND CONSPIRACY

3 14 43 61 88

PART TWO: TRIAL 1 INTRODUCTION

117

THE PROCEDURE IN TREASON TRIALS INDICTMENT AND TRIAL THE JUDGEMENT THE TRIAL RECORD EDITORIAL NOTE

2 THE TEXT: THE ARAIGNEMENT AND JUDGEMENT OF SER JOHN PERROTT KNIGHT ATTAINTED EPILOGUE SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX

134 184 191 199

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PREFACE

When a man has been the subject of few serious biographies in four hundred years it might reasonably be assumed either that he is of no lasting importance or that adequate material for a life does not exist. In the case of Sir John Perrot neither assumption would be correct. He was a man of remarkable personality – ‘a tempestuous and choleric character of Shakespearian proportions’ in the opinion of Sir Glanmor Williams – whose varied career touched on sixteenth-century society at many points. That he has the rarity of having had a near-contemporary biography devoted to him suggests that he had made his mark and had impressed others in his own time. The fact that in 1940 Mr Percy Evans was awarded the degree of MA for a thesis on the life and career of Perrot clearly indicates the existence of sufficient material to sustain and, indeed, warrant a modern published biography. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that in the half-century since Mr Evans’s research Perrot has been neglected, so that his name and deeds are mainly to be found in the footnotes rather than the pages of history. Regrettably, the majority of writers have been content to rework previous efforts so that errors and a great deal of fanciful exaggeration have solidified into a bogus picture of the man. The activities of Perrot’s public and private life deserve comprehensive study for which this book may be regarded as a modest contribution to that greater enterprise. High treason has always been regarded as the most serious of all criminal offences. It involves a breach of the allegiance which a subject owes to the Crown and, even today, it still carries the death penalty. High treason or crimen lesae majestatis was first defined by the Treason Act of 1352 which made it a criminal

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offence to compass the king’s death, to levy war against him, or to ally with his enemies. In the two and a half centuries following its passing, the Treason Act was supplemented on no less than thirty-nine occasions, thirty-two of which were implemented by the more religiously conscious Tudor monarchs. One might argue that, by the end of the sixteenth century, it was almost impossible not to fall foul of treason in one form or another! The aim of this study is to investigate Perrot’s condemnation and trial for high treason. It is a compelling story with a rich cast of dubious characters and a splendid plot involving espionage, counterfeiting, double-dealing, lies and betrayal, together with the added spice of combative courtroom drama. This study will not seek to vindicate Perrot, since that much is obvious from the State Papers, but rather to show how, and why, he was framed for a crime he did not commit. This book has two distinct and related parts. The first deals with the people and the events that led to his being accused of treason. Much of the evidence for this section of the book will be drawn from Perrot’s letters and those of his family and contemporaries, both enemies and friends, together with official correspondence and other government records. The second part of the book is an edition, with introduction, of a late sixteenthcentury transcript of Perrot’s trial and judgement, as recorded by an eye-witness, which subsequently found its way into the British Library’s collection of Lansdowne Manuscripts.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This study of the treason and trial of Sir John Perrot is the product of some eighteen years of work. Shortly before I submitted my thesis for examination on Sir John’s medieval antecedents, I stumbled across what I perceived to be a conspiracy to frame the subject of this book on trumped-up charges of high treason. It surprised me then, and does still, that the man most responsible for Perrot’s cruel fate was Sir William Cecil, Lord Burghley. This flew in the face of perceived traditional and historical wisdom and I was gratified to learn that another historian, Hiram Morgan, had, at about the same time but quite independently, come to the same conclusion. His essays on the extradition and treason trial of Brian O’Rourke and the fall of Sir John Perrot are models of historical investigation and scholarship. I should like to thank Hiram Morgan for his correspondence on matters connected with Perrot and for sharing with me his extensive knowledge of the history of Tudor Ireland. I am grateful too to the Pembrokeshire Historical Society, the Haverfordwest Civic Society and the Welsh History Society, University of Wales, Cardiff, who gave me opportunities, early on in my studies, to air my views in public. It took more than a decade before I was in a position to express them in print and for that I am indebted to the University of Wales Press. I am especially delighted to acknowledge the generous financial assistance I received from the Thomas Edward Ellis Memorial Fund and the University of Wales Guild of Graduates Publications Fund. Without their generosity this book would not have seen the light of day. I would like to thank also the Director of the University of Wales Press, Ashley Drake. I am equally grateful to the British Library, London, for permission

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to edit and publish the original manuscript, Lansdowne MS 72 f. 8 seq., which differed in small but significant details from the editions printed in State Trials. To the staffs of the British Library, Bodleian Library, Public Record Office and Alnwick Castle, I wish to offer my thanks for their courteous help and assistance. The staff of the library of University of Wales, Swansea, also deserve a mention for their unfailing courtesy and willingness to allow me regular access to the locked store to consult impossibly large and heavy volumes of antiquarian books. In preparing this study I have received generous support from three former teachers: the late Professor Emeritus Sir Glanmor Williams, Professor Emeritus Ralph A. Griffiths and Research Professor Gareth Elwyn Jones. Each took time out of their busy schedules to read and comment on drafts of Part One of this book. I wish to record my appreciation of the care and thoroughness of the editorial work undertaken by Nia Peris and her colleagues at the University of Wales Press. I also wish to express my gratitude to my daughters, Siân Eleri and Aranwen Jane, for putting up with their father’s obsession for a man whose portrait has dominated our living room for nearly all of their lives. Last, but by no means least, I wish to record a special debt to my wife Carol for her unstinting support of my work, for her infinite patience and for her willingness to proof-read all that is put before her. Needless to say, any errors that remain are entirely down to me. Finally, it behoves me, by way of tribute, to mention the late Lord Hampton, Richard Pakington, who not only showed a friendly interest in my work over many years, but who invited me to his home to view, photograph and discuss the portrait and life of his ancestor, Sir John Perrot.

ABBREVIATIONS

Anal. Hib. APC Bagwell Bindoff, Hist. Parl. BL BLO Cal. Carew MSS

Cal. Salisbury MSS Camden, Annales

Camden Soc. Misc. CCR CPR CSPD CSPI DNB DWB

Analecta Hibernica Acts of the Privy Council of England R. Bagwell, Ireland under the Tudors (3 vols., London, 1885–90) S. T. Bindoff (ed.), The History of Parliament: The Commons, 1509–1558 (3 vols., London, 1982) British Library, London Bodleian Library, Oxford Calendar of the Carew Manuscripts preserved in the archiespiscopal library at Lambeth, 1515–1624, ed. J. S. Brewer and W. Bullen (6 vols., London, 1867–73) Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Marquis of Salisbury at Hatfield House (24 vols., London, 1883–1976) W. Camden, Annales: The True and Royall History of the famous Empresse Elizabeth, Queene of England (London, 1625) Camden Society Miscellany Calendar of Close Rolls Calendar of Patent Rolls Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Calendar of State Papers, Ireland Dictionary of National Biography Dictionary of Welsh Biography

xiv

ECS, Govt. of Ireland

ABBREVIATIONS

E.C.S., The Government of Ireland under Sir John Perrot, 1584–1588 (London, 1626) EHR English Historical Review Hasler, Hist. Parl. P. W. Hasler (ed.), The History of Parliament: The House of Commons, 1558–1603 (3 vols., London, 1981) HMC Historical Manuscripts Commission IHS Irish Historical Studies Life, Deedes and Death R. K. Turvey (ed.), A Critical Edition of Sir James Perrot’s ‘The Life, Deedes and Death of Sir John Perrott, Knight’ (Lewiston, 2002) Naunton, Frag. Reg. Sir Robert Naunton, Fragmenta Regalia (3rd edn, London, 1653) NLW National Library of Wales NLWJ National Library of Wales Journal PCC Prerogative Court of Canterbury PLP Percy Letters and Papers, Alnwick Castle PRIA Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy PRO Public Record Office, London SP State Papers WHR Welsh History Review Wood, Chron. Ire. Sir James Perrott, The Chronicle of Ireland, 1584–1608, ed. Herbert Wood (Dublin, 1933)

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PART ONE

TREASON

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A man in stature very tall and bigg, exceeding the ordinary stature of men by much, and almost equal to the mightiest men that lived in his time: His body was very compact, and proportionable through all the partes: As he did exceed most men in stature, so did he in strength of body, His hair was alborne, untill it grew gray in his elder yeares. His countenance full of majestie, his eye marvelous percing, and carrying a commanding aspect, insomuch that when he was angrie, he had a very terrible visage or looke; and when he was pleased, or willing to shew kindness, he then had as amiable a Countenance as any man: All which, as many as knew hym can well testify for a truth.1

This description of Sir John Perrot was written by one who knew and admired him, his bastard son, Sir James. It is a vivid and life-like portrait of a man who made a lasting impression on all who met or came into contact with him. By his own admission he was ‘cholericke’ by nature and ‘would (being moved by wrath) sweare too much’, which, according to his son, proceeded ‘partly from costome and partly from choller, he could hardly refrayne it when he was provocked’.2 In his ‘Introduction to Polite Conversation’ (1738), Jonathan Swift wrote that ‘Sir John Perrot was the first man of quality, whom I find upon record to have sworn by G[od’s] W[ounds]’.3 Perrot could also be physically violent, and his brawling encounters with men of inferior and superior social status became the stuff, if not of 1 R. K. Turvey (ed.), A Critical Edition of Sir James Perrot’s ‘The Life, Deedes and Death of Sir John Perrott, Knight’ (Lewiston, 2002), p. 11. 2 Ibid., p. 12. 3 The Works of Jonathan Swift (6 vols., Dublin, 1735 and 1738), Vol. VI (1738), p. 230.

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legend, then certainly of tale and gossip. His more estimable characteristics were just as striking as his faults, for he was possessed of great courage and was a valued and loyal friend. He was a gallant gentleman who lived by a strict code of honour that included a strong work ethic. It is perhaps ironic to relate that he was brought down by men of wit and ability but less chivalrous and principled than the man they destroyed. John Perrot was born in November 1528 probably at Haroldston in Pembrokeshire, the principal seat of the Perrot family.4 He was possibly the youngest of the three children of Thomas Perrot, and his wife Mary, the only child of James Berkeley of Thornbury, Gloucestershire, the younger son of Maurice, Lord Berkeley. Contrary to the popular and oft-quoted myth (the origin of which may be attributed to the intended slander of his enemies and to the unintended libel of Sir Robert Naunton), Perrot’s mother was never a mistress of Henry VIII and he, consequently, was not the bastard son of the Tudor king.5 His parents’ marriage was arranged at great cost by Maurice, Lord Berkeley who had purchased the wardship and marriage of both Mary, his niece, and, two years after the death of his father Sir Owen in December 1521, Thomas Perrot. Upon their marriage, sometime after Thomas came of age in August 1526, and contingent on the will of Lord Berkeley, the considerable sum of 500 marks was settled on the young couple. Like his father (Sir Owen died aged 41 in 1521) and elder brother (Robert died aged 18 in 1522), Thomas died young, aged 26 in September 1531. Within a year of the death of his father, Perrot’s mother had married Sir Thomas Jones of Llanegwad and (from 1546) Abermarlais, Carmarthenshire, who then settled at Haroldston.6 4 R. K. Turvey, ‘Sir John Perrot (1528–92): A Fourth Centenary Retrospective’, Journal of the Pembrokeshire Historical Society, 5, 1992–3 (1993), 15–31; idem., ‘A Note on the Date of Birth of Sir John Perrot’, National Library of Wales Journal, 30 (1994), 233–8; idem., ‘Sir John Perrot’, in H. C. G. Matthew and B. Harrison (eds), The New Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004). 5 R. K. Turvey, ‘Sir John Perrot: King Henry VIII’s Bastard? The Destruction of a Myth’, The Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, 1992 (1994), 79–94. 6 R. K. Turvey, ‘Household, Court and Localities: Sir Thomas Jones and the Rise of “that great family of Jones of Abermarlais”’, The Welsh History Review, 22 (2004), 29–51.

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The marriage (the second for both) produced five children, the eldest of whom, Sir Henry Jones, formed a particularly close relationship with his half-brother Perrot. Having acquired his stepson’s wardship in February 1533, Jones set about the task of managing the Perrot estates and seeing to his ward’s education and upbringing. We know little about Perrot’s early life apart from the fact that he was brought up in a large household of ten children (his stepfather having two daughters from a previous marriage) and one which seems to have been cosmopolitan in culture, tolerant in religion and bilingual in speech. His Welshspeaking stepfather patronized the bards, one of whom, Dafydd Fynglwyd, composed a poem (c. late 1530s–early 1540s) in praise of the young Perrot, and, despite Jones’s own strong adherence to the Catholic faith, he procured his stepson a place at the cathedral school at St David’s, then in the care of the Protestant bishop, William Barlow.7 Here, Perrot was introduced to what became a lifelong attachment to the Protestant faith and where he developed his flair for languages, becoming fluent, by his own admission and by the reports of contemporaries, in French, Spanish, Italian and Latin. Aged eighteen, Perrot proceeded to London where his stepfather’s connections at Court (he was groom of the chamber in 1513 and gentleman usher in 1532) secured him a place in the house of William Paulet, Baron St John (later the first Marquis of Winchester), the Lord Treasurer of England. Here, in the company of Henry Neville, sixth Baron Bergavenny and John de Vere, sixteenth Earl of Oxford, Perrot completed his formal education. However, he soon gained an unenviable reputation for violence which, added to his arbitrary disposition, ensured a turbulent apprenticeship. He twice fell out with Neville, with whom he brawled once so violently that they reportedly broke glasses ‘about one another’s ears’ so that ‘blood besprinkled . . . the chamber’.8 It was to a fracas, in which he was injured, with two yeomen of the guard when going ‘into Southwarke (as it was supposed to a place of pleasure) taking but a page with him’ that he owed his introduction to Henry VIII.9 Unfortunately, due to 7 NLW Llanstephan MS 30, f. 447. A paper on the poem addressed to Perrot is in preparation. 8 Life, Deedes and Death, p. 14. 9 Ibid., p. 14.

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the King’s death in January 1547, a promise of preferment never materialized, though Perrot need not have worried for his connections were such as almost to guarantee him a place at the Court of Edward VI. Besides the influence of his stepfather, and of his patron Paulet who, as Lord President of the Council, may have been instrumental in securing Perrot’s election to Parliament (for Carmarthenshire) on the death of Sir Richard Devereux in November 1547, his uncle Rice (Rhys) Perrot was reader in Greek to the young king.10 Knighted by King Edward within a week of attaining his majority on 17 November 1549, Perrot had aligned himself with John Dudley, earl of Warwick, with whose eldest son, Ambrose, he established a lifelong friendship, in the coup d’état against Protector Somerset, Edward Seymour. In February 1550, Perrot’s stepfather formally relinquished his interest in his stepson’s estates though it was not until May that the process was completed. The attractions of the Court and the distractions of London life conspired to delay Perrot’s first step into local administration and it was not until September 1552 that he was pricked, succeeding his cousin John Perrot of Scotsborough as sheriff of Pembrokeshire. As a result of his connections at Court and his perceived skill in knightly exercises, in May 1551 Perrot accompanied the lord chamberlain, William Parr, first marquis of Northampton, to France to negotiate a marriage between the teenage King Edward and the infant daughter of the French king, Princess Elizabeth. Perrot’s reckless courage and passion for the hunt attracted the attention of a grateful King Henry II whom he saved from a lifethreatening encounter with a wounded boar. Declining an invitation and generous pension to serve the French king, Perrot returned to England having enhanced his reputation for gallantry but denuded his purse of funds. At home his profligacy continued unabated and within a short time he found himself in considerable pecuniary difficulties. In a letter to a friend Perrot admitted to his reckless spending on ‘the tilt and other toys I am ashamed to tell’.11 Forced to mortgage part of his Pembrokeshire estates to meet debts, reported by his biographer-son Sir James (d. 1637) to have been between £7,000 10 S. T. Bindoff (ed.), The History of Parliament: The House of Commons, 1509–1558 (3 vols., London, 1982), Vol. III, pp. 86–8. 11 BL Harleian MS 5992, f. 9.

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and £8,000, Perrot is said also to have sought the aid of a sympathetic King Edward who persuaded the Council to grant him a minimum of £100 per annum from concealed lands which he might discover. The king’s generosity notwithstanding, salvation for Perrot came in the shape of his mother and stepfather who, between them, made over to him a number of properties in Pembrokeshire some of which were held in dower. Marriage, too, may have eased the burden of debt inasmuch as Perrot could expect his bride, Ann, to be well provided for, she being the daughter of Sir Thomas Cheyney of Shurland, Kent. Tragically, his wife died in September 1553 while giving birth to a son Thomas (d. 1594) who survived to briefly succeed his father in 1592. Unusually for the time, Perrot remained unmarried for some ten years until in 1563–4 he took as his wife Jane Pollard (d. 1593), daughter of Hugh Prust of Thornery, Devon, and widow of Lewis Pollard (d. 1563) of Oakford, Devon. Together they had three children, a son William (d. 1587) and daughters Lettice and Ann. Perrot’s active libido ensured the birth of further children in less legitimate circumstances of whom the following are known: Sir James (1571–1637), John (b. c.1565), Elizabeth and an unnamed daughter. On account of his powerful standing at Court, Cheyney’s influence served Perrot well and it was his father-in-law, Cheyney, who, as Lord-Warden of the Cinque Ports, ensured his return as member for Sandwich, Kent, in the Marian Parliaments of 1553 and 1555. Not surprisingly, the Marian Restoration was not to Perrot’s liking and though the fact of his being a Protestant did not at first militate against him with Queen Mary, who ‘did favor hym very well, and would say that she did lyke exceedinge well of hym, and had a hope he would prove a worthy subject but that (as hir words were) he did smell of the smoake, meaninge thereby his religion’, he soon fell foul of the new regime.12 In January 1554, he clashed with the servants of William Somerset, third earl of Worcester, for which he was briefly imprisoned in the Fleet. Soon after, he refused to accept a commission issued by William Herbert, earl of Pembroke, to hunt down his co-religionists in south-west Wales, preferring instead to risk the wrath of the government by 12

Life, Deedes and Death, p. 19.

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sheltering heretics in his home at Haroldston. Among those who had cause to thank Perrot for his protection were his uncle Rhys, Laurence Nowell and possibly his brother Alexander, and an otherwise unknown Mr Banister. Sure enough, Perrot was denounced by a neighbour, Thomas Catherne of Prendergast, and was again briefly imprisoned in the Fleet. Undeterred, Perrot continued to live dangerously, aligning himself with the opposition in Parliament, which resulted in another violent quarrel with Pembroke when the latter objected to his support of Sir Anthony Kingston and Sir Edward Hastings, closely followed by his arrest in April 1556 on suspicion of complicity in the Dudley conspiracy. Lack of evidence and Court connections saved him from a longer spell of imprisonment, or worse, in the Tower but even Perrot came to realise that the government was fast running out of patience and he out of luck. He thought it best to remove himself from the kingdom and having made up his quarrel with Pembroke, he set sail with the earl’s forces for France. Pembroke’s earlier magnanimous gesture in supporting Perrot’s suit for the castle and lordship of Carew, which won the Queen’s approval, and the fact that his younger son, Sir Edward Herbert, was friendly with Perrot, did much to heal the rift between them, but it was to be their service together at the siege and capture of St Quentin in July–August 1557 that set the seal on their reconciliation. On his return from military service Perrot was plunged yet again into bitter dispute with Catherne whom he took, after breaking into his house, into custody at Carew castle. Both were summoned to appear before the Council in June 1558, where Perrot was found to be at fault having ‘exceeded his commission and misused himself’.13 After a brief period in the Fleet Perrot was released on condition he agreed to be bound over in a recognizance of £200 to keep the peace. Mary’s death in November 1558 proved fortunate for Perrot. A commission convened in September to investigate Catherne’s accusations against him was allowed to lapse and on the accession of Elizabeth he was freed from yet another prison sentence, this time in the Marshalsea, to which he had been committed for non-appearance at court on an attachment for debt. Elizabeth 13

Bindoff, Hist. Parl., Vol. III, p. 88.

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favoured him and as a mark of her trust he was appointed to be one of the four gentlemen chosen to carry the canopy of state at her coronation. In a remarkable series of appointments between 1559 and 1562, which included the stewardships of the manors of Carew, Coedrath and Narberth, the constableship of Narberth and Tenby castles, the gaolership of Haverfordwest prison (1559), election as mayor of Haverfordwest (1560) and, by 1562, custos rotulorum of the county-borough of Haverfordwest and vice-admiral of the coast of south Wales, Perrot consolidated his hold on the government and administration of Pembrokeshire. In addition to investing Perrot with profitable Crown offices, the regime also showered him with grants of land and advowsons in south-west Wales and elsewhere in England. His commission, in 1561, to discover concealed lands (principally those formerly belonging to the priory of Haverfordwest) added considerably to his own landed wealth but inevitably brought him into conflict with his neighbours, whose titles were thus challenged, and among those pursued was his old adversary Catherne. His relentless pursuit of power in Pembrokeshire during the 1560s and 70s made him very unpopular and gave rise to an anti-Perrot faction which attempted, with some success, to block his progress. In 1572, while Perrot was away in Ireland, they wrested control of the town of Haverfordwest from him and succeeded in having their man, Catherne’s son-in-law, Alban Stepney, elected to serve the borough as its MP. However, in the face of Perrot’s increasing wealth and influence – he counted Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester, Thomas Radcliffe, earl of Sussex, Sir Henry Sidney and Sir Francis Walsingham among his friends and patrons – it never amounted to more than a rearguard action. Never shy of resorting to law to browbeat his enemies into submission, Perrot is said by his contemporary, the antiquarian-squire of Henllys, George Owen, to have ruined a number of gentlemen in the process of prosecuting, and being prosecuted by, them.14 Although not the regime’s first choice for service in Ireland to head the newly created presidency of Munster, Perrot’s growing political and administrative experience, added to his rugged individualism and uncompromising approach to resolving 14 BL Lansdowne MS 72, f. 2. A paper on Owen’s list of Perrot’s enemies is in preparation.

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problems, was thought fit for the task of settling this disturbed region of the Irish realm. Plagued by rebellion since 1569, led by James Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald, the province had first to be pacified before its reformation and plantation could properly begin. Offered the post in December 1570, Perrot reluctantly accepted and, in February 1571, in the company of his friend Thomas Butler (‘Black Tom’), tenth earl of Ormond and (since 1559) treasurer of Ireland, he set sail for Waterford. On taking the oath before Lord Deputy Sidney, who departed Dublin for home within weeks of Perrot being sworn in, the president made haste for Cork. Perrot continued the reign of terror initiated in Munster by his predecessor, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, and in the space of two years he dispatched to the gallows over 800 rebels. Fitzmaurice proved to be a resourceful opponent and, hampered by lack of resources and manpower, Perrot took fully two years to bring the rebel to heel. The constant campaigning took their toll on Perrot who complained in a letter to Walsingham that for every white hair he had brought over with him he could now show sixty. Dissatisfied with the level of support given him by the Privy Council and angered by accusations of dishonesty and malpractice in his seizure of a Portuguese merchantman, the Peter and Paul, laden with valuable spices (for which a Parisian grocer attempted to sue him in court!) Perrot took his leave of Ireland in July 1573.15 Having left Ireland without permission, Perrot’s enemies fully expected the Queen to issue a severe and public reprimand but none came. Pleading ill-health as an excuse for not returning to Munster, though the Queen wished him to do so, Perrot retired home to Carew. In a letter to the Queen’s principal secretary William Cecil, first Baron Burghley, Perrot declared that it was his intention ‘to lead a countryman’s life and to keep out of debt’.16 His retirement from public office lasted a little more than eighteen months when, in September 1574, Perrot was appointed to the Council in the Marches of Wales. In Pembrokeshire too he was busy consolidating his power, being joined by his son and heir, Thomas, whom he invested with the 15 A paper on Perrot, Court faction and the affair of the Peter and Paul is in preparation. 16 Calendar of State Papers, Ireland, 1574–85, p. 62.

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house and manor of Haroldston not long after the latter attained his majority. Serving consecutive terms as mayor of Haverfordwest (1575–7) finally put paid to the anti-Perrot faction, the scale of whose defeat can best be appreciated by the fact that of the thirteen mayors elected in the fifteen years after Perrot’s mayoralty (1576–91), all but three can be closely connected with either him or his son Thomas.17 Perrot attended Court infrequently during this period (1573–9), but his years were nevertheless well-spent, inasmuch as he busied himself with enlarging and better managing his estates. However, not everyone appreciated Perrot’s agricultural improvements or the means he employed to increase significantly his income from his estates. Accusations of rack-renting, encroachments and enclosures were upheld by his biographer-son Sir James who, while admitting that his father ‘was somewhat complained of in his life-time’, had nevertheless ‘improved his lands to a high rate’ and in mitigation stated that ‘there are none of his tenants but would be glad to take leases thereof now, and pay somewhat more [for it]’.18 That Perrot did maintain ‘the part rather of a nobleman than of a knight . . . in retinue, in house-keeping and in all other respects’, is made manifest, in part, by the fact that he was able to take thirty-four servants kitted out in his livery, sporting the family’s distinctive crest, namely ‘parrot with pear in claw’, to serve him in Ireland.19 Of greater, and more lasting, significance in respect of Perrot’s public demonstration of his wealth and power were his ambitious building projects, which involved the conversion of the medieval castles of Laugharne (granted him by the Queen in 1575) and Carew into mansions of some architectural pretension. That neither was fully completed by the time of his death owed more to his political difficulties after 1590 than to any loss of interest on his part. Nor had he over-reached himself financially, being a more prudent man than in his youth, he managed, in April 1590, to raise without much difficulty £1,500 from current rents alone. Not without good reason did 17 R. K. Turvey, ‘Sir John Perrot and Haverfordwest’, in Dillwyn Miles (ed.), A History of the Town and County of Haverfordwest (Llandysul, 1999), pp. 153–76. 18 Life, Deedes and Death, p. 12 19 Ibid.

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contemporaries credit him with being wealthy but they tended also to exaggerate his riches. Restless, Perrot wrote regularly to the Privy Council over many months with ideas on how Ireland might be better governed, so that he was eventually called upon to serve the Crown in a military capacity, but this time at sea. In August 1579 he was given command of a squadron of ships and entrusted with the task of intercepting and destroying any Spanish or pirate vessels appearing off the southern coast of Ireland. Taking his son Thomas with him, Perrot cruised off shore for some weeks, occasionally putting in to port and spending time ashore at places such as Baltimore, Cork and Waterford. At Waterford they met Perrot’s successor as Lord President of Munster, Sir William Drury, who shortly before his death knighted William George, William Pelham and Perrot’s son, Thomas. Thinking that the danger of invasion had passed, and with the closing of the season, in mid-October Perrot turned for home but, as he did so, he encountered a notorious pirate called Deryfold whom he determined to apprehend. Perrot gave chase and overtook his quarry near the Flemish coast after which he made for the Thames. Unfortunately, his ship ran aground on the Kentish Knocks and as he and his companions struggled to cope with the storm that threatened to break up their vessel they prepared to die. As Perrot’s ‘nearest followers and friends came to take their last farewell of him, amongst the rest his son Sir Thomas was one to whom he said “Well Boy, God bless you and I give you my blessing. I wish to God that you were ashore and the Queen’s ship safe then I should care the less about myself.”’20 Needless to say, Perrot, his son and shipmates were spared when their ship, on the advice of Deryfold, righted itself and they sailed into the Thames and on to Greenwich palace. Calls for his arrest on charges of misconduct and mission failure were ignored by the Queen, who reacted sympathetically to Perrot’s request that Deryfold be pardoned for his exceptional and lifesaving seamanship. However, such gallantry was viewed with suspicion by his enemies, who had not long before accused him of trafficking with pirates in Welsh waters. Attempts by his successor as vice-admiral of south Wales, Sir William Morgan of 20

Ibid., p. 58.

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Pencoed, and his deputy, Richard Vaughan of Whitland, to have him arrested and charged came to nothing, and although Perrot cannot be declared entirely innocent in respect of his dealings with pirates, the extent to which he has been credited with having been involved with them has been exaggerated. In 1584 the call for his services once again echoed within the walls of the Court. The Queen, determined to deal effectively but cheaply with Ireland, was sufficiently impressed by Perrot’s treatise (1581) on the better government of the island to offer him the opportunity to put his ideas into practice. Through a combination of his own ego, the Queen’s flattery and the prestige that came with the position and influence of the Lord-Deputyship of Ireland (and despite the earnest advice of his step-brother Sir Henry Jones not to go), Perrot was seduced into accepting the appointment.

2 LORD DEPUTY OF IRELAND

He was sent Lord Deputy into Ireland (as it was thought) for a kind of haughtinesse of spirit, and repugnancy in Councels; or as others have thought, the fittest person then to bridle the insolency of the Irish; And probable it is, that both these (considering the sway that he would have at the Board, and head in the Queens favour) concurred and did a little conspire his remove, and his ruine.1

It has long been believed that the seeds of Perrot’s downfall were sown during his time as Lord Deputy of Ireland between 1584 and 1588. Taking their lead from such writers as Naunton and, more especially, Robert Dunlop’s article in the The Dictionary of National Biography, where Perrot is said to have ‘returned from Ireland in disgrace in 1588 and was committed to the Tower of London’, many historians have been content to accept this version of events almost without question.2 However, it will be shown that although there is some truth in the belief that his service in Ireland contributed to his downfall, being not so much what he did there as how he did it and to whom, it was a more complex and protracted affair than has hitherto been assumed. Indeed, Perrot came home more in triumph than in disgrace, and although his achievements in Ireland were somewhat exaggerated, most notably by himself and by some of his peer group, such as Walsingham and Ambrose Dudley, he managed to return to Court with his reputation intact. His reward was a seat

1 Sir Robert Naunton, Fragmenta Regalia (3rd edn, London, 1653). In English reprints, ed. Edward Arber (London, 1895), p. 42. 2 Sidney Lee (ed.), The Concise Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 1939), p. 1031.

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on the Queen’s Privy Council, a promotion wherein, it may be argued, lay the true seeds of his fall from grace. Perrot was no stranger to Ireland and Irish affairs; he had served a term as Lord President of Munster (1571–73), had commanded a fleet in defence of southern Ireland, occasionally putting in to Irish ports (1579), and had badgered the Privy Council with proposals for its better government during the late 1570s and early 1580s.3 With the recall of Arthur, Baron Grey de Wilton, in July 1582, the Crown was seeking a suitable replacement who could ‘undo the alienation of the queen’s subjects which had resulted from the forceful and sometimes rash actions of’ the out-going Lord Deputy.4 In the wake of Sir Henry Sidney’s failed attempt to secure a third term as Lord Deputy of Ireland, by December 1582 Perrot was being spoken of as the man most likely to succeed Grey’s short but bloody term of office.5 There was much to recommend the choice of Perrot, for besides his previous experience as a provincial governor, he was thought sufficiently wise in Irish affairs for the Queen to ask his advice on policy. The result was his ‘Plat for Ireland’, a short treatise, written in 1581, in which he outlined his ‘Opinion for the suppressing of Rebellion, and the well governing of Ireland’.6 The treatise was a lucid, if generally unoriginal, analysis of Irish problems at that time and although he included many ideas then in vogue, he also included some ‘pet schemes’ of his own, such as the debasement of the Irish currency and the removal of the seat of government ‘from Dublin (which is apt for nothing else, but to send and receive readily from England) to Athlon[e], which is (as it were) the Centre of Ireland’.7 If, as has been claimed, the Queen was so ‘impressed by the suggestions it contained’ that she ‘decided to give its author an opportunity to put them into execution’, then she did so with the advice and assent 3 Ciaran Brady, The Chief Governors: The Rise and Fall of Reform Government in Tudor Ireland, 1536–1588 (Cambridge, 1994), p. 293. 4 Nicholas Canny, Making Ireland British 1580–1650 (Oxford, 2001), p. 104. 5 Ciaran Brady, A Viceroy’s Vindication?: Sir Henry Sidney’s Memoir of Service in Ireland 1556–1578 (Cork, 2002), p. 6; Richard Bagwell, Ireland under the Tudors (3 vols., London, 1885–90), Vol. III, p. 116. 6 E.C.S., The Government of Ireland under Sir John Perrot, 1584–1588 (London, 1626), pp. ix–xxx. 7 Hiram Morgan, Tyrone’s Rebellion: The Outbreak of the Nine Years War in Tudor Ireland (Woodbridge, 1993), p. 30; ECS, Govt. of Ireland, p. xxii.

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of her closest advisers, some of whom were favourably disposed towards Perrot.8 Foremost among them was the earl of Leicester (who had earlier advanced Grey for the post of Lord Deputy after having his original choice, his nephew Sir Phillip Sidney, rejected by the Queen), his brother the earl of Warwick and their brother-in-law, Sir Henry Sidney. Perrot was, and had been for some thirty years, closely associated with the LeicesterWarwick-Sidney group whom he considered as much friends as patrons. Certainly, Sidney had no doubt of Perrot’s suitability for the post of Lord Deputy, stating that ‘in my opinion, he is the most complete and best humoured man to deal with that nation I know living’.9 This was high praise from one who, after many years service, knew well the problems of governing Ireland and who had, more than a decade earlier, recommended Perrot for the post of Lord President of Munster. In his memoir of service which he wrote early in 1583 and addressed to his son’s prospective father-in-law, Sir Francis Walsingham, Sidney said of Perrot’s former service, ‘I assure you he did most notable, as well in martial actions as politique constitutions’.10 Therefore, one suspects that Perrot’s appointment had as much to do with subtle manoeuvrings at Court on his behalf as with the Queen’s reportedly favourable response to his proposed Irish reform programme. Rumour of his impending appointment as Lord Deputy did not become fact until a year later when, in the winter of 1583, Perrot himself finally entered into negotiation with the Queen and Privy Council over the deputyship. Whether the delay in confirming Perrot’s appointment was due to some design or posturing on his part, or on the part of his backers in some wider struggle over patronage at Court, he seemed genuinely reluctant to take up his appointment. Besides a real concern over the likely cost to his purse of serving in Ireland – he estimated that his new service would cost him at least £3,900 – Perrot was subject to the dissuasive arguments put forward by his friends and family from accepting the post.11 According to his biographer-son, 8 P. C. C. Evans, ‘Sir John Perrot’ (unpublished MA thesis, University of Wales [Cardiff], 1940), p. 172. 9 Brady, Viceroy’s Vindication, p. 73. 10 Ibid. 11 SP63/108/85.

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Perrot’s half-brother, Sir Henry Jones, ‘did seame to foresee and shew what danger [he] should fall into by that imployment being Lord Deputy of Ierland’.12 In a letter delivered to his halfbrother as he ‘was redie to depart for Ierland’, Sir Henry began with teares to lament the fortunes and, as it were, the fall of Sir John Perrott saying ‘Alas what is ment my brother to undertake this service, he might have leived at home as well as any man of his sorte in this kingdom, and now he shall be envied more than ever he was. Well commend me unto hym, and tell hym I thinke I shall never see hym agayne.’13

On the other hand, there were those among his friends who sought to ease his doubts and persuade him to take up the appointment. One such was Thomas Butler, the earl of Ormond, who on ‘meetinge with Sir John Perrott, rejoyced much at his goeing to be Lord Deputie [and] remayned with hym at the castell of Carew, duringe his aboad there’.14 Walsingham too encouraged Perrot to serve in Ireland by promising to support him in his endeavour, as, doubtless, did the Dudleys and Sidney who, together, were keen to secure the services of one favourable to themselves and who might be relied on not only to erase the disgrace suffered by their protégé Grey, but to succeed where he had failed. Indeed, if, as Nicholas Canny claims, ‘the recall of Grey presaged a policy change by the queen, which indicated that the formulation of policy for Ireland was shifting from the hands of . . . Sir Francis Walsingham to Burghley’, then Perrot’s appointment may be seen as a calculated move by Walsingham whereby he might retain some control, if not of policy, then of its execution.15 This is not to suggest that there was a struggle for power over policy, with Perrot as its unwitting, or even willing, pawn, but rather differences of opinion between Walsingham and Burghley. This was not yet the era of strident factionalism when ‘the politics of competition’ replaced 12

Life, Deedes and Death, p. 68. Ibid., p. 69. 14 SP63/110/40; Bagwell, Vol. III, p. 123. In fact, during his month-long stay in south-west Wales Ormond accompanied Perrot to his brother’s house at Abermarlais where they remained for a fortnight before returning to Carew at the beginning of June. 15 Canny, Making Ireland British, p. 126. 13

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‘the politics of collegiality’.16 Nevertheless, in a prophetic echo of the hard fate that was to befall him it is significant that Perrot’s predecessor, Grey, was wont to complain to Walsingham that Burghley listened too much to slanders.17 Although Perrot, like Grey, looked more firmly towards Walsingham than Burghley for patronage, he was, nonetheless, warmly disposed to the latter with whom he had struck up a flexible and generally amicable working relationship over the years. If anything, Perrot was, and Burghley presumably knew him to be, more independently minded than most who sought patronage at Court, being ‘a person that loved to stand . . . on his own legges’ and therefore unlikely to be the willing tool of any one group or individual.18 Consequently, Burghley is probably not to be counted among those either in Court or in Council who opposed Perrot’s appointment. That his appointment did not receive the unequivocal backing of all who attended the Court is suggested in a letter, dated 2 December 1584, from Christopher Carleill, captain of the garrison at Coleraine, to his stepfather, Walsingham, in which he states that ‘here it is generally conceived he was preferred hither by your honour’s only means’.19 Although not strictly true – Walsingham alone did not have the power to influence patronage to such a degree – this generally held perception made Perrot vulnerable to the machinations of those who, in any other circumstance, might not have been willing or able to challenge him. As another of Perrot’s contemporaries in Ireland, the Undertreasurer Sir Henry Wallop, pointed out, even strong governors, with ‘great backing and friendship in Court’, were liable to have their reputations ‘erased and disgraced within six or eight months by reason of the great credit [given at Court to the] subtle and malicious . . . informations of this nation’.20 Having served, prior to Perrot’s appointment as Lord Deputy, as joint Lord Justice of Ireland with the Lord Chancellor and Archbishop of Dublin, Adam Loftus, between 1582 and 1584, Wallop knew what he was talking about. 16 Simon Adams, Leicester and the Court: Essays on Elizabethan Politics (Manchester, 2002), p. 85. 17 Bagwell, Vol. III, p. 97 n. 1. 18 Naunton, Frag. Reg., p. 42. 19 SP63/113/4. 20 Canny, Making Ireland British, p. 112.

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On 17 January 1584 Perrot accepted and was given his commission for the post.21 His instructions were full and exhaustive and did not, to any great degree, differ from those issued to previous deputies. Besides increasing the Queen’s revenue without oppressing her subjects, reducing the size of the army without imparing its efficiency, punishing rebels without driving them back into rebellion and rewarding loyalists without undue cost to the Crown – ‘orders that were easier to give than to carry out’22 – Perrot’s main task was the settlement of Munster in the wake of a devastating rebellion and the holding of a parliament in order to reach a consensus on his proposed legislative programme. After several months of preparation, causing rumours to circulate doubting his willingness to serve, Perrot set sail from Milford Haven near Carew and he arrived in Ireland on 9 June 1584 accompanied by his old friend Ormond, together with his new provincial presidents, John Norris for Munster and Richard Bingham, whom the new Lord Deputy knighted on taking office, for Connacht. On 21 June, after a jubilant welcome in Dublin, he took his oath of office, received the sword of state from Lord Chancellor Loftus and gave a speech to the investiture assembly in which he promised ‘to distribute equall justice unto all’ and to ‘punish ill doers without partiality’.23 He ended by boldly proclaiming that ‘because words and deedes doe now a dayes use to dwell farre asunder, I leave you that heare me now, hereafter to judge mee and my words by my deedes’.24 Although described by one commentator as ‘a brief speech more plaine and pithy then glorious or eloquent’,25 it certainly made a favourable impression on some who heard it, such as Geoffrey Fenton, secretary of the Irish council, who wrote to Walsingham saying that Perrot promised his listeners that he would ‘bring them to the same felicity and quietness which her majesty’s subjects in England do live in’.26 Further, he reported that the Lord Deputy’s words were ‘so plausible to the assembly that it was carried from hand to hand throughout the whole realm in less 21 22 23 24 25 26

CSPI, 1574–85, p. 490. Bagwell, Vol. III, p. 123. ECS, Govt. of Ireland, p. 4. Ibid. Ibid. SP63/111/1.

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time than it might be thought credible if I should express it’.27 Another eye-witness, Captain Henry Sheffield, sheriff of Carlow, was equally effusive in his praise of Perrot’s speech, and in a letter to Burghley he reported that ‘My Lord Deputy dealeth so graciously with all these countrymen that unless they be devils, they must needs be good’.28 Given his previous experience of Ireland, his intimate knowledge of Munster, the settlement of which was his administration’s most pressing task, and his friendship with Ormond, a man whose power was such that he ‘could make or break Irish governments’,29 Perrot’s appointment seemed a shrewd move. Indeed, the respect and measured goodwill shown the new Lord Deputy at his coming to Dublin, both by the royal administrators and by most of the Irish lords, bode well for the future of his administration. On first meeting Perrot, Secretary Fenton found him ‘affable and pleasing, seeking by good means to recover the hearts of the people . . . quick and industrious . . . sincere, just, and no respecter of persons’.30 At the same time, Perrot expressed his good opinion of some of those with whom he would work on the Irish Council, such as Undertreasurer Wallop, of whom he ‘thinks well of . . . both for counsel and good husbandry’, Lord President Bingham, ‘a gentleman of good government’ and Sir Lucas Dillon, ‘a special good member of his country’.31 Nor did Perrot soon change his opinion of his fellow co-workers, three of whom, Lords President Norris and Bingham and Sir Nicholas Bagenal, marshal of the army of Ireland, were singled out for special commendation for their good service on the expedition to Ulster which Perrot undertook within three months of taking office.32 It is perhaps remarkable, and in respect of Perrot’s fall significant, that these good opinions should change so radically and in such a relatively short space of time. But change they did and within two years of taking office, Perrot had quarrelled with the majority of his co-workers on the council and in the Irish 27 28 29 30 31 32

Ibid. SP63/111/25. Morgan, Tyrone’s Rebellion, p. 33. Bagwell, Vol. III, p. 124. SP63/111/15, 72, 94. SP63/113/39.

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administration at large (or they with him?). The first to cross Perrot, within a fortnight of his inauguration, was Wallop, who found the Lord Deputy’s ‘passionate disposition’ a little hard to take but, on the advice of Walsingham, he refrained from ‘making answer’.33 In fact, for the following eighteen months Wallop and Perrot remained on good terms before irreconcilable differences caused a permanent breach between them. It took Bingham a little longer to fall foul of Perrot but by 1586 the pair were barely on speaking terms. Bingham complained to Burghley of his ‘hard usage’ at the hands of the Lord Deputy ‘especially in bad speeches and uncourteous terms, such for modesty’s sake I omit to write here’.34 Soon Bagenal, Norris, Ormond and Fenton, the last-named of whom Perrot had at first trusted but later accused of betraying him, found themselves at odds with the Lord Deputy. They were joined later in his administration by Chief Justice Robert Gardiner, auditor Thomas Jenyson and Thomas Jones, bishop of Meath, but Perrot’s chief antagonist was the Lord Chancellor, Adam Loftus. This is not to suggest that Perrot had no friends; on the contrary, the following can be counted among his most loyal and consistent supporters during his deputyship: Sir Nicholas White, Master of the Rolls, Sir Lucas Dillon, Chief Baron of the Exchequer, Sir Edward Waterhouse, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Robert Dillon, chief justice of the Court of Common Pleas, AttorneyGeneral Sir Charles Calthorpe, Solicitor-General Sir Roger Wilbraham, Richard Meredith, bishop of Leighlin and John Long, archbishop of Armagh. Whether Perrot alone should carry the burden of blame for these quarrels is a moot point, but it is fair to say that, in the opinion of many historians, these quarrels are a key to understanding the cause of his subsequent fall from power. The three main areas where Perrot encountered the most fierce opposition were in his ‘plat’ for Ulster, his plan for the erection of a university and in his ambitious parliamentary programme. The opposition to Perrot was not, as was once thought, over policy – there was general agreement about his government’s objectives – but over patronage and personality. 33 34

SP63/111/13. Bagwell, Vol. III, p. 159.

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Hiram Morgan is surely correct to suggest that in blithely dispensing patronage and in pursuing certain policies, the implementation of which might adversely affect individual councillors ‘even though they themselves supported its general objectives’, Perrot was sowing the seeds of factionalism.35 But as he rightly concludes, it would be wrong to to see these factional divisions as ‘unchanging monolithic blocks devoid of individual antagonisms’.36 The bond that occasionally brought these loose factions together for often specific and narrow causes was, in the main, the Lord Deputy’s abrasive personality. Perrot’s brusque manner and often arbitrary decision-making did not easily win over those whom he sought to convert to his vision of a well-governed, militarily secure and financially self-sufficient Ireland. Those whom Perrot suspected of not sharing his vision (which he, rightly or wrongly, interpreted as opposition) were dealt with roughly. It soon became clear to those who worked with Perrot and could not accept his methods that, in setting about the tasks he had allotted himself, he was seeking to free himself from the trammels of convention and local interest. Therefore, during his governorship of Ireland, Perrot faced sharp opposition that was not so much political as personal – which, in many respects, is the more dangerous of the two. Perrot began his work in Ireland with energy and enthusiasm, setting off on a tour of the country within weeks of his arrival. His aim was to see and be seen, to overawe both native and Anglo-Irish with a public demonstration of royal power which he hoped might foster a healthier respect for English law. He also took the opportunity personally to install his provincial presidents in their respective spheres of influence, which had the effect of enhancing his authority. However, Perrot was less an administrator than a soldier and when an opportunity arose to take the field against an invasion of Scots in Ulster, acting in concert with a dissident Irish leader, Sorley Boy MacDonnell, he did not hesitate. Together with key members of his Council including Geoffrey Fenton, John Norris, Sir Lucas Dillon, his cousin Sir Robert Dillon and Sir Nicholas White, and with the earl of Ormond, Donough O’Brien, earl of Thomond and a host 35 36

Morgan, Tyrone’s Rebellion, p. 31. Ibid.

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of other lesser, though no less influential, Irish lords, Perrot hastened to meet the incursion. On arriving in Ulster, Perrot was disappointed to find that the Scots had already departed. Nevertheless, he determined to pacify the region and began the task by taking the submission of the local chieftain, Turlough Luineach O’Neill, and his only son as hostage, but his main purpose was the eviction of the MacDonnells from their territory along the Antrim coast. A three-day siege of Dunluce castle in September resulted in its fall and the capture of much booty, the most valuable pieces of which he presented to Sir Francis Walsingham, Ladies Walsingham and Sidney, and Lord Burghley. Frustrated at his failure either to apprehend Sorley Boy MacDonnell or to corner the invading Scottish mercenary fleet in Lough Foyle, it was not long before Perrot began to question the commitment of some of those around him. His frustration grew worse when, in an effort to settle the Ulster question, his plan for the pacification and division of the region began to unravel soon after his departure for Dublin. Perrot passionately believed that ‘to keep out the Scot is to suppress Ulster and to suppress Ulster is to reform Ireland’.37 Nor did Burghley and Walsingham necessarily disagree, but their concern lay with the timing and cost of his expedition. They realised that Perrot’s failure to crush Sorley Boy MacDonnell had not only stirred up trouble in a region that had defied all previous attempts to pacify it, most notably by the earl of Essex between 1573 and 1576, but would lead to further strife, requiring another costly and potentially hazardous expedition. In August 1584 Perrot received a letter from the Privy Council in which he was gently reminded that ‘Your Lordship is not ignorant how loth we are to be carried into charges, and how we would rather spend a pound, forced by necessity, than a penny for prevention’.38 Whether or not Perrot became obsessed with defeating Sorley Boy as has been claimed, there is no doubt that the settlement of the ‘Ulster question’ became a key feature of his Irish policy. Unfortunately for the Lord Deputy, there were others in his administration who did not share his single-minded determination to oust the Scot from Ulster. Among the first to 37 38

SP63/112/72. CSPI, 1574–85, p. 525.

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complain about Perrot’s conduct was Christopher Carleill, captain of the garrison of Coleraine, who described the Lord Deputy in a letter to Walsingham in December 1584 as ‘being wonderful and furiously opinionative in maintaining his own conceit [and] so absolute in determining of causes as I dare undertake he shall procure himself more enemies than ever any man that came in this place’.39 Worse was the fact that while Perrot had tried to magnify the achievements of his Ulster expedition, some of his Council were publicly voicing their criticisms of the whole enterprise. In a letter to Walsingham, Perrot hailed his success by claiming that ‘the Irish man is bridled for his own good, the Scot is shut out, the Englishman received in his place and Her Majesties forces increased’.40 Not content with this, Perrot concluded his letter to Burghley by boldly proclaiming that ‘Ulster being won, I may account Ireland reformed’.41 In stark contrast, Wallop’s letters to Walsingham complained about the ‘cost and peril’ of the expedition to Ulster while claiming that the Lord Deputy undertook ‘the Northern journey . . . against the minds of the Council’.42 Norris too complained ‘how evilly he has been dealt with by the Lord Deputy’, while his most senior and experienced captain, Henry Lea, raged about the trouble and expense of raising troops for no apparent purpose.43 Having been dissuaded by his council from leading a second military expedition to Ulster in the winter of 1584–5, Perrot had no choice but to dismiss the large contingent of Munstermen recruited to serve in the proposed campaign, but to do so, as alleged, ‘with neither thanks nor pay’ brought a stinging rebuke from Lea, who complained that he had been treated ‘as a common town dog, at every hunter’s call appointed to attend his Lordship, but now turned off to get food where I may’.44 Although generally mild by comparison, these complaints were a foretaste of what was to come.

39

SP63/111/4. SP63/112/22. 41 SP63/112/28. 42 CSPI, 1574–85, p. 549. 43 Ibid., pp. 550, 554, 558. 44 John Nolan, Sir John Norreys and the Elizabethan Military World (Exeter, 1997), p. 75. 40

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The Bagenals too were critical of Perrot’s expedition to Ulster though their main fear concerned the Lord Deputy’s intentions towards the province. Sir Nicholas Bagenal was as ruthless, ambitious and single-minded as Perrot in pursuing his aim of establishing provincial government in Ulster with himself as president. Although given the post of chief commissioner of the province by Lord Deputy Sidney in 1577, this was an empty title without the political, military and financial means to back it up. Given their shared aim of reducing Ulster to Crown control, Bagenal hoped Perrot would be a means to realising his ambition, but he was to be cruelly disappointed, for though he and his sons, Sir Henry and Captain Dudley, benefited from the Lord Deputy’s tripartite division of territorial power in the province after his first expedition, this was insufficient reward for a family intent on reducing, subjecting or ejecting the Gaelic lords. Angered that Perrot had not favoured him over his Irish neighbours, Bagenal soon made clear that he had no intention of sharing power with Hugh O’Neill, Baron Dungannon and Turlough Luineach O’Neill, lord of Tyrone.45 If, as has been suggested, Crown policy in Ulster could not easily succeed unless it met with the interests and ambitions of the Bagenals, then Perrot’s ‘plat’ for the province was fatally flawed from the outset.46 On the other hand, Perrot had demonstrated, perhaps more by necessity than intent, his even-handedness in his treatment of Irish and English settler, which earned him the grudging respect of the Gaelic lords. Nevertheless, Perrot had made an enemy of the Bagenals, a powerful and influential family that was linked by marriage to the family of the Lord Chancellor, Adam Loftus. Perrot’s energetic and vigorous prosecution of his policies threatened the vested interests of his fellow councillors in government and in the country at large. No sooner had he been sworn in as Lord Deputy than he made an enemy of one of his most senior colleagues on the Irish Council, Loftus. This is not altogether surprising given Perrot’s attempt, in March 1584, to have Loftus 45 Turlough O’Neill succeeded to the O’Neillship in 1567 and became the most powerful Gaelic lord in Ulster. In the mid-1580s Turlough was challenged by Hugh O’Neill who succeeded in obtaining from the Crown the title of earl of Tyrone and with it, tacit recognition of his pre-eminence in Ulster. 46 Morgan, Tyrone’s Rebellion, p. 34.

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removed from the chancellorship even before he had taken office as Lord Deputy. According to Victor Treadwell, Perrot was ‘so upset by the prospect of being yoked with Loftus’, a man he knew mainly by reputation, that he approached the Queen on the matter, but she refused to dismiss ‘a good counsellor, well-affected towards our estate and government there’.47 Instructed by the Privy Council to establish a university in Dublin by dissolving the cathedral of St Patrick’s and reassigning the livings, Perrot began his task with the zeal of one who greatly valued education and learning. On 21 August 1584, he wrote to Walsingham setting out his ‘plat’ for converting ‘St Patrick’s into a court house, the canons’ houses into inns for judges and applying the revenues to erect two colleges with £1,000 a year each’.48 He suggested that any surplus could be given to St Patrick’s sister church, Christ Church, ‘whereby Christ may devour Saint Patrick and, I hope, a number of his devoted followers also’.49 Unfortunately for Perrot, the livings of St Patrick’s, which amounted to some 4,000 marks or a little over £2,666 annually, more than enough to endow a seat of learning, were in the hands of Loftus, who would not give them up without a fight. In the opinion of Richard Bagwell, this was because Loftus was ‘fond of money’ and that in ‘defending St Patrick he was really defending his own pocket’.50 As soon as Loftus was apprised of Perrot’s intention to dissolve St Patrick’s he wrote, on 4 October, to Walsingham to complain that converting the cathedral to a university was likely ‘to produce much evil by discouraging the good and godly preachers of the English nation’.51 Three days later, Loftus wrote at length to a man in whom he had always ‘found a special patron and defender’, namely, Lord Burghley,52 who agreed to lend him his support. On 6 November, Burghley wrote to Perrot setting out his opinion ‘as to the dissolution of St Patrick’s’ by suggesting that ‘other means’ might be ‘devised for founding the university’.53 47 Victor Treadwell, ‘Sir John Perrot and the Irish Parliament of 1585–6’, PRIA, lxxxv (1985), 272. 48 CSPI, 1574–85, p. 524. 49 Ibid. 50 Bagwell, Vol. III, p. 133. 51 CSPI, 1574–85, p. 524. 52 Ibid. 53 Ibid., p. 536.

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As one might expect, Perrot was none too pleased by this turn of events and his instinctive reaction was to pursue the matter rather than to drop it. This he did even after the Privy Council, following Burghley’s advice, made known its views on the ‘inconvenience of converting the revenues of St Patrick’s’, and suggested that he ‘consult the Archbishop’ before proceeding further.54 In spite of advice to the contrary, Perrot refused to let the matter rest and he sought allies in his increasingly bitter row with Loftus. Perrot was aided by Fenton whom he sent to solicit his case at Court and against whom Loftus asked again for Burghley’s help because the secretary ‘hath professed himself an utter enimye to me and my poore churche’.55 Loftus also sent representatives to plead his case at Court, his archdeacon, Henry Ussher, and Richard Bancroft, one of the cathedral’s nonresident prebendaries, both of whom proved very persuasive in enlisting support for their master. Through them Loftus made it clear that offers of compensation, for any financial losses incurred as a result of the conversion, were not welcome and that he would rather resign his position than sacrifice St Patrick’s. Although Wallop did not actively support Perrot, he had no liking for Loftus whom he accused of ‘seeking his own profit and the pleasuring of his friends in respect of the matches made and to be made with his children’.56 In a further damning indictment of the Lord Chancellor, Wallop informed Walsingham that Loftus was ‘by nature . . . inconstant and oftentimes passionate’, and in a dig at the support lent him by Burghley, he would ‘be higher-minded than formerly in respect of the great countenance he hath had there agaynst the Lord Deputie’.57 Perrot concurred with his colleague’s assessment of Loftus, of whom he complained even more bitterly in a letter to Walsingham when he heard that the Queen herself had become involved in the dispute between them: The ungodly gain that this archbishop doth suck out of that church to pamper up himself, his children and friends, as well in that realm as in this, is so sweet as he cannot endure any man to look towards it. 54 55 56 57

SP63/114/4. SP63/117/43. SP63/116/8(1). Ibid.

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The bishop is pleased now he hath his will, and so it is triumphed all abroad this town on his behalf. For where . . . I called him to a conference concerning St. Patrick’s . . . he . . . utterly refused it alleging those her Majesty’s last letters as an inhibition to deal any further therein. If it may so go with him he doth wisely. For by that church and his covetous (I will not say corrupt) dealings therein and in his offices of chancery and high commissioner, he hath so well feathered his nest as he hath purchased, in this realm and in that, above iiiic li a year.58

Among those on the council whom Loftus could trust for support was Marshal Bagenal whom Perrot had crossed over his Ulster policy. As the following statement testifies, Perrot was well aware of the danger posed by the close relationship between Loftus and Bagenal because ‘Mr. Marshall married his daughter to the Chancellor’s son and therefore is engrafted in the faction’.59 Loftus’s ‘faction’ stretched as far as to include some of Perrot’s own servants, one of whom, his secretary Phillip Williams, betrayed his master by copying his letters and sending them to the Chancellor. In this way Loftus always seemed to be one step ahead of Perrot, whom he accused of much worse than simple vanity in wishing to set up a university bearing the name ‘Perrott’s college’.60 More worryingly for Perrot was the ‘great league’ that is said to have existed between Loftus and the earl of Ormond, arguably ‘the most influential subject in the Tudor kingdom of Ireland’.61 Wallop saw clearly the threat posed by ‘My lord of Ormond [who] in all times hath been a cross and a hindrance to such governors as have been here’.62 Indeed, it was a worried Wallop who wrote to Walsingham in May 1586: ‘if you defend me not, I have no hope but in the malice of the Earl of Ormond, if his credit be so good as is alledged.’63 Perrot’s longstanding friendship with Ormond notwithstanding, the potential for a 58 C. McNeill (ed.), ‘The Perrot Papers: The Letter Book of Lord Deputy Sir John Perrot between 9 July 1584 and 26 May 1586’, Analecta Hibernica, xii (1943), 23–4. 59 Quoted in Morgan, Tyrone’s Rebellion, p. 34. 60 CSPI, 1574–85, p. 579. 61 Ciaran Brady (ed.), Worsted in the Game: Losers in Irish History (Dublin, 1989), p. 49. 62 SP63/115/8(1). 63 CSPI, 1586–88, p. 66.

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breach was an ever-present threat, particularly as the earl had once turned on his erstwhile friend more than a decade earlier when the latter was Lord President of Munster. Nevertheless, it is true to say that the ties of friendship that had bound them remained genuine and strong, at least until the summer of 1585 when they again fell out. The first rumblings of discontent surface in a letter from Sir Nicholas White to Burghley, dated 20 June, the contents of which make reference to the ‘misconceivings’ between them.64 By late September, Perrot himself was writing to Burghley to explain the breach between him and the earl whom he accused of dealing ‘not according to the friendship he has professed’.65 Whether or not Ormond was engaged in ‘knavish tricks’ – he had a track record of such behaviour – there is no doubt that Perrot believed him guilty.66 Certainly, Sir Henry Sidney thought Ormond guilty of trying to subvert his authority when he was Lord Deputy; hence his later ‘determination to expose the persistently evil influence exercised over Irish affairs by [this] powerful and ostensibly unimpeachable figure’.67 The cause of their falling out with Ormond was the fact that they did not regard him as an ‘unimpeachable figure’ whereas he himself did, and he behaved as such using his influence at Court, his close friendship with Burghley and, above all, with the Queen (she called him her faithful Lucas), to undermine his ‘enemies’. Perrot fell foul of the earl because, as a reforming governor, he was not prepared to debate the issue of whose writ ran in Kilkenny and Tipperary, Ormond’s or the Queen’s. Indeed, Perrot’s policy for the settlement of Munster depended to some extent on the cooperation of the earl, who was proving very stubborn. Although there is no evidence to link Ormond with Loftus’s campaign to preserve St Patrick’s, the earl was a skilled operator who worked best behind the scenes and he may have taken advantage of the opportunity afforded by the dispute to divert the Lord Deputy away from his home territories in the south-west. Even if the earl had remained neutral in the dispute it would have been regarded more as a snub to the Lord Deputy than to the archbishop. 64 65 66 67

SP63/117/46. SP63/119/32. Treadwell, ‘Sir John Perrot’, 288. Brady, Viceroy’s Vindication, p. 23.

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Perrot’s frustration boiled over in a letter to Burghley in September 1585, in which he complained that ‘the conversion of S. Patrick’s . . . was their Lordships’ instruction [and] not of his originating’ and that, consequently, ‘he is discredited here as if he had been overthrown in seeking to overthrow S. Patrick’s’.68 He was particularly unhappy with the fact that, having compiled a ‘book’ back in December 1584 setting out his reasons for the conversion with answers to the objections against it, Burghley had not yet responded to it by the following September, nor had Perrot been supplied with a ‘copy of the Archbishop’s answer . . . that he may reply’.69 It may have occurred to Perrot that Burghley was favouring Loftus but he dared not confront the Lord Treasurer on his conduct for fear of antagonizing one so powerful. It was especially difficult for Perrot since, in the midst of his troubles, Burghley had supported him in a bitter legal dispute for which the Lord Deputy thanked the Lord Treasurer for the ‘grave speeches lately afforded him in the Star Chamber’.70 In fact, it seems that Burghley was prepared to be even-handed in his treatment of both Perrot and Loftus inasmuch as the latter was offered ‘grave and fatherly advice as to his behaviour towards the Lord Deputy’.71 This suggests that Burghley thought Loftus as guilty as Perrot for the ‘broil’ between the two men; this opinion was shared by Sir James Perrot, author of the Chronicle of Ireland, who provides a useful insight into, and partial explanation for, their difficult relationship: For the Lord deputy, being choloricke by nature, could not induer any affrontes in that place wherein he was principall; the other knowinge his choloricke disposition, would sometimes purposely geive hym wordes of provocation.72

Nevertheless, in spite of Burghley’s apparent even-handedness, that his relationship with Perrot had strained a little may be inferred from the contents of a letter penned by Wallop to the Lord Treasurer in August 1586: 68

McNeill, ‘Perrot Papers’, 28. CSPI, 1574–85, pp. 544, 580. 70 Ibid., p. 547. 71 SP63/123/54. 72 Sir James Perrot, The Chronicle of Ireland, 1584–1608, ed. Herbert Wood (Dublin, 1953), p. 49. 69

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It hath pleased you, in a part of your last letter, to give me thanks for the advertisements sent you of the state of this country, and to request me to continue the same, for that the Lord Deputy Perrot doth ‘seldomer’ write to your Lordship than others in his place have done.73

Perrot’s apparent reluctance to write regularly to Burghley, certainly far less often than he did to Walsingham, may have been due, in part, to the fact that only three months earlier, in May 1586, he was the subject of gossip that hinted at the Lord Treasurer’s complicity in a plan to remove him from the lord deputyship. In a letter to Walsingham, Wallop declared that Loftus told me himself that that the Lord of Delvin delivered to him the message from the Lord Treasurer, that there was a full resolution that Sir John Perrot should be removed, although then the time was not certain. The like from his mouth I have had by others, and Sir William Stanley told some of his friends here that by the end of July he shall be revoked, and that no man hath like access or credit with Her Majesty as the Earl of Ormond, whereat the Archbishop seemed much to rejoice.74

Having written to Burghley in December 1584, praying ‘not to, be forsaken’ because ‘he has made himself sour to many’, Perrot may have felt a sense of betrayal on the part of the Lord Treasurer.75 That Perrot was still in post had much to do with Walsingham, who continued to advocate his cause in spite of the growing opposition of his fellow Privy Councillors and the machinations of Norris, Fenton and Ormond, who made the most of their visits to Court. So great was the pressure on Walsingham that Wallop was moved to write: ‘I am ryght sorye to understand that the sharpe humors that raygne there greve you so nere as they doe, knowynge assuredly you have deservyd better’.76 That Perrot also wished to relinquish his post and return home was a sign that the pressure on him was becoming unbearable.77 Not that he was believed, certainly not by Wallop 73 74 75 76 77

CSPI, 1586–88, p. 130. Ibid., p. 65. CSPI, 1574–85, p. 540. Ibid., p. 559. Ibid., p. 580.

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who said that ‘Sir John Perrot in words and outward show seemeth most desirous to leave Ireland, but inwardly meaneth it not’.78 At one point even the close relationship between Perrot and Walsingham appeared to be suffering from the strain of events, which prompted the Lord Deputy to reassure the Queen’s principal secretary of his continued fidelity and friendship: ‘you have conceived some mislike or gelouzie, as if I had shewed ungratitude in not satisfieng anie of your desires . . . but if there lives one man upon this earth that I love and honour above all others, it is yourself.’79 Perrot was especially hurt by the Queen’s attitude to him and his work – ‘I know you do nothing but with a good intent for my service, but yet take better heed ere you use Us so again’80 – which he thought was the result of the malicious reports and rumours spread by his enemies. In a letter to Captain Nicholas Dawtrey, Perrot expressed his anger: I wonder why Her Majesty should grow in heat with me. I know no cause except it be for being over careful in well serving her. And if any wild rogue hath misreported of me to cause this mislike for the time, I will promise him, if I catch him here in example of all others, and tell him from me and shew him this my lettre to assure him whatsoever he be under the degree of a counsellor I will beat him for it.81

The dispute over St Patrick’s rumbled on for the best part of eighteen months until, early in 1586, having exhausted all means to oppose Loftus, Perrot grudgingly conceded defeat. Perrot’s concession was not through choice but by order of the Queen who, having lost her patience as much with the protagonists as with the failure of Burghley and Walsingham to settle the dispute, was not prepared to put up with the ‘broil’ between the two most important officers in the Irish administration. Letters were sent both to Perrot and Loftus reprimanding them and ordering them to patch up their differences, which they did in April 1586, effecting a reconciliation by publicly taking communion together during the Easter festivities. The agent of 78 79 80 81

CSPI, 1586–88, p. 66. McNeill, ‘Perrot Papers’, 36. SP63/116/12. McNeill, ‘Perrot Papers’, 32.

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reconciliation was Sir Edward Waterhouse, of whom Loftus and Perrot thought well enough to act as peacemaker. In a letter to Burghley, Loftus wrote: I for my part must needs confess myself in sort bounden unto the gentleman [Waterhouse] for his faithful assistance in the late and long contention and dislike between my Lord Deputy and me, which now to my great comfort is composed, wherein he has shown himself an earnest persuader to a more moderate course than hath been used.82

Their reconciliation did not last long and by the end of September 1586, Loftus wrote to Walsingham explaining how Perrot’s ‘contempt of God’s religion’ and his ‘immoderate government’ had resulted in him being ‘abhorred and loathed of the better sort of this people’ and that he ‘cannot hope for any good success under him’.83 Loftus wrote to Burghley three months later to complain of ‘the continuance of [Perrot’s] disfavour towards me notwithstanding her Majesty’s gracious letters commanding a reconciliation between us’.84 Unsurprisingly, their relationship got steadily worse and a besieged Perrot – Loftus was actively drawing together a ‘council clique’85 – felt compelled to rule without the advice and restraint of the council even though he had been ordered by the Queen to seek their consent in matter of policy. It fell to Fenton to deliver to Perrot this particular instruction from the Queen and her Privy Council for which the Lord Deputy never forgave him but publicly accused him of betrayal. As Perrot turned on his enemies and rivals, he imprisoned Fenton in Dublin Castle on the pretext of a £70 unpaid debt and struck the seventy-nine-year-old Marshal Bagenal before witnesses in a violent argument in the presence chamber, so that they rounded on him. His enemies seemed daily to be sending reports to members of the Privy Council, Burghley in particular, complaining of ‘the tottering disposition of this government’ and the fact that Perrot was wont to ‘use his sole absolute and arbitrable power not yet restrained’.86 Besides 82 83 84 85 86

CSPI, 1586–88, p. 42. SP63/126/34. CSPI, 1586–88, p. 211. Treadwell, ‘Sir John Perrot’, 306. CSPI, 1586–88, 160, p. 218.

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Loftus, Wallop was perhaps the most expressive and regular commentator on Perrot to members of the Privy Council. In April 1586 he wrote to Burghley thus: The greatness of the deputies is a cause to make few dare to displease them, and of all others this is the haughtiest that ever I saw and that most desired to deal in all things absolutely and of himself.87

In August he followed this up by mounting a defence of Bingham, whom Perrot had accused of unecessary cruelty and wilful corruption in his dealings with the Irish, assuring Burghley that the governor of Connacht was a very sufficient gentleman, and one who would govern that province under his charge better than he doth, if the lord deputy did not continually cross him almost in everything, even as he doth likewise the other provincial governor [Norris in Munster].88

By November, Wallop had shed all restraint in damning Perrot: . . . his disposition and desire [is] to be wholly absolute, which he continually expresseth . . . some minds think themselves yoked if they have their wills circumscribed within the limits of reason.89

Perrot’s increasingly violent temper and lack of restraint in admonishing his colleagues and servants were due in part to his frustration at having his schemes opposed, circumvented or sabotaged. This is particularly evident in respect of his plans for a parliament which, he conceived, would be ‘a showpiece of English civility’.90 Perrot’s ambitious parliamentary programme has only recently been given the credit it deserves, for though his initiatives in, and handling of, the legislative programme were flawed, his grand design was not.91 Besides the ordinary and expected legislative programme – bills for the attainder of the rebels Baltinglass and Desmond, for the renewal of the routine common subsidy and the impost of wines, and for a reform of the criminal law – Perrot added his own, on the reform of Irish revenues and on the calling of parliament itself. His grand 87 88 89 90 91

SP63/123/52. CSPI, 1586–88, p. 131. SP63/126/82. Treadwell, ‘Sir John Perrot’, 281. Ibid.

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design involved the regularization of the multifarious ways and means by which royal taxation was assessed and collected in Ireland, and to give substance to this reform by putting it on a statutory footing. This would not only improve the regularity and quantity of the Crown’s revenue but also give the Irish Parliament an important function that would have required its calling on a regular basis rather than was currently the case, on the whim of the incumbent Lord Deputy or on the order of the Queen. In this way, Perrot hoped to make Ireland ‘a strong and profitable ornament to England where religion, duty, obedience, peace and quietness, true dealing, order and civility may be planted in it’.92 The state opening of the Irish Parliament on 26 April 1585 was ‘a great public occasion with much pomp and ceremony designed to express the themes of community and conciliation’.93 At its centre was the Lord Deputy who cut a resplendent figure in his parliamentary robes and of whom a German visitor observed: he had travelled thorow Germany, Italy, Fraunce, England and Ierland but yet in all those countries never did he see any man comparable to Sir John Perrott . . . for the porte and majestie of personage.94

With the opening ceremony over, the Parliament got down to business, and, if Geoffrey Fenton’s opinion is anything to go by, the prospect for a successful session looked good. In a letter to Walsingham, dated 28 April 1585, he wrote of ‘the universal appearance of all estates from all parts of the realm, which may induce great likeliness of good if their inward hearts be not worse affected than the outward tokens and declarations make show of’.95 However, as the Lords and Commons got to grips with the legislative programme, the consensus Perrot hoped would emerge – perhaps unrealistically – did not do so. Not suprisingly, given the factional nature of Irish aristocratic society, dissension and division were the order of the day. Despite Perrot’s best efforts, Parliament failed to reach an agreement on 92 93 94 95

SP63/114/32. Treadwell, ‘Sir John Perrot’, 281. Life, Deedes and Death, pp. 98–9. SP63/116/24.

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the bill which called for the suspension of Poynings’ Act. Although the suspension of the Act was necessary for the Lord Deputy’s proposed fiscal reforms, which were over and above what the Crown had intended, it was not required to pass the ordinary legislation the members had expected to deal with during the session. Enacted in 1494, Poynings’ law was, in the main, intended to prevent the Irish Parliament from acting independently of the Crown and Parliament of England. Consequently, according to the terms of the Act, the Lord Deputy and Council had not only to seek the Crown’s permission to call a Parliament in Dublin but must also gain royal approval of proposed draft bills. Perrot’s biographer-son tried to explain the reason and nature of the opposition to the suspension of the Act: This Byll was to suspend that acte, and to geive them liberty to treat of all matters either for the commodity of the Queenes Majestie, or the publick good of the commonweale. Which some of the Irishmen either mistaking or conceving that it was framed for an other intent then it did pretend, they resisted it, and therein theyr owne good and freedom.96

It was, in part, that ‘freedom’ which some of the Irish councillors and administrators feared, for they represented the Protestant land-owning elite who lived mainly in the Pale and who did not wish to share – let alone give up – their power, no matter how small, to the majority native Catholic Irish. Perrot himself said that those who opposed the suspension of Poynings’ Act sought ‘to make voyd the whole parliament because they could abyd noe reformation in matters of religion or state’.97 His frustration with those responsible for the defeat of the suspension bill is made manifest in a letter addressed to the English Privy Council: By their lightness and wilfulness the bill was overthrown, which, being granted, would have opened unto them a liberty of free consultation for any laws that should have been thought necessary for the good of their country.98

96 97 98

Life, Deedes and Death, p. 100. Ibid., p. 108. McNeill, ‘Perrot Papers’, 21.

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Among those who deliberately frustrated Perrot’s Parliament was Chancellor Loftus. His opposition stemmed from the fact that he believed Perrot’s vision of the future of the Irish Parliament was too tolerant of religion. He feared that an Irish Parliament running its own affairs would, sooner or later, broach the subject of religious freedom. His fears were soon realized when Sir Nicholas White, one of Perrot’s closest advisers on the Council, did just that. In a letter to Burghley, dated September 1590, Loftus recalled that, In the beginning of the parliament, Sir Nicholas White, in the name of his countrymen, moved Sir John Perrot . . . before most of this council to permit this people to have liberty of their consciences and the free use of their religion wherein they had been bred and brought up, assuring Sir John . . . that they would not only condescend to the repeal of Poynings’ Act but to any other reasonable motion which should be propounded in the parliament.99

Perrot was not unsympathetic but he refused to grant White’s request. Not that this stopped Loftus from making capital of the issue by later fuelling rumours of Perrot’s toleration of the ‘Romish faith’ and sympathy for the Catholic Irish. It is surely no coincidence to find the bishop of Meath, Thomas Jones, one of Loftus’s closest allies, publicly debating the issue of ‘whether magistrates may tolerate with papists’. Jones’s sermon was a veiled attack on the integrity of the Lord Deputy whom he charged with having ‘too much facility and trust with councillors [e.g. White] not well affected in religion’.100 Loftus added fuel to the fire of misrepresentation by suggesting that the administration’s failure to root out papists had led to a significant increase in the number of recusants in the Pale. Loftus believed in taking a hard line in religious matters and his demand that the penal laws, as enacted in the statutes against Catholics passed in the English Parliament, be applied and enforced in Ireland drew as much support as opposition. Perrot preferred a more moderate approach but such was the confusion caused in London by rumour, misreporting and wilful misrepresentation that the Queen was compelled to write to the Lord Deputy: ‘I marvel you lack so much discretion in these 99 100

Treadwell, ‘Sir John Perrot’, 284. Ibid., 305.

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dangerous days to touch that point of religion . . . which was charged you not to meddle in.’101 Aside from religion, Loftus had equally pressing ‘temporal’ concerns to confront in Perrot’s proposed bills for the reform of the revenue system. Perrot’s plan called for a new land survey and an equalization and redistribution of the different land values and measurements so that they might be reduced ‘to a rateable proportion, respecting (together with the measure) the goodness of the soil, and accordingly make that which is, or shall be hereafter, inhabited, chargeable . . . to Her Majesty’s use’.102 Once the system had been established and given time to bed in, initially in the Pale and then in the provinces of Leinster, Munster and Connacht, Perrot forecast that the Crown could expect an annual income of some £80,000. It was a bold policy that had the potential for success if the Parliament could agree on its adoption and implementation. Loftus objected, as did many others, on the grounds that Perrot’s planned survey would threaten long-established customs and ancient landowning rights and privileges.103 There was such a groundswell of opposition that the Queen got to hear of it, with the result that Perrot was once more admonished and warned ‘to leave for this time [the] scan of patents and privileges’ because she did not wish ‘discontentment to grow to disobedience’. ‘It is’, she advised, ‘no season but to use each man in courteous sort and not to make peril for want of regard.’104 The success of the Irish Parliament meant a great deal to Perrot and he took its failure personally. To the earl of Leicester he wrote, ‘Her Majesty will lose the best opportunity for the thorough reforming of Ireland that ever any prince before her hath had or shall have again, I think, in many years’.105 To Burghley, he candidly related how he never understood that the summons of that parliament was purposed for Desmond and some two or three other matters besides, but conceived an opinion that together with those matters some others might have fallen out as beneficial to Her Majesty and this 101 102 103 104 105

BL Cotton MS Titus F.V. ff. 181v–182v. McNeill, ‘Perrot Papers’, 25–6. CSPI, 1574–85, p. 564. BL Cotton MS Titus F.V. ff. 181v–182v. Treadwell, ‘Sir John Perrot’, 259.

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state as any of those, and that without the dangers of discontentment and others incident to innovations whereof you have cast many doubts there.106

To his friend, Roger Manners, Perrot wrote rather despondently: ‘When I might haply have pulled down mountains, I shall be driven, sith they will have it so, to sit down upon a molehill’.107 Perrot’s wilful adventurism had been curbed by the vested interests of powerful elites in the Irish church and state, aided and abetted, sometimes unwittingly, by the Queen and Privy Council of England. Perrot never forgot nor forgave those whom he accused of destroying his grand design. Nor, it seems, did posterity, for as one near-contemporary concluded while recalling Perrot’s deputyship: ‘Envie, which crosseth the best designes, left this man’s Governement, though successfull, yet without the full fruite which his longer stay (well seconded) might have brought forth.’108 The failure of his Parliament was probably the most bitterly disappointing setback of Perrot’s whole Irish career and one senses that, thereafter, he did not display the same enthusiasm and optimism that had attended his first coming to Ireland. Disillusioned and despondent, he wasted no more time in trying to win his opponents round but rather displayed signs of a more arbitrary disposition and violent temper, more so than before, resulting in regular arguments and much swearing. This has led one Irish historian recently to suggest that, besides being a tad eccentric, Perrot may have been suffering from some form of mental instability, but there is no evidence to support this speculation.109 Besides being lonely and isolated, it was a crestfallen Perrot who wrote to Walsingham informing him of the death of his second son, William, in July 1587; he was frustrated at the lack of support and appreciation of his work by those whom he served, with whom he worked and over whom he governed. He was especially unhappy with the backbiting and other underhand methods employed by his opponents to lessen his power by frequently referring their complaints to the Queen and Privy 106

BLO Perrott MS I f. 169v. Ibid., I f. 202v. 108 ECS, Govt. of Ireland, pp. 137–8. 109 Steven Ellis, Tudor Ireland: Crown, Community and the Conflict of Cultures 1470–1603 (London, 1985), p. 285. 107

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Council. In a letter to William Davison (December 1586), Perrot expressed his frustration: There was never any Governor here, that held my place, but was subject to malicious tongues; I pray you therefore if any man say ought of me there that may touch me in credit, let him set it down in writing and set his hand to it, for wind hath more hurt me, delivered in corners, than matter.110

A contemporary commentator lamented the fact that ‘the condition of our State, was rather to deminish the acts of the Deputy [Perrot] to Her Majestie, than to grace them by a true relation, least as his merit might challenge rewards’.111 In the face of what he believed to be unjustified attacks on his integrity, dignity and government, Perrot was not prepared meekly to accept the sharp reprimands and regular admonitions delivered by the Queen, either personally or via her representatives. In a letter to the Privy Council, dated April 1587, he could scarcely contain his anger and laced his communication with biting sarcasm: And may I (with favour) write it unto your lordships, it is now a common speech here, ‘Will any man speed well in England, let him then fall out with the Deputy, steal over, and devise some matter to complain against him.’ All which I humbly refer to your honourable considerations.112

Unwisely perhaps, Perrot expressed his anger publicly and in so doing gave ammunition to his enemies, who later recalled with glee his coarse taunts at the Queen. The Lord Deputy’s increasing ill-health (he was suffering from kidney and gall stones) together with a growing and irrational fear of dying in that ‘slimy country’, might well explain his behaviour in the latter half of his time in Ireland. Two letters written by the Lord Deputy, in October 1586 and August 1587, well illustrate his feelings during this period.113 But by God Mr. Carew, I daily grow weaker and weaker of body through the great pain I have of the stone growing more and more 110

CSPI, 1586–88, p. 220. ECS, Govt. of Ireland, p. 35. 112 CSPI, 1586–88, p. 299. 113 Calendar of the Carew Manuscripts preserved in the archiespiscopal library at Lambeth, 1575–1624, ed. J. S. Brewer and W. Bullen (6 vols., London, 1867–73), 1575–88, pp. xx, xxiv. 111

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upon me. The experience I lately had in Connaught; where in my travels, through the grating of the stone in my kidneys. If I travelled one day I was fain to rest another and in the end the Irish ague took me, that I was like to die in Galloway. I think verily I shall not see christmas for the stone is grevious unto me, my stomack is very weak and my legs do swell so greatly. By God I do not complain. Remember my suit to her Majesty which is to see her before I die. For my own part death is the least thing I care for.

Perrot’s failure entirely to pacify, plant and shire Ulster and to found a university in Dublin, were not the only disappointments suffered by him during his four-year service in Ireland. His failure to get Poynings’ Law suspended, and to heal the differences between the Gaelic Irish, the Old English and the New English, meant that his much vaunted Parliament (1585–6), and most of its intended legislation, had to be abandoned. Perrot’s ambitious projects for reforming the revenue system, the enforcement, and in some areas introduction, of English law, largely failed. On the other hand, his attack on tanistry, his composition of Connacht, his settlement of Munster and his military campaigns proved rather more successful and, though he was forced, on the outbreak of war with Spain, to reach an accommodation with the Scots-aided rebel, Sorley Boy MacDonnell, Perrot had largely pacified Ireland. Certainly, the Queen and her Privy Council applauded his efforts to keep Ireland quiet at a time when the Netherlands had become the policy priority and a drain on the kingdom’s resources. Although it might be argued that Perrot’s difficulties were less about policy, on which there was broad agreement, and more about personality, to suggest that this alone was the determining factor in the success or failure of his administration would be naive. He had alienated former friends and supporters such as the earl of Ormond, who resorted to his usual practice of undermining the position of serving Lords Deputy at Court, and Secretary Sir Geoffrey Fenton, who at first had found Perrot ‘affable and pleasing’ but had since changed his opinion. Worse still, he had quarrelled with his provincial presidents, Bingham and Norris, and had made avowed enemies in Chancellor Loftus, Treasurer Sir Henry Wallop and Marshal Sir Nicholas Bagenal. Nevertheless, when he handed the sword of state to his

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successor, Sir William Fitzwilliam, in June 1588, the latter was compelled to admit that he had left the country in a state of peace. Possibly, the best epitaph to describe the problems and dangers associated with service in Ireland is supplied by one who knew Perrot and the country well, his son Sir James: What a slyppery seate they sitte that governe that kingdom, and that innocencie is not always saffe, thoe it be allwayes best: for it cannot be free from imputation when it is free from corruption.114

114

Wood, Chron. Ire., p. 51.

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Soe Sir John Perrott having governed foure yeares as Lord Deputy of Ierland, depart[ed] thence in the yeare 1588 and sayled to his castell of Carew in Pembrokeshire . . . Whence hee was not long after called to the Court to be made a Privie Councellour, the step to his fall and ruine.1

Perrot’s short career as a Privy Councillor has been largely overlooked by historians because it is sandwiched between his eventful service in Ireland and the disgrace of his imprisonment and trial for treason. Appointed on 10 February 1589, his active service as a Privy Councillor lasted a little over fifteen months, but the fact that he was appointed at all is an indication that, despite the problems that had dogged his rule in Ireland, the Queen was well satisfied with his service and she wished to avail herself of his advice and experience. Privy Councillors needed to be men who could give good advice but also men who could exercise effective authority; Perrot had proved his ability to do both. He had shown himself to be a man as reliable as he was powerful, as trustworthy as he was tough and as competent as he was compatible. Nevertheless, as important as these qualities undoubtedly were, they were not in themselves enough to earn, let alone keep, a seat on the Council. Prospective councillors needed the support, if not the nomination, of existing councillors and, in this, Perrot was fortunate in being able to rely on the good offices of Walsingham and the earl of Warwick. It is a measure of Perrot’s perceived success in government and his standing at Court that he was appointed to the Council when 1

Life, Deedes and Death, p. 133; ECS, Govt. of Ireland, p. 136.

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other equally long-serving and, arguably, more deserving courtiers had not. It is important to remember that although all Privy Councillors were courtiers, few courtiers became Privy Councillors. To be a Councillor was to be recognized by all, especially by one’s gentle compatriots, as a great man, so that to be left outside this privileged circle was, arguably, to be excluded from the only institutional fellowship in Tudor England that really mattered. Nevertheless, if his appointment to the Privy Council marked the pinnacle of a very long and distinguished, if at times stormy, career it was also to prove his downfall, since it was here, at Court, while serving as one of the Queen’s elite Councillors, that Perrot was first accused of treason and later condemned for it. The Court was a magnet for the ambitious and the goal of every courtier was to achieve regular, personal contact with the monarch, to gain ‘sight of the royal face’.2 To secure a place at Court was no mean achievement but for those with loftier aspirations it was but the first step to crossing the line that separated the monarch from the majority of her courtiers. The line between the public and private life of the monarch was represented by the Privy Chamber, the centre of Court life, to which Elizabeth granted access sparingly and capriciously. It was not so much access to the ‘body natural’ that courtiers sought (with the possible exception of Robert Dudley) – gender saw to that – but the ‘body politic’ made corporeal in the person of the Queen. The monarch was the fount of power and patronage, and although both were magnificently displayed in public, they were more often dispensed to the favoured few in private. First among the few were the ladies of the Bed and Privy Chamber, the most private part of the Court, who were allowed to dabble in patronage but not politics. Next came the men of the Privy Chamber, many of whom held office there and ran the royal household while others attended, often at their own considerable expense, by virtue of the Queen’s favour and affection. The most public part of the Court, to which access was most easily obtained, if not so easily retained because of the cost in time and 2 David Starkey, ‘Introduction: Court History in Perspective’, in David Starkey (ed.), The English Court: From the Wars of the Roses to the Civil War (London, 1987), p. 3; G. R. Elton, ‘Tudor Government: Points of Contact; III: the Court’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society (1976), 211ff.

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money to the aspiring courtier, was the Great or Presence Chamber. Indeed, in spite of the enormous costs involved, presence at Court was crucial for the politically ambitious because it was the clearing-house for royal patronage, the distribution and retention of which was key to political power. Perrot knew the Court well. He had first come to Court as a callow youth in 1549 in the reign of Edward VI and there he remained, either in person or in place, for the rest of his life. His introduction was facilitated by his stepfather, Sir Thomas Jones, who had been a gentleman usher in the household of Henry VIII, and by his ‘tutor’, Sir William Paulet, Baron St John, another who enjoyed considerable power and influence at Court. That Perrot early found a niche among the inner ring of courtiers, among whom the eldest son of the Lord Protector, John Dudley, duke of Northumberland, was his close friend, is indicated by the fact that he had ready access to the most private areas of the Court. His biographer-son, Sir James, recounts a tale, the veracity of which is questionable, of how a meeting between his father and the young King Edward resulted in a lucrative grant: On a time he walked out of the court into a place, where commonly the Kinge did use to come about that howre, and there he began (either knowinge that the Kinge would come that way or else by chaunce) he began to complayne as it were agaynst hymselfe unto hymselfe. And as he was thus sadly debating the matter unto hymselfe, the Kinge came behynd hym and overheard most of that which he sayd.3

Even a change of monarch, and state religion, seems not to have dented Perrot’s standing at Court. After the death of this tawardlie and noble yonge prince, Kinge Edward, Queene Mary his sister cominge to the crowne Sir John Perrott continewed lykewise at the court and was well accepted of amongst the best and greatest nobilitie. The Queene also did favor hym very well, and would say that she did lyke exceedinge well of hym.4

His access to Mary was such that on one occasion at a Court ceremony Perrot 3 4

Life, Deedes and Death, pp. 17–18. Ibid., p. 19.

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pressed soe neere to the Queene that he fell upon some part of her trayne, and besought her majestie to remember hir princely promise mad unto hym . . . Wherewith she seamed highly offended and in angry sorte asked ‘What Perrott, Will you offer violence to our person?’ Then he besought her of pardon for his boldness, and soe she departed with much indignation.5

In spite of the anecdotal nature of the evidence presented by his son, writing in the second decade of the seventeenth century, there is no reason to dispute the broader truth of Perrot’s standing at Court. His privileged position is confirmed by his being described as ‘the Queen’s servant’6 and by his being chosen as ‘one of the fower (as the chronickles make mention) to carrie the canopie of estate over the Queene [Elizabeth] at hir coronation’ in January 1559.7 Coronations were among the most imposing and most symbolically potent of all ceremonies of state, and to be invited to participate was a sure sign of one’s status and standing (dependent on the level of participation) as a courtier. In 1563 Perrot was again called on to carry the canopy of state at the opening of Parliament at which he, and five others, accompanied the Queen in procession into Westminster Hall.8 That Perrot took a full part in Court life, its ceremony and ritual, is signified by his participation in the Accession-day tilts and other revelries that were timetabled throughout the year. Seeing that Perrot was, in the opinion of Naunton, ‘destined for armes . . . and of the sword’, it is not surprising that he was more a man of action than of play so that the tiltyard suited his skills and temperament better than the galliard.9 So taken was he by the joust that he sometimes took the contests too seriously, as occurred in the summer of 1559 at a ‘pageant which he played in the presence of the Queene Elizabeth [in] the parke at Grenwich’.10 Perrot, together with the earl of Ormond and Sir Roger North, ‘gallantly armed and mounted’, challenged the Queen’s gentlemen pensioners to mock battle during which, Sir Thomas Cornwallis was 5

Ibid., p. 21. Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1558–60, p. 45. 7 Life, Deedes and Death, p. 24; Raphael Holinshed, Chronicles, ed. H. Ellis (6 vols., London, 1807–8), Vol. IV, pp. 166–7; College of Arms MS.6, f. 41v. 8 T. E. Hartley (ed.), Proceedings in the Parliaments of Elizabeth I (3 vols., Leicester, 1981, 1995), Vol. I, p. 68. 9 Naunton, Frag. Reg., p. 41. 10 Life, Deedes and Death, p. 25. 6

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accidentally injured by Perrot’s lance. The two, being ‘cholericke’, fell into a heated argument that resulted in a ‘challenge to runne with sharpe launces without armor in the presence of the Queene which her Majestie hearing of would not suffer them soe to doe but with good persuasions pacified them’.11 Perrot exhibited his recklessness in other ways, as his letter to a friend testifies, namely, that having spent so much money on ‘the tilt and other toys that I am ashamed to tell’, he soon ran into debt.12 His son, too, relates the problems his father encountered while living in London and attending the Court: Shortly after Sir John Perrott . . . came to the court of England where he leved at great charge, and at soe high a rate as he grew into great debt, and ranne soe farre into arrearages, that he began to mortgage some of his lands, and yet did owe some seven or eight thowsand pounds.13

Perrot learned from the experience and soon put aside these costly ‘youthfull delightes [and] court intertaynments’ so that he ‘did continew by interchangable courses, some times at the court and some times in the contrie’, but as his son makes clear, at all times in the service of his prince wherin he was very forward whether abroad or at home untill the yere 157[1], at which time it pleased the prince and state to imploy hym in forrayne affayers and to make hym the first Lord President of Monster in Ierland.14

This, in the opinion of Naunton, was a very grave mistake since his regular ‘recesses and discontinuance from the Queens presence’ was a ‘fault which is incompatible with the wayes of Court and favour’.15 Although, according to Naunton, Perrot ‘came not to the Court for want’, he was clearly not prepared to spend his life or his fortune seeking a permanent place or preferment there, unlike Sir Christopher Hatton.16 Hatton was a career courtier who was among the handful who caught the Queen’s eye and was rewarded without significant service. Yet, paradoxically, for 11

Ibid., pp. 25–6. BL Harleian MS 5992 f. 9. 13 Life, Deedes and Death, p. 17. 14 Ibid., p. 26. 15 Naunton, Frag. Reg., p. 42. 16 Ibid., p. 41; see, E. St. J. Brooks, Sir Christopher Hatton (London, 1946), pp. 50–9. 12

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all he gained by his lifetime service at Court (and the benefits were considerable), Hatton died deeply in debt owing the Queen a massive £42,000 along with nearly £23,000 owed to fellow courtiers, servants and tradesmen. As David Loades has observed, ‘the most successful courtiers often accumulated the largest debts’, hence, perhaps, Perrot’s reluctance to make the Court his home, at least until the last few years of his life when, having been promoted to the Privy Council, he spent most of his time there.17 This is not to suggest that Perrot either ignored or underestimated the importance of the Court since he, like his fellow courtiers both regular and, like himself, irregular attenders, employed agents to represent them.18 Perrot’s Court agent, Charles Russell, ensured that his master’s interests were continually represented whether he was there in person or not. Nor were men like Russell, Michael Hickes or Samuel Cox, the agents of Burghley and Hatton respectively, mere cyphers, since their standing at Court was such that they had ready and regular access, if not to the Queen herself, to her leading courtiers, officers of state and, more importantly perhaps, to her ladies-inwaiting. Thus Perrot was spared the fate that befell so many of his fellow courtiers whose debts, through attendance and service on the Queen, were such that they could not withdraw from Court even if they wanted to, because only Elizabeth had the resources to alleviate their financial problems. There may well have come a point, as David Loades suggests, ‘where the pardoning of debt became the most significant reward that a courtier could receive’.19 If so, then Perrot was not as prone as some to the pressures and favours inherent in serving the Crown, but neither was he immune, as his debts of nearly £8,000 (£600 of which was owed to the Crown) make clear. It took him nigh on thirty years before the debts, contracted during the reigns of Edward VI and Mary, were discharged, at which point, in the late 1570s, he had paid over £800 into royal coffers. If, as has been suggested, the Crown used debt as a means of controlling the kingdom’s leading courtiers and landowners, it was not the only method, for 17

David Loades, The Tudor Court (rev. edn, Bangor, 1992), p. 185. From the early 1580s Perrot also had his son and heir, Sir Thomas, to represent him at Court. 19 Loades, Tudor Court, p. 185. 18

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although Perrot’s debts were relatively light he had still to curry favour in order to secure grants, leases, annuities, offices, wardships and other lucrative privileges that only the monarch could dispense.20 Nevertheless, Perrot’s relative freedom from debt to the Crown may, in part, explain why contemporaries thought him so wealthy, certainly wealthier than he actually was; this led some to envy and even to hate him. His new year’s gifts to the Queen, comparable with those given by more intimately connected and wealthier courtiers, served to lend currency to the rumours about his extraordinary wealth. One very small salte of aggett, with a cover and foote of gold enamyled, garnished with small sparkes of rubyes and oppalls, the foote garnished with like rubyes per i oz iii quarters; and two Irishe mantles, the one murry, th’other russet, the one laced with silver lace and freindge, the other with gold lace and reindge.21

Competition at Court was no new thing but Perrot’s barely concealed conceit and abrasive behaviour tended to anger those around him. It was said that he would not ‘conform himself as other men do’ even though he was urged to do so by Walsingham.22 He took little delight in dancing himself but taunted others like Hatton, who did, and he may have lacked the ‘temper and discretion’ necessary to thrive in a Court dominated by a female-orientated politeness and deference which he found hard to stomach. He was, in the opinion of his son, ‘as far from flattery as from fear’ and ‘more apt to give offence to great ones than to creep or crouch unto them’.23 It is interesting to speculate how Perrot would have reacted to the advice Sir Christopher Hatton received from Edward Dyer in 1572, namely, that if he wished to see off a rival, in the person of the young earl of Oxford, and retain the Queen’s favour, he ought to indulge Elizabeth’s vanity and flatter her at every opportunity. Although Perrot’s letters to the Queen reveal a degree of flattery, they are nowhere near as fulsome in their praise of Elizabeth as 20 Much of what Perrot received from the Crown were grants for life. CPR, 1558–60, p. 45. 21 J. Nichols, The Progresses of Queen Elizabeth (3 vols., London, 1823), Vol. II, p. 398; Vol. III, p. 10. 22 SP63/121/50. 23 BL Add. MSS 4819 f. 118.

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the letters of that arch-flatterer Hatton. As the following letter dated to 1575 illustrates, Hatton had perfected the art of written declarations of eternal devotion to a Queen who expected nothing less than worship: This is the twelfth day since I saw the brightness of that sun that giveth light unto my sense and soul. I wax an amazed creature. Give me leave, Madam, to remove myself out of this irksome shadow, so far as my imagination with these good means may lead me towards you, and let me thus salute you: Live forever, most excellent creature, and love some man, to show yourself thankful for God his high labour in you.24

Perrot’s close friend, Sir George Carew, was no whit less flattering in his communications with the Queen, to whom he wrote early in 1590, ‘give me leave to go into England to behold your sacred Majesty, in whose royal person all singularities and virtue’s absoluteness do abundantly appear, as to show my thankfulness for your gracious bounties’.25 Perrot’s son relates a tale that ‘beinge once told by a frende of his that he was noe courtier’, Perrot responded in characteristic fashion, asking Why soe . . . I have leived in and about the Court as long as most of them. I, but, sayd his frende, you cannot flatter, he asked agayne, is that the principall part of a courtier. Yes answered the other, his conclusion was, thene I will never be a courtier whilst I leive.26

According to Naunton, it was his ‘native freedom and boldnesse of speech’ which led to his falling foul of those courtiers, such as Sir Francis Knollys, who ‘were not to be contested with for they were . . . of the Queens neer kindred’.27 Perrot was fortunate that during Elizabeth’s reign he could rely on the goodwill and patronage of a powerful inner and intimate ring of courtiers, men like Pembroke (1558–68), Winchester (1558–72), Leicester (1558–88), Walsingham (1573–90) and Warwick (1558–90), who were listened to by the Queen in the making of appointments and who were allowed to reward their clients. Therefore, although Perrot was not among the powerful patronage brokers at Court, nor is it likely he would have been even 24 25 26 27

Quoted in C. Haigh, Elizabeth I (London, 1988), pp. 93–4. Cal. Carew MSS, 1589–1600, p. 18. BL Add. MSS 4819 f. 118–19. Naunton, Frag. Reg., p. 18.

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had he attended regularly, he knew well, and was linked, to some of those who were. Rivalry and emulation were facts of life at Court and Perrot competed with the best of them, for though he might not have worn the mantle of a courtier with ease, unlike his son and heir, Sir Thomas, who came to Court early in 1580, he was not bereft of courtly etiquette. He was well aware of what was required to survive at Court, which is why he was as adept as any in cultivating Privy Chamber links by means of those good barometers of the Queen’s mood, her ladies. One of the most trusted members of the Queen’s Privy Chamber was Blanche Parry, who hailed from the Welsh borderland and with whom Perrot struck up a close relationship.28 She had served the Queen since the late 1530s or early 1540s, and after the death of Catherine Asteley in 1565 had been promoted to First or Chief Gentlewoman of the Privy Chamber.29 Parry was certainly willing to serve the needs of the earl of Leicester whom she kept informed of developments at Court and in the Queen’s Privy Chamber when he was away. In one incident recorded by his son, Perrot is said to have ‘sent one of his gentlemen ashore with a diamond in a token unto Mistris Blanch Parry willing hym [the servant] to tell hir that a diamond coming unlooked for did allways bring good looke with it’.30 Such an expensive gift is indicative of Perrot’s regard for Mistress Parry and the good she could do him with the Queen who, on hearing of this generous offering to one of her favourite gentlewomen, sent Sir John Perrott a fayer jewell hanged by a white sypresse sygnifying that as longe as he wore that for hir sake, she did beleve, with god’s healpe he should have noe harme. Which message and jewell Sir John Perrott receved joyfully, and he returned answer unto the Queene that he would weare that for his Soveraignes sake.31

It is likely that such tokens of affection and friendship served only to stir Perrot’s rivals at Court to even greater anger and 28 Perrot also corresponded with Lady Dorothy Stafford and Mrs Mary Scudamore, two of the most influential of the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting. McNeill, ‘Perrot Papers’, p. 59. 29 J. E. Lloyd and R. T. Jenkins (eds.), The Dictionary of Welsh Biography down to 1940 (London, 1940), pp. 730–1. 30 Life, Deedes and Death, pp. 55–6. 31 Ibid., p. 56.

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jealousy. Competition at Court was at its fiercest when access to or intimacy with the Queen was at stake, and it could only have exacerbated the envy felt towards Perrot when, passing the palace of Greenwich in his barge, the Queene looking out of the window shaked hir fanne and put out hir hand tawards hym, who making a low obseyance, put the scarffe and jewell about his necke which the Queene sent hym.32

Elizabeth treated her courtiers as intimate friends and those closest to her were given nicknames: Burghley was ‘Sir Spirit’, Walsingham ‘The Moor’, Leicester ‘Eyes’ and Hatton ‘Lids’. As far as is known, the Queen had no nickname for Perrot which may indicate a relationship or intimacy that was more formal and less playful. If Perrot was no stranger to the Court, he was certainly a novice when it came to the inner workings of the Privy Council, and while it might be argued that his long experience as a courtier served as a fitting preparation for life among the conciliar elite, it was no guarantee of success. Forty years’ experience of the Court earned for Perrot little more than fifteen months as a Privy Councillor. As the even shorter conciliar career of William Davison shows – he served for a mere five months as Secretary of State before being dismissed – the Council could be a dangerous place for the unwary.33 And so it proved for Perrot, ‘a man over proud’ who fell foul of the machinations of his adversaries who, according to William Camden, ‘laboured tooth and nayle to put him from his place’.34 In securing his ‘place’ among the conciliar elite, Perrot had unwittingly unleashed powerful forces against him, for if the Court was the ‘marketplace of patronage’,35 the Privy Councillors were the market traders who derived their supplies and their profit from one 32

Ibid. William Davison (d. 1608) was fined and imprisoned in the Tower (1587–9), for ‘misprison and contempt’, being unfairly charged by the Queen with undue precipitation in securing her signature to the death warrant of Mary, Queen of Scots. Concise DNB, p. 625. 34 William Camden, Annales: The True and Royall History of the famous Empresse Elizabeth, Queene of England (London, 1625), p. 410. 35 Penry Williams, The Later Tudors: England 1547–1603 (Oxford, 1995), p. 129. 33

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source, the Queen. Consequently, rivalry, jealousy and resentment, spiced by corruption, came together to create a tinder box of envy; all that was required was a spark to set it alight. The Privy Council stood at the very heart of Elizabethan government and was, in the opinion of A. G. R. Smith, ‘hardly less important than the Queen in the government of Elizabethan England’.36 Certainly, by the time of Perrot’s appointment, the Privy Council was a thoroughly professional body, staffed, for the most part, by men of vast experience, considerable wit and not a little wisdom. That they were wealthy, powerful and wellconnected individuals in their own right counted for much when appointments were made to the Council. The Privy Council was the main executive and administrative organ of the state, bearing responsibility for such weighty matters as finance, foreign policy and military strategy, and for such trivial issues as the apprehension of criminals, the licensing of beggars and the repair of bridges. In truth, almost any matter of government business might come before the Council, but its primary functions were threefold: to discuss matters of state, to advise the monarch and, within certain limits, to formulate policy. Broadly speaking, there were three groups of Councillors: those who held office in the royal household, those who held the major offices of state and the remainder who, for want of a better term, may be described as ‘ministers without portfolio’. Perrot fell into the last category, being one of only two Councillors (the other being Lord Buckhurst) who did not hold any recognizable office in a Council that numbered sixteen when he joined early in 1589. In contrast, Perrot’s fellow appointee to the Council, Sir John Fortescue, was invested with the title and office of Chancellor of the Exchequer, in succession to Sir Walter Mildmay. Nevertheless, as Simon Adams has pointed out, for Privy Councillors ‘office was of less significance than personal relationships both to each other and to the Queen’.37 Perrot was neither a bureaucrat nor a lawyer but he was a politician and a soldier with practical experience of regional government, so that his non-specific appointment to the Council need not have been a hindrance to future promotion, nor should 36 37

A. G. R. Smith, The Government of Elizabethan England (London, 1967), p. 13. Adams, Leicester and the Court, p. 30.

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it be taken as evidence of a subsidiary or less important role in the Council’s affairs. The prestige and status that accompanied membership of the Privy Council were as real for Perrot, given the inevitable seniority of service that prevailed within its ranks, as it was for Fortescue or any other Councillor. Certainly, Perrot considered appointments to the Privy Council as matters for celebration, hence his letters of ‘Gratulacions’ to Lords Cobham and Buckhurst, and to Sir Amyas Paulet.38 If Camden is to be believed – and there is evidence from the Council register and the State Papers to support his opinion – it was ‘for his [Perrot’s] wisedome and paines taken’ in Ireland that the ‘Queene tooke [him] unto her Privy Councell’.39 Consequently, a sub-committee consisting of ‘Lord Buckhurst, Sir John Perrot, Mr. Fortescue did sit to hear Irish causes’,40 and the former Lord Deputy also received a number of letters and petitions from Irish officials asking for advice, support and, more controversially, intercession in some dispute or other.41 Given Paul Hammer’s belief that there ‘seems to have been a recognition that many suits fell into the area of responsibility for specific members of the Privy Council’,42 it is perhaps not surprising that the volume of correspondence addressed to Perrot from Irish suitors was greater than that received by any of his fellow Councillors. The Queen came to rely on Perrot’s experience of Ireland to guide her through the mire of Irish politics and he is frequently reported to be in her company either reading letters to her from complainants like Sir Brian O’Rourke or else penning and dispatching letters to Ireland in her name.43 That his oversight of Irish and related military matters was generally known is indicated by the following extract from Sir George Carew’s letter of 27 May 1589: ‘The continuance of my horsemen in sterling pay is by her Majesty cheifly referred to your Honour to consider. I beseech you to favour me and my poor men.’44 In 38

McNeill, ‘Perrot Papers’, 17, 57, 59. Camden, Annales, p. 410. Acts of the Privy Council of England, xviii (1589–90), pp. 76, 133. 41 CSPI, 1588–92, pp. 223, 228, 234–6, 255, 269, 298. 42 Paul E. J. Hammer, ‘Patronage at Court, Faction and the Earl of Essex’, in J. Guy (ed.), The Reign of Elizabeth I: Court and Culture in the Last Decade (Cambridge, 1995), p. 71. 43 Wood, Chron. Ire., p. 60. 44 Cal. Carew MSS, 1589–1600, p. 5. 39 40

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spite of his reputation for haughtiness, Perrot showed great care in following conciliar protocol by involving the Lord Treasurer (Burghley) and the Secretary of State (Walsingham) in every transaction between him and the Queen.45 Clearly, Perrot remained influential in Irish affairs but this was not the only area in which he was called on to serve the Crown as is shown by his help in piloting a number of government bills through Parliament. Indeed, news of Perrot’s appointment to the Privy Council coincided with the opening of Parliament on 4 February 1589 and within eight days of his being sworn a Councillor, on 10 February, he was given charge of a bill for reforming abuses in the Exchequer.46 Perrot took seriously his role as the Queen’s Councillor in the Commons, taking a more active part than hitherto in the business of the House. It is noteworthy that of the eight Privy Councillors who sat in the Commons during the 1589 parliamentary session (4 February to 29 March), he and Sir Francis Knollys were by far the busiest and most energetic.47 In addition to his Irish and parliamentary responsibilities, Perrot was called on to act in a judicial capacity sometimes as part of a group of Councillors meeting in Star Chamber; this he did four times between 15 October 1589 and 6 February 1590, or singly as in the dispute concerning the conveyance of Sir Francis Englefield’s lands in December 1589.48 In truth, Perrot’s duties and responsibilities were typical of any Councillor: he was a Deputy Lord Lieutenant, just as all his fellows were; he sat on the bench as a justice of the peace, just as they did; and he was named in a variety of specific commissions, like the rest. Perrot probably had Walsingham and the earl of Warwick to thank for his appointment to the Privy Council, though it would seem that the Queen needed little persuasion to include him on her list of senior advisers. War with Catholic Spain and the fear generated by the Armada had contributed to a climate of crisis in 45

Wood, Chron. Ire., pp. 60, 61. Perrot had been returned for the borough seat of Haverfordwest in Pembrokeshire in the election of 5 November 1588. Hasler, Hist. Parl., Vol. I, pp. 87–9, Vol. III, pp. 205, 206. 47 Ibid., Vol. II, pp. 409–14. 48 APC, xviii (1589–90), pp. 187, 195, 229, 360; Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1581–91, p. 632. 46

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which trusted men such as the Protestant Perrot, who had seen to the defence of Ireland and was seeing to the safety of south-west Wales, were entrusted with ever greater responsibility. Unlike Fortescue, who replaced the recently deceased Mildmay, Perrot was not a replacement but was an addition to the Council, the tone of which was becoming decidedly more Protestant after the death of the earl of Sussex in 1583. He and Fortescue were the first new appointees for two years, bringing the Council’s membership, recently depressed by death, up to seventeen. They and Sir Thomas Heneage, appointed in 1587, joined a Council which had been radically altered by the appointment of no less than seven new Councillors in 1586. Whether this was part of the beginning of what John Guy has termed the ‘transition’ between the ‘two reigns of Elizabeth I’49 is open to question, but there is no doubt that the deaths of key figures of the first generation conciliar establishment – Sir Ralph Sadler (d. 1587), the earl of Leicester (d. 1588), Sir Walter Mildmay (d. 1589), Sir James Croft (d. 1590), Sir Francis Walsingham (d. 1590) and the earls of Shrewsbury and Warwick (d. 1590) – altered the balance of opinion and power in the Privy Council. Perrot was plunged into this politically fluid environment where, as mortality thinned the ranks, the vast majority of Court offices were concentrated in the hands of the Queen’s family, oldest friends and contemporaries. Perrot proved to be a diligent Councillor with an attendance record (64 per cent) second only to that of Burghley himself (77 per cent). This was no mean achievement since the Council met regularly, in some months every day, but in others (and on average) about three or four times a week. If previously Perrot had found it difficult, like other courtiers, to reconcile the Queen’s demands for attendance with his domestic commitments, then it was no longer the case. On his appointment to the Privy Council he took lodgings at York House on the Strand which he leased, at the Queen’s behest, from the archbishop of York, and there he remained living and working in London and the Court until his arrest for treason.50 Thus, he was on hand to attend Council 49 J. Guy, ‘Introduction, The 1590s: The Second Reign of Elizabeth I?’, in Guy (ed.), The Reign of Elizabeth I, pp. 15, 18. 50 The Perrot family’s lease of York House did not end until 7 March 1593 when Sir Thomas conveyed it to Edwin Sandys, nephew of Miles, Clerk of the Court at Sir John’s trial. CSPD, 1591–94, p. 325.

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meetings and to see to Council business and, more importantly, he seems to have had the financial means to do so. During Perrot’s tenure, the Council met mainly in Whitehall but it was occasionally obliged to move with the Court for short periods to other royal palaces at Nonsuch, Oatlands, Richmond and Greenwich, all of which would have been familiar to him. It is fair to say that in the fifteen months of Perrot’s active membership of the Privy Council, between 10 February 1589 and 24 May 1590, he became a mainstay of conciliar business. Besides Perrot, among the most frequent attenders at this time were Burghley, Buckhurst, Croft, Fortescue, Hatton, Knollys and Walsingham. Together they formed a core of regular attenders who were joined by the remaining nine Councillors on an ad hoc basis, usually to deal with particular business. Of Perrot’s active participation in Council discussions we have no record, but it is likely, given his character, temperament and frequent attendance, that he took a full part in meetings; he was not a man loth to suppress his natural propensity for ‘boldnesse of speech’. Indeed, his reputation for plain speaking may have been one of the reasons why he was recruited to the Council. Perrot would certainly have agreed with his former patron and friend the earl of Pembroke, when he told the Queen that the primary role of her Councillors was in ‘advising her what was best for her, and if she did not think fit to adopt the advice, it was still their duty to offer it’.51 That he may have disagreed with his peers, perhaps even with the Queen, is likely but this need not have occasioned him any ill-will for, as M. A. R. Graves has stated, ‘serious disagreement was the exception rather than the rule. The social homogeneity and common political priorities of the council’s membership ensured that . . . harmony (though rarely unanimity) tended to prevail’.52 Indeed, it is important to remember that rivalry was not necessarily synonymous with enmity. On the other hand, there is evidence to suggest that Perrot’s bluntness may have been a cause of friction between him and the Queen. As early as 25 March 1589, Thomas Widebank wrote to Walsingham that having had his 51

Haigh, Elizabeth I, p. 69. M. A. R. Graves, Burghley: William Cecil, Lord Burghley (London, 1998), p. 111. 52

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audience with the Queen immediately after Sir John Perrot had left her, he says ‘what had passed he knows not, but he found her out of tune’. 53 As far as is known, the agenda for their discussion concerned the Queen’s request for a parliamentary bill to put a stop to the embezzling of her armour and weapons which had apparently caused them to fall out. Tact was essential in dealing with Elizabeth, hence the advice proffered by Robert Beale, Clerk of the Council, in his treatise on the office of Secretary of State (1592) to ‘learn before your access her Majesty’s disposition by some in the Privy Chamber . . . for that will stand you in much stead’.54 Perrot, in this instance at least, may not have followed the advice, but, it seems not to have seriously damaged his relationship with the Queen whom he continued to meet in the weeks and months following. It may be significant that in the same month, March 1589, the Queen’s summons to Perrot to meet her was thought sufficiently serious for him to miss a meeting of the Privy Council scheduled that day. They met to discuss the bill for the reforming of abuses in the Exchequer, the safe passage of which had been entrusted to Perrot, but the fact that it was delayed in committee, for which he had to ask for additional time followed by an urgent request that the Lords expedite its passage, may have formed the hub of the discussion. This need not be counted another example of royal admonition for Perrot since his audience with the Queen may have been, in part, an innocent consequence of her preference for meeting her ministers individually or in small groups rather than collectively in Council. This she did in order to maintain her independence from their collective pressure and to seek out the advice of those whom she most trusted. In the firm opinion of Sir Thomas Heneage, the Vice-Chamberlain, Perrot was to be counted among those few who were ‘especially trusted by her Majesty’,55 hence Heneage’s answer to Sir George Carew’s request for help in persuading the Queen to secure his appointment to the Irish Privy Council (dated 10 May 1589), urging him to enlist the support of the former Lord Deputy.

53 54 55

CSPD, 1584–91, pp. 223, 584. Williams, The Later Tudors, p. 143. Cal. Carew MSS, 1589–1600, p. 5.

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That trust was transformed into treason in the space of a year is perhaps indicative of the tension and competition that existed in serving Elizabeth in Court and in Council. Perrot was among those who complained most bitterly about the backbiting that went on, being especially unhappy with ‘wind whispered in corners’.56 The Queen’s Councillors were especially vulnerable to rumour and hearsay, and not even Burghley and Leicester were spared the Machiavellian machinations of their enemies. In January 1586, Burghley wrote ‘to Leicester to say that he had heard the earl had no liking for him though he had never sought or provoked his disapproval: Leicester responded that such talk was the work of informers sowing seeds of discontent between councillors’.57 As the following extract from a letter written in September 1585 suggests, Perrot too scorned the methods of the Florentine lawyer and, in his abhorrence of double dealing, may be described as a courtier more apt to follow the ideas of Castiglione than Machiavelli. As for those here that seek to uphold it by these indirect dealings against all conscience and reason, if I be enforced to be an accuser (a trade I abhor as unfit for one of my sort) I can and will make their inward livings appear otherwise than the holiness of the outward garment pretendeth.58

Ironically, in the months preceeding his fall from grace, there is no evidence of confrontation or conflict between Perrot and his fellow Councillors and courtiers, and this in spite of the fact that a number of them are known to have been ill-disposed towards him and his family. Nor is there any evidence to support Camden’s suggestion that Perrot’s inclusion on the Privy Council had upset the likes of Hatton, who had attempted to engineer an appointment ‘in favour of a follower of his’.59 Like Hatton, Burghley too had hoped to secure the appointment of his nominee to the Council which, in this instance, was none other than his son Robert, but again there is no evidence to suggest that Perrot had usurped the position. If anything, Perrot’s 56

SP63/127/14. N. Mears, ‘Regnum Cecilianum? A Cecilian Perspective of the Court’, in Guy (ed.), The Reign of Elizabeth I, p. 47. 58 McNeill, ‘Perrot Papers’, 28. 59 Camden, Annales, p. 410. 57

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presence on the Privy Council enabled the Queen to maintain her system of checks and balances within the Council. Nevertheless, the absence of evidence cannot, by itself, be taken as proof that Camden was mistaken or, equally, that Councillors like Burghley, Hatton and others resented Perrot’s appointment. That there must have been some plotting and perhaps even some planning is suggested by the speed with which the process against Perrot, once begun, moved. The first indications of trouble for Perrot came not from the Council or the Court but from Ireland. Nevertheless, it is in large measure the perceived use Perrot made of his privileged position as a Privy Councillor to interfere in Irish affairs that eventually led to the conspiracy that brought his downfall. The prime movers in that conspiracy, Sir William Fitzwilliam and Chancellor-Archbishop Adam Loftus, were not members of the English Privy Council but they had friends and patrons who were and it is their use, or misuse, of these, and vice versa, that eventually led to Perrot’s destruction. As Sir Robert Naunton so graphically opined, ‘we may take this also into observation; that there were of the Queens Councell, that were not in the Catalogue of Saints’.60

60

Naunton, Frag. Reg., p. 23.

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Soe hardly was Sir John Perrott besett on all sides with calumniations and clamors of his adversaries soe that wheresoever he went there wanted not such as would be redie to slaunder and maligne hym. And surely soe it fell out, that . . . he was mightily maligned and did procure many eviell willers not of the meanest sorte.1

Perrot’s enemies, it seems, were legion while his friends were few. That his enemies counted a number of courtiers and Councillors in their midst may be inferred from the countless references to the ‘great men’, his ‘Adversaries at Court’ who would ‘not cease to worke his trouble and disquiet’.2 That they were powerful is not in dispute, unlike their identities which, for the most part, are hidden from us. Indeed, it is a matter of regret that contemporaries were not generally forthcoming in identifying these ‘greater men then hymselfe’3 who ‘sate in high places of authority’4 so that a careful sifting of the evidence is necessary in order to identify those responsible for heaping on Perrot the continual ‘complaints, crossings and backbitings’,5 and much else besides. This is no easy task, for conspiracies tend to be conceived in dark corners and those involved are painfully shy of the light. By the same token many contemporary writers, including Perrot’s own son, were reluctant to ‘touch the proceedings of times past too much’ for fear that it ‘may perchaunce breede offence’.6 It was not so much Perrot’s ‘open enemies’ 1 2 3 4 5 6

Life, Deedes and Death, p. 69. ECS, Govt. of Ireland, pp. 35, 75, 123. Life, Deedes and Death, p. 59. Ibid., p. 64. ECS, Govt. of Ireland, p. 79. Life, Deedes and Death, p. 133.

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whom writers like his son Sir James, Sir Robert Naunton and the enigmatic ECS, feared offending as much as his ‘secrett adversaries’,7 men of power and influence who either themselves, if living, or through their offspring, could still deal a mortal blow to those who would censure them. Perrot had his champions, men who through ties of family, friendship and patronage stood out in their support of him, but, as is so often the case when cries of treason are heard, as many as held firm to his cause cut loose and sought shelter in the shadows. One need only go back to the beginning of Perrot’s service in Ireland to find a ready list of his ‘open enemies’. The most persistent was Loftus, closely followed by Fenton, Bagenal and Wallop, but neither the Lord Chancellor nor his colleagues on the Irish Council had the influence necessary to bring down the Privy Councillor. For this they needed a man of weight and connection who could shoulder the burden of accusing one so powerful of crimes so serious that the Queen herself would be drawn into the affair. That man appeared, in the summer of 1588, in the person of Sir William Fitzwilliam, Perrot’s successor as Lord Deputy of Ireland. Having served together in Ireland many years previously, for some eighteen months between 1572 and 1573, Perrot and Fitzwilliam were well acquainted. In fact, Fitzwilliam was probably the Queen’s most experienced Irish administrator, having served in Ireland since at least 1559 in a number of capacities: first as Undertreasurer (1559–73), then as Lord Justice (1560–1, 1567–8, 1571), followed by his promotion to Lord Deputy (1572–5). It was as Lord Deputy of Ireland that Fitzwilliam crossed paths with Perrot, who only a little time before had been appointed Lord President of Munster. The relationship between the Lord Deputy and his provincial president was always businesslike and cordial with no hint of the vindictiveness that was later to sour their relations. There is, likewise, no evidence to suggest that Perrot opposed Fitzwilliam’s appointment as Lord Deputy in 1588. Indeed, if the attitude of Perrot’s ‘very assured loving friend’, Sir George Carew, is anything to go by, he may well have welcomed the appointment. Carew praised the appointment because of Fitzwilliam’s wisdom, experience and, in particular, religious beliefs, which were 7

Ibid., p. 64.

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akin to Perrot’s own.8 The Queen, on the other hand, was not so convinced, fearing Fitzwilliam was ‘too forward in dealing with matters of religion’, which might provoke the Catholic Irish.9 This suggests that the Queen may not have been entirely comfortable with Fitzwilliam’s appointment. This, in turn, suggests that he may have been foisted upon her by his supporters at Court, chief of whom was Lord Treasurer Burghley. Fitzwilliam’s governorship of Ireland began well enough. His parting with Perrot was amicable, each praising the other in the public ceremony that attended the formal handing over of power. The scene is described by Perrot’s biographer-son: He [Perrot] sayd theise wordes in the hearinge of many honourable and worshipfull persons, wherof some are yet levinge, quoth he ‘Now my Lord Deputie I have delivered you the sword with the contry in firme peace and quietnes; my hope is you will informe the Queene and counsell of England therof even as you finde it’ . . . To whom the new Lord Deputy answered, ‘Sir John Perrott, I must needes confesse that I finde the contrie quiett and all thinges here in good order. I pray god I may leave it halfe soe well and then I shall thinke, that I have done my Queene and contrie good service . . . and soe I confesse it.’10

Fitzwilliam’s happy frame of mind did not last long. His cordiality towards Perrot, and others including Sir Henry Wallop, his colleague on the Irish Council, proved to be superficial and fleeting. By late October 1588, Wallop was among the first to complain to Burghley that both ‘Perrot and Fytzwylliam do all they can to discredit him’.11 It was not long ere policy began to drift and the power of central government under the minimalist Fitzwilliam weakened to the extent that provincial governors, such as Bingham and Bagenal, were given free rein to rule almost as they wished. Long regarded as ‘the corrupt and cruel governor who caused the Nine Years War’,12 history has not been kind to the impecunious Fitzwilliam, who found his second term as Lord Deputy far more of a challenge than he had perhaps expected, despite his long service. In the opinion of Sir James 8 9 10 11 12

Cal. Carew MSS, 1589–1600, p. 469. Hasler, Hist. Parl., Vol. II, p. 130. Life, Deedes and Death, p. 132. CSPI, 1586–88, p. 162. Morgan, Tyrone’s Rebellion, p. 55.

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Perrot, author of the Chronicle of Ireland, Fitzwilliam was ‘a man full of yeres, and furnished with experience for that service. His experience made hym able to know, but his yeres did disable hym to execute that he knew.’13 Apart from his instructions from the Queen, which were to cut costs, increase revenue and maintain peace, Fitzwilliam had neither plan nor programme to govern Ireland. Thus, when events began to outrun his capacity to cope with them he turned to finding scapegoats. His most pressing need was to hide the fact that almost from the beginning of his administration he presided over massive bribery involving friends, relatives and a number of state officials, including Loftus and the Solicitor-General, Sir Roger Wilbraham. This soon attracted fierce criticism from the likes of Captain Thomas Lee, ‘a man as adventerous to speake or thincke what he knew or conceved as he was valiant in service’,14 and Robert Legge, a financial official who accused Fitzwilliam of filling ‘his own bags daily and hourly’.15 However, this was in the future and cannot easily be regarded as a cause of his quarrel with Perrot which, at first sight, seems to have been conjured out of nothing. Fitzwilliam’s struggle with Perrot concerned patronage not policy and was more intensely personal than political. Simple irritation seems to have been the initial stimulus to Fitzwilliam’s criticism of his predecessor, which he delivered in a letter to the Privy Council within thirty days of his succession to office. In it he complained that there were no state robes left after Perrot had departed Dublin and, worse, the former Lord Deputy had taken with him ‘the indentures which were made for the Composition of Connaught’.16 Perrot’s reply to the Privy Council exhibits equal irritation for, as he explains, I told the Lord Deputy [Fitzwilliam] that I would send the robes to him, which I have done before the receipt of these your Lordships’ letters, wishing that his Lordship would upon my promise have forborne to write to your Lordships for such a trifle.17

13 14 15 16 17

Wood, Chron. Ire., p. 57. Ibid., p. 81. SP63/169/3. CSPI, 1586–88, pp. 579–83. CSPI, 1588–92, p. 13.

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It later transpired that Fitzwilliam had also been irritated by the report on the condition of the country, together with appended advice, delivered to him by Perrot on his taking office. The fact that Burghley had instructed Perrot to furnish his successor with such a report suggests that it may have been the manner in which it was delivered, rather than the report itself, that offended Fitzwilliam’s susceptibilities. He later told Burghley that since he had had eighteen years’ experience in Ireland, Perrot’s report, much less his advice, was quite unnecessary, ‘for he had eyes to see the conditions of the country without being told of it’.18 Fitzwilliam’s and Perrot’s irritation with each other might have remained just that had the latter not been appointed to the Privy Council in February 1589. It is at this point that Fitzwilliam seems to have conceived of Perrot as a rival, if not a serious threat. Having stirred Perrot to anger by his petty criticisms, Fitzwilliam may have thought that the latter might exact his vengeance now that he was promoted to a position of power. Fitzwilliam had had to deal with critical and meddling predecessors before, in the person of Lord Deputy Sir Henry Sidney, who had used his influence at Court to undermine and eventually replace him in 1575. The fact that Sidney too had been promoted to the Privy Council prior to replacing him in Ireland, served only to heighten Fitzwilliam’s fears that Perrot was planning to do the same. It is likely that Perrot’s enemies on the Irish Council, particularly Loftus, with whom Fitzwilliam formed a corrupt relationship, did little to soothe the Lord Deputy’s anxiety. If anything, Perrot’s enemies on the Irish Council, especially Fenton that ‘Moath in all the Deputies garments of his time’,19 probably goaded Fitzwilliam to further action against Perrot by stirring up his fears. Perrot, perhaps unwittingly, played into their hands by continuing his interest in Irish affairs, hitherto on a casual basis, on a more sustained level once appointed to the Privy Council. It was a role to which he had been assigned by the Crown and encouraged by the many letters and petitions received from Irish suitors. This had the unfortunate consequence of exacerbating Fitzwilliam’s anxiety because, in

18 19

Evans, ‘Sir John Perrot’, p. 229. ECS, Govt. of Ireland, p. 75.

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responding to his Irish correspondents, Perrot seemed to be condoning the practice of by-passing the Lord Deputy. Misunderstanding coupled with misrepresentation bred faction which, in turn, deepened the divisions between the two men and their supporters. Thus, by January’s end, 1589, a mere five days before the formal announcement of Perrot’s longrumoured elevation to the Privy Council, Fitzwilliam complained to Burghley that ‘I cannot obtain Sir Lucas Dillon’s hand nor Sir Nicholas White’s to any letter wherein Sir John Perrot is mentioned not to their liking’.20 That the Irish Council was rent with conflict, and not just between the pro- and anti-Perrot factions, is amply illustrated by a letter penned by Wallop on 5 February 1589 in which he complained to Walsingham that although I have often sought his [Fitzwilliam’s] favour and goodwill, and I was as glad of his coming, and as desirous of his friendship as any man in Ireland but since I have found him use such hard language of me, both before my face and behind my back, I have ceased to seek him.21

Interestingly, Wallop concluded his letter by stating that ‘I have declined the mediation of one who has been the chief means of setting the Lord Deputy against me’.22 If this is intended to mean Perrot then it is curious indeed, for it would suggest that he was deliberately engineering conflicts between those whom he considered unfriendly. Indeed, Hiram Morgan has suggested that Perrot was employing a subtle ploy in which he used his voluminous correspondence with major figures in Irish society as a means to increase reliance on himself while, at the same time, encouraging the recipients to support the Lord Deputy.23 Perrot had many fine qualities but subtlety was not among them so that we are left with the conclusion that the former Lord Deputy may have been genuinely trying to heal divisions on the Irish Council rather than provoke them. If conflict was the result of his interference, it is likely to be more due to his unsubtle 20 21 22 23

CSPI, 1588–92, p. 116. Ibid., p. 119. Ibid. Morgan, Tyrone’s Rebellion, p. 56.

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approach than to any design on his part.24 It is only after he heard of Fitzwilliam’s rumoured remarks about him that Perrot responded in kind. His reaction is very much in keeping with his character, as his son relates: as longe as any man did contend with hym, he would use all opposition he could by the sword or by the law, but if submission were offered by his inferior or reconciliation by his equall, he would as readily receve it as any man.25

This is the key to understanding the conflict between Fitzwilliam and Perrot, for it is largely the result of rumour-mongering on the part of dissident elements on both sides that the process of allegations and counter-allegations was begun. In March and May 1589, parties unknown were responsible for reporting ‘words spoken by the Lord Deputy that do concern Sir John Perrot’, among which the following are chief in a list of allegations: ‘“There be some who do advertise that I disallow of Sir John Perrot’s government and I will imitate no part thereof”. “I say”, said he [Fitzwilliam], “it is true, if he were here I would speak it to his face.”’ He goes on to explain why, inasmuch as ‘Perrot’s government was to suppress the captains and Englishmen, and to bear with papists, and never to call for the Queen’s debts’.26 Perrot’s response was robust: My purpose in delivering to your Lordship [Burghley] what I heard from men of good credit out of Ireland of the causeless, malicious, and inconsiderate speeches of the Deputy towards me, was not that I need care for his good or evil will, but rather to show his unthankfulness. I hade written unto him four or five letters, wherof he disdained to answer any. Were it not to satisfy others, I would not make any ‘rejoin’ to such mad replies, for to such a spirit as he carrieth, silence were the best answer.27

Perrot’s true feelings on the matter are best summed up in the following statement: ‘If he [Fitzwilliam] knoweth any fault by 24 A little over three months earlier, in late October 1588, Sir Lucas Dillon reported to Walsingham on his reconciliation with Sir Nicholas White which had been effected by Perrot. CSPI, 1588–92, p. 65. 25 Life, Deedes and Death, p. 12. 26 CSPI, 1588–92, p. 161. 27 Ibid., p. 164.

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me, it were much more honest for him to deliver it in writing than to hide it in such covert sort of speeches.’28 Fitzwilliam denied the allegations of speaking ill of Perrot but the latter believed them, hence the fact that he did ‘marvel, for his Lordship and I parted very great friends’. He went on to defend himself by stating that ‘what I have said of him to Her Majesty and otherwise is known and therefore he is the more at fault’.29 In the opinion of Sir John Perrot’s modern biographer, P. C. C. Evans, it was probably the ‘slighting reflection on his generosity which angered Perrot the most’.30 Having ‘made a moan’ at how ill he had been provided for by the Queen, Perrot offered to lend Fitzwilliam £500 worth of provisions together with a cash sum of £2,000 which he need not pay back for a year. Fitzwilliam refused and explained his reasons to Burghley: ‘I had long known [Perrot] to love to advance and set all his courtesies over largely abroad.’31 In such an atmosphere of recrimination the escalation in hostilites was probably inevitable, especially as neither Burghley nor Walsingham, nor indeed the Queen, seemed prepared to act as peace-maker. The final straw in the continuing conflict, especially in respect of Fitzwilliam’s fragile confidence, was the visit to Ireland, in September and October 1589, of Burghley’s eldest son, Sir Thomas Cecil. Cecil had carried out fact-finding missions in Ireland for his father before but this one was attended by rumours that he was intended to replace Fitzwilliam.32 Perrot was innocent of circulating these rumours but his supporters on the Irish Council were not, and they used Cecil’s visit to undermine Fitzwilliam. Although Burghley had been responsible for dispatching his son to Ireland, the Lord Deputy blamed Perrot, believing him to be behind the malicious manipulation of his supporters. A clearly agitated Fitzwilliam was likely frustrated at Burghley’s curious failure to inform him of the purpose of his son’s visit, but rather than vent his spleen on his kinsman and patron, the Lord Deputy sought, no doubt with the ready connivance of Loftus, to discredit Perrot. 28 29 30 31 32

Ibid., p. 162. Ibid. Evans, ‘Sir John Perrot’, p. 230. SP63/147/35. CSPI, 1588–92, pp. 252, 255.

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Although largely innocent of much of what Fitzwilliam had accused him, there is no doubt that Perrot was not above urging and using his friends and followers to report covertly on affairs in Ireland. In May 1589, Sir George Carew wrote to Perrot: The proceedings of the government here you are advertised of from here by the State, and also by particular friends, your old followers. I am unwilling to be too busy to censure of matters that do not appertain to me; yet if you wish it, I will furnish you with such occurrants as this place will afford; but whatsoever I shall write, I humbly crave it may be suppressed.33

It is, in part, due to Perrot’s loyalty to his ‘old followers’ in Ireland and the use he made of them, that he fell out with Fitzwilliam. By attempting to oust those known to be favourable to, or connected with, Perrot, Fitzwilliam had stirred the former Lord Deputy to their defence. Sir Nicholas White and Sir Lucas Dillon were marginalized, Sir Henry Duke was discredited and Stephen Seager was dismissed from his post as constable of Dublin Castle. In June 1589 Perrot secured a Privy Council letter demanding the reinstatement of Seager and he followed this up in the autumn by using his influence to get Sir Edward Moore appointed to the Irish Council.34 It is almost impossible not to see the hand of another at work in the displacement of Perrot’s appointees, namely, Adam Loftus. It is instructive that when news of Perrot’s appointment to the Privy Council was known, among the first letters sent by Fitzwilliam to Burghley was one urging the Lord Treasurer to protect the Lord Chancellor from the ‘malice’ of the former Lord Deputy.35 It is probably fair to say that Fitzwilliam was as much an unwitting instrument of Loftus’s malice towards Perrot as he was master of his own vituperative campaign against his predecessor. Although Loftus is said only to have had a ‘walkon part’36 in the conspiracy to destroy Perrot, his role has probably been underestimated. E. M. Tenison thought so: ‘Whereas Hatton was represented by Naunton as scheming for Perrot’s ruin, there seems every reason to believe that the contemporary reference to “the Chancellor” was not meant to 33 34 35 36

Cal. Carew MSS, 1589–1600, p. 5. Morgan, Tyrone’s Rebellion, p. 56. CSPI, 1588–92, p. 143. Morgan, Tyrone’s Rebellion, p. 56.

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denote the Lord High Chancellor of England, but the Chancellor of Ireland’.37 The editor of the Calendar of Irish State Papers, H. C. Hamilton, also believed that Perrot’s ‘impeachment was abetted by the Chancellor, Archbishop Loftus, whom he had disobliged’ while serving in Ireland.38 Loftus’s connections were such that he could count on the patronage of Burghley and the friendship of Ormond and, having served as the Queen’s chaplain before embarking on a new career in Ireland, Loftus knew Elizabeth personally and had access to her. Loftus was a formidable adversary whose skilful manipulation of people and events was recognized and feared by those who, like Sir Henry Wallop, had worked closely with him but with whom he had subsequently fallen out. Loftus’s apprehension and interrogation of Dennis O’Roughan and his careful cultivation of Perrot’s duplicitous secretary, Phillip Williams, to betray his master proved decisive in the case that came to be made against the former Lord Deputy. It may be significant that in his last will and testament Perrot took the opportunity to attack Loftus rather than Fitzwilliam, of whom no mention was made: I doe . . . testify upon my faithe, that the Lorde Chauncellor of Ireland, and Phillip Wyllyams doe falselie belye me in their declaracyons, touchinge any materiall pointe that concerneth hir Majestie, which they alleadged that I should speake of hir Highnesse: and what is spoken therin by them is of malice, they bothe beinge knowen to be men that will speake muche untruthe, and the one was myne enemie, and the other was a spye upon me.39

If Ireland could provide a formidable list of Perrot’s ‘open enemies’, so too could England. Sir Francis Knollys and Sir John Puckering had fallen out with Perrot earlier in their careers and the breach between them had never been properly healed. Knollys had stirred his fellow Privy Councillors against Perrot in 1572 when the latter, serving as Lord President of Munster, had been accused of theft, extortion and false imprisonment in respect of the cargo and crew of the merchant ship, the Peter and Paul.40 37 E. M. Tenison, Elizabethan England (13 vols., Leamington Spa, 1933–60), Vol. IX, p. 74. 38 CSPI, 1586–88, p. xliv. 39 Life, Deedes and Death, p. 152. 40 See Ch. 1, n. 15.

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As chief justice of the Carmarthen circuit in 1580, Puckering had relentlessly pursued a seriously-ill Perrot through the courts (he was suffering from the sweating sickness), insisting that he respond to the summons to hear the allegations of misconduct made against him by his neighbour, Thomas Wyrriot.41 At the time Puckering was closely allied to Perrot’s enemy at Court, Walter Devereux, earl of Essex. In both instances Perrot was cleared of any wrong-doing but his treatment at the hands of Knollys and Puckering had made a lasting impression and served only to deepen his enmity, which did not dim with time. Indeed, public knowledge of the enmity between Knollys and Perrot was such that during the investigation of the latter for treason, late in 1590 and nearly twenty years after they had quarrelled, the chief prosecution witness, Dennis O’Roughan, tried to take advantage of the situation by stoking the fires of conflict between them.42 Unlike Loftus and Fitzwilliam, Knollys and Puckering can truly be said to have had only ‘walk-on parts’ in the conspiracy against Perrot though Puckering would figure prominently later during his trial. It has long been believed that Perrot’s enemy-in-chief was Sir Christopher Hatton, but this is no longer the case. Although the two cannot be described as friends, neither were they the bitter enemies of historical lore. In truth, it is only in the last thirtythree months (between February 1589 and November 1591) of an acquaintance spanning thirty years, that Hatton and Perrot can fairly be described as enemies. The origin of the story of their enmity may be traced to three sources: the first, a genealogical tract composed c.1591 by the Welsh herald, Lewys Dwnn; the second, a brief biographical sketch composed by William Camden sometime between 1615 and 1625; and lastly, a short treatise on the career of Sir John Perrot written by Sir Robert Naunton in the late 1620s. According to Dwnn, Perrot had a child Elizabeth, the wife of Hugh Butler of Johnston in Pembrokeshire, by Elizabeth the daughter of ‘Syr Kristor Haton’.43 Dwnn is the sole authority for this supposed liaison which may or may not have taken place; but if it did, then 41

Life, Deedes and Death, p. 60. SP12/232/63. Lewys Dwnn, Heraldic Visitations of Wales, ed. S. R. Meyrick (2 vols., Llandovery, 1846), Vol. I, p. 90. 42 43

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Elizabeth Hatton must have been an illegitimate child of her unmarried father. Later writers seized upon this reference to weave stories of seduction, both consensual and enforced, to help explain the enmity between Hatton and Perrot, the earliest authority for which is Camden. According to Camden, when the Queen took Perrot ‘unto her Privy Councell . . . Hatton Lord Chancellor . . . and other his adversaries in Court, laboured tooth and nayle to put him from his place, as a man over proud’.44 In Naunton’s opinion the ‘hatred and practice of Hatton, then in high favour’, was largely responsible for Perrot being ‘accused for high Treason’.45 The fact that Naunton was married to Perrot’s granddaughter Penelope when he composed his treatise, lends credibility to his tale. Only with hindsight have Dwnn’s genealogical reference to a sexual connection, and Naunton’s written report, been linked, for it seems that neither Naunton nor Camden was aware of such an illicit liaison. According to Naunton, Hatton’s hatred of Perrot was due to his having been ‘too bitterly taunted for his dancing’, a charge repeated by David Lloyd in his State Worthies (1665) inasmuch as ‘Hatton’s sly smoothness undermined his [Perrot] open roughness; the one dancing at Court with more success than the other fought in Ireland’.46 Neither Naunton nor Lloyd makes reference to any sexual impropriety on the part of Perrot with a daughter of Hatton. Not that Perrot was incapable of such inappropriate sexual dalliances, as his son makes clear in his biography: He was adicted to that sine whereto men are by nature inclined, and allthough he were not that way alltogether soe unmeasurable in his desiers, as many men are, nor did not mainteyne it with such publick ostentation and defence as some men doe, yet he did offend soe farre in that kynde, as it drew god’s displeasure towards hym, which (if men may pronounce god’s judgements) was the cause of his ruine, he being otherwise cleare of any notable crime in all the course of his life.47

Unless this is intended as a hint at a calamitous sexual liaison, the story of Perrot’s seduction of Elizabeth Hatton must remain just that, a story with no provable factual foundation. Indeed, 44 45 46 47

Camden, Annales, p. 410. Naunton, Frag. Reg., p. 42. David Lloyd, State Worthies (London, 1665), p. 511. Life, Deedes and Death, p. 12.

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even had such a liaison occurred there is no reason to suppose that Hatton would have been offended, since the child, his granddaughter, was, as suggested by Dwnn, freely acknowledged and honourably raised by her father. Perrot had a track record of taking care of his mistresses and their children, whom he generously housed at one or other of his many mansions and expensively educated at the universities and Inns of Court. If Camden is to be believed, it seems unlikely that Hatton would have been offended by Perrot’s taunts, much less by the seduction of an illegitimate child, for he was possessed of a ‘modest sweetness of condition’ and was ‘pious of nature, a great reliever of the poor, of singular bounty and munificence to students and learned men’.48 More significantly, in a letter to Hatton, Burghley wrote: ‘I find you readier to change offence taken than any other with whom I have had like occasion’.49 In the only surviving letter (assuming there were others) written by Perrot to Hatton, dated 20 April 1586, the tone is respectful and the relationship apparently cordial, so much so that the then Lord Deputy of Ireland went so far as to ‘humlie beseche’ the vice-chamberlain ‘to bestowe upon me, as the chiefest effect of your favour, your best furtherance for my revocacion’.50 This flies in the face of Christopher Haigh’s claim that Hatton obtained Perrot’s appointment as Lord Deputy of Ireland ‘to prise him away from Elizabeth, whose half-brother he claimed to be’.51 Perrot never made any such claim and there is no evidence to suggest that Hatton had anything to do with his Irish appointment. On the other hand, to survive in the competitive world of the Court, Hatton must have been as ruthless, tough and uncompromising as his contemporaries with whom he vied for the Queen’s favour. He had his enemies, Sir Walter Ralegh chief among them, and he had his rivals, the earl of Oxford and Sir Edward Dyer the most prominent, but he had friends and clients too, and it is in his connection with them that we find some evidence of anti-Perrot sentiment. The most compelling is Hatton’s close relationship with his chaplain, later to be archbishop of Canterbury, Richard Bancroft, who worked successfully to 48 49 50 51

Quoted in E. St. J. Brooks, Sir Christopher Hatton (London, 1946), p. 124. Ibid., p. 19. McNeill, ‘Perrot Papers’, 58. Haigh, Elizabeth I, p. 89.

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frustrate Perrot’s attempt to convert St Patrick’s Cathedral into a university. Working on behalf of Perrot’s bitter enemy Archbishop Adam Loftus, Bancroft, a man not without influence at Court, was used ‘to bear his letters to Burghley and explain his point of view’.52 Hatton’s biographer, Eric St John Brooks, ‘cannot help wondering whether Loftus’s choice of Bancroft as his emissary was not to some extent due to the calculation that Hatton’s influence would be likely to be cast against any schemes of his enemy Perrot’.53 Of course, this assumes that they were enemies at this point but, in truth, there is no hard evidence to support such a contention. Nor is there any evidence pointing to Hatton’s involvement in the dispute between Loftus and Perrot, though this does not mean he did not become embroiled in the affair at some point. No less intriguing is the suggestion that Hatton made use of an agent provocateur to spy on Perrot while he was Lord Deputy of Ireland. The spy in question was Jacomo di Francisci, commonly known as Captain Jacques, who, according to Loftus, was a ‘servant to Mr. Vice-Chamberlain’.54 He was also Sir William Stanley’s lieutenant in Ireland where he had ‘sundry times lost his blood, and very hardly escaped with his life’.55 The fact that the rather dubious ‘Captain Jacques’ had earned the admiration of Loftus, being described by him in a letter of introduction to Burghley as ‘a forward and valiant gentleman . . . such as may become a civil, honest gentleman’, is interesting given his role in fomenting discord between Perrot and Sir Richard Bingham.56 Bingham, Chief Commissioner of Connacht, very nearly came to blows with Lord Deputy Perrot on account of a conversation he allegedly had with Jacques in which he said that ‘he would fight the Deputy if he were out of office’.57 In reporting the conversation to Lord Delvin, Jacques had ensured that Perrot would get to hear of it, and although the provocation was mere hearsay, it was enough to cause the issuing of a challenge to Bingham to a duel. In spite of his gallantry on the 52 53 54 55 56 57

Quoted in Brooks, Hatton, p. 334. Ibid. Ibid., p. 264. Ibid. Quoted in Brooks, Hatton, p. 320. Ibid.

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battlefields of Ireland, ‘Captain Jacques’ earned notoriety by joining Stanley in rebellion, for which deed he earned the undying enmity of Perrot’s son, Sir James, who described him and Stanley as ‘eivell members of the state’.58 Camden perhaps holds the clue to the enmity that Hatton is said to have harboured for Perrot. He suggests that Perrot’s appointment to the Privy Council had denied Hatton the opportunity to have ‘a follower of his’ promoted.59 The identity of this ‘follower’ of Hatton’s is never revealed nor is it easy to suggest a likely candidate, but if Camden is to be believed, the enmity between the two men can be dated with confidence to no earlier than February 1589. This would certainly fit the chronology of events that culminated in Perrot’s investigation, condemnation and trial for treason, in which Hatton played a supporting role (rather than the leading role assigned by Camden) alongside Burghley. Not that this should be taken as evidence of Hatton’s special determination to rid the Court and Council of a hated enemy, for in recent years he had been closely involved in the trials for treason of Parry (1585), Babington (1586) and Mary, Queen of Scots (1587). Nevertheless, Camden was certain that Perrot’s fate owed more to the machinations of Hatton than to anyone else. This is made clear by Camden’s reference to the fact that although ‘Hatton were now dead’, Perrot was still called ‘in the moneth of Aprill to his tryall’.60 It is interesting to note that in Court careers overlapping thirty years (dating from Hatton’s first appearance at Court 1561), only once did they apparently write to each other. It is perhaps worth noting that during the investigation of Perrot’s alleged treason the chief prosecution witness, Dennis O’Roughan, rebuked Hatton for supposedly showing ‘the greatest favour’ to the accused.61 In the opinion of E. M. Tenison, it is ‘an accusation overlooked by all who follow Naunton in classing Hatton as the contriver of Perrott’s downfall’ and is, therefore, sufficient to ‘make us doubt Hatton’s alleged enmity to Perrott’.62 58

Wood, Chron. Ire., p. 31. Camden, Annales, p. 410. 60 Ibid. 61 SP12/233/111. 62 Tenison, Elizabethan England, Vol. IX, p. 76. Hatton may have been part of a plan concocted by Burghley to appear as Perrot’s enemy. H. S. Scott (ed.), ‘Journal of Sir Roger Wilbraham’, Camden Society Miscellany, Vol. X (1902), 51–2. 59

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It is Perrot’s ‘secrett adversaries’ that historians are most concerned to identify, for although they appear to have been fewer in number than his ‘open enemies’, they were infinitely more powerful and dangerous. Sir James Perrot had no doubt that his father’s cause was hurt more by ‘private gruge prevayling’ than ‘open hostilie’ which he believed ‘could doe hym noe harme’ because he was innocent.63 Among those who may be indicted for the ‘evell affection which they bare unto Sir John Perrott’, William Cecil, Lord Burghley stands first, followed, possibly, by Thomas Butler, earl of Ormond.64 Ormond was a skilled operator and an arch-manipulator whose long experience in Irish politics and English Court intrigue was unrivalled. Perrot’s friendship with Ormond ‘whom he loved well’,65 dates back to at least November 1549 when both were knighted by King Edward VI at Court. Their friendship endured, largely at a distance, for the next twenty years until Perrot was appointed Lord President of Munster. During his presidency their relationship was severely strained for it soon became obvious that, for Ormond, protecting his interests took precedence over friendship. Equally, in Perrot’s mind, friendship took second place to pressing his own interests by showing zeal in carrying out the Queen’s commands, even if this meant exercising the royal writ in territories held by Ormond, who objected to such interference. Ormond undermined Perrot’s position by using his influence at Court to circumvent his authority which, though it greatly annoyed the Lord President, did not lead to a permanent breach between them. On leaving the presidency of Munster, Perrot and Ormond repaired and even strengthened their relationship, to the extent that the earl was among those who encouraged his friend’s appointment as Lord Deputy of Ireland a decade later. Accepting an invitation to stay at Perrot’s Pembrokeshire home, Carew Castle, in the early summer of 1584, Ormond even accompanied his old friend to meet his half-brother, Sir Henry Jones, and to stay a few days at the latter’s house, Abermarlais in Carmarthenshire.

63 64 65

Life, Deedes and Death, p. 107. Ibid., p. 64. Ibid., p. 34.

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Their friendship did not survive Perrot’s deputyship, which Ormond sought fit to undermine in more determined fashion than he had done during his friend’s presidency. Writing more than twelve years after the death of the earl and, therefore, more freely than otherwise would have been the case, the anonymous author of The Government of Ireland . . . under Sir John Perrot, the enigmatic ECS, had this to say: The practise of such as he had displeased, by crossing their courses and undue proceedings, did not cease to worke his trouble and disquiet. Amongst whom the Erle of Ormond was now become one that laboured by secret information, to incense the Queene against him, which procured from her and in her name sharpe reprehensions, which did much disquiet him, and provoked his chollerick and passionate nature to offend and exceede himselfe, for being vexed with indignation and conceived injuries, hee could not forbeare to speake, and sometimes to write as tardy, as he found himself dealt withall.66

As the following extract of Perrot’s letter to his Court agent, Charles Russell, shows, the cause of their breach was very much the same as before, the obstinacy of the one and the stubbornness of the other played out against the backdrop of political and personal intrigue: Touching the Erle of Ormond, there is no matter of break betweene him and me, if I were at Carewe: for there is no question betwene us of lands and livings. But I muste prefer my dutie before all frendship and not beare with anie man that shall presume upon it to the touche of my credit.67

Perrot’s bitterness at Ormond’s perceived infidelity meant that the two fell out without ever truly healing the rift between them. In a letter to Sir Dru Drury, Perrot criticized his so-called friends: ‘you have done the part of a frende in answering for me, and so muste you do still sithe I perceive it is my ill hap to be subject to more male bouch, then I have ever deserved.’68 At the time of writing, in April 1586, Perrot was well aware that ‘with whispering’ at Court Ormond had joined the ranks of his detractors.69 He was also aware that the earl had discredited greater men than 66 67 68 69

ECS, Govt. of Ireland, p. 123. McNeill, ‘Perrot Papers’, 47. Ibid., p. 58. Brady, Viceroy’s Vindication?, p. 81.

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himself, such as his old friend Sir Henry Sidney, who complained that Ormond ‘did bitterly backbite me’.70 Although there is no evidence to convict Ormond of playing a part in Perrot’s condemnation for treason, neither is there any to suggest he rallied to his erstwhile friend when the latter found himself under attack. In view of the breakdown in their relationship, it is reasonable to suggest that Ormond might have been as apprehensive as Adam Loftus at Perrot’s impending appointment to the Privy Council, particularly when it became clear that the former Lord Deputy would be given the brief on Irish affairs. Whereas Loftus feared revenge, Ormond feared recrimination and the prospect of untrammelled interference in his territories and affairs. If Ormond was to maintain his Irish hegemony he had no choice but to prepare to defend himself and the way to do this was by befriending the new Lord Deputy. Fortunately for him, Sir William Fitzwilliam was another ‘old friend’ with whom he had maintained good relations and, more to the point, he turned out to be the kind of Lord Deputy Ormond liked, minimalist and non-interfering.71 Consequently, Fitzwilliam posed far less of a threat to Ormond’s position than Perrot so that it was very much in the earl’s interest to support the new Lord Deputy. Whether or not this involved taking an active, if secretive, part in the campaign to discredit Perrot remains to be seen, but there is no doubt that Ormond was capable of such deception. If the evidence for Ormond’s part in Perrot’s downfall is somewhat circumstantial and unproven, not so Burghley’s, for although he professed friendship, his role in the affair was altogether more sinister and disreputable.72 Burghley has long been regarded, both by contemporaries and historians, as Perrot’s most influential and constant friend during the difficult period of the latter’s accusation of, and trial for, treason. Camden wields a powerful influence in this respect, for when Perrot was brought to trial and found guilty of treason he states that ‘Burghley Lord Treasurer labouring to the contrary . . . wept for his hard fortune, and sighing said “hatred the more unjust it is, 70

Ibid. Cyril Falls, Elizabeth’s Irish Wars (London, 1950), p. 101; David Mathew, The Celtic Peoples and Renaissance Europe (London, 1933), p. 226. 72 I first explored Burghley’s role in Perrot’s downfall in a series of lectures delivered between 1987 and 1992. 71

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so much the more sharpe”’.73 Nor was there any reason to doubt the veracity of his report since neither Perrot’s biographer-son nor the unknown ECS saw fit to contradict him, at least not directly.74 On the other hand, it is noteworthy that neither made much reference to the Lord Treasurer in their works in spite of the fact that Perrot and Burghley were, as their official positions demanded, frequent correspondents. Nevertheless, if their working relationship over forty years is taken into account, Perrot had every reason to trust a man who, to his knowledge, had almost always shown him the respect a colleague in government and a loyal subject of the Crown deserved. Although the two cannot be described as friends – Perrot was perhaps too close to the Dudleys for that – they were friendly. Indeed, there are instances in their long acquaintance when Burghley can be seen to have championed Perrot’s cause when the latter found himself in difficulty. When, in 1572, Perrot, as Lord President of Munster, was accused of illegally detaining and then making off with the rich cargo of the Peter and Paul, a merchantman out of Marseilles, he was ably supported by Burghley and, ironically, the Lord Treasurer’s client, Sir William Fitzwilliam, then Lord Deputy of Ireland.75 On the other hand, during Perrot’s dispute with Adam Loftus over the conversion of St Patrick’s cathedral in 1584–5, Burghley sided with Loftus and the planned university was shelved until a later date. Taking their lead from Camden, historians have been content to follow the historiographical tradition of the past 350 years in commending Burghley’s steadfast support of Perrot. They saw no reason to question Burghley’s role in Perrot’s downfall because they already had a ready-made villain, courtesy of Naunton, in the shape of Sir Christopher Hatton. Their superficial reading of the State Papers, which are replete with clues to the contrary, served to confirm the perceived truth of Camden’s report. Writing in the last decade and a half of the nineteenth century, both Robert Dunlop, author of the biographical sketch 73

Camden, Annales, p. 410. The erasure of Burghley’s name by the author of the Chronicle of Ireland, presumably for fear of offending the family, shows the pervasive power of the Regnum Cecilianum which was still a potent force more than twenty years after his death. Wood, Chron. Ire., pp. 101–2. 75 See Intro. n. 15. 74

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on Perrot in the DNB, and Richard Bagwell, author of Ireland under the Tudors, concluded that ‘Burghley was certainly his [Perrot’s] friend, but, great as was the old minister’s power, he could not always prevail against combinations’.76 Pauline Henley, the first historian seriously to investigate the treason of Sir John Perrot, in 1932, generally concurred, though her statement that ‘Burghley – who, whatever his feelings in the beginning, was now anxious to save Perrot’, does hint at something untoward in the Lord Treasurer’s conduct.77 Writing three years after Henley, David Mathew gave form to her hint implicating Burghley in Perrot’s downfall since, in his opinion, the Lord Treasurer ‘was known to be an opponent of Perrot’.78 Unfortunately, Mathew does not explain why he came to this conclusion which may explain why P. C. C. Evans, in his 1940 thesis on Perrot’s life and career, once again singled out Burghley as one who favoured Perrot. Even the perceptive E. M. Tenison, in her multi-volumed study, Elizabethan England, hailed Burghley as Perrot’s most consistent ally. Published in the 1950s, Tenison’s research, stretching back over thirty years, did question Naunton’s depiction of Hatton’s malice towards Perrot but, in spite of careful use of the State Papers, she failed to spot the significance of those documents drawn up and annotated by Burghley. The most recent and convincing study (1995) of Burghley’s role in the fall of Sir John Perrot, by Hiram Morgan, admits to putting the Lord Treasurer ‘in a very bad light’.79 In fact, it does considerably more than that for it reveals ‘Burghley’s despicable behaviour towards a fellow Privy Councillor and . . . an irresponsible, negligent and possibly corrupt policy towards Ireland in the early 1590s’.80 Using the evidence contained in the State Papers, Dr Morgan was able to detail Burghley’s involvement in the conspiracy against Perrot: It was to be Burghley who dictated the course of proceedings against Perrot. He remained in direct contact with Fitzwilliam and 76

Bagwell, Vol. III, p. 228. Pauline Henley, ‘The Treason of Sir John Perrot’, Studies, xxi (1932), 415. 78 Mathew, Celtic Peoples, p. 222. 79 Hiram Morgan, ‘The Fall of Sir John Perrot’, in Guy (ed.), The Reign of Elizabeth I, p. 125. 80 Ibid. 77

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composed many of the interrogatories or questionnaires on which witnesses were examined and these he made out in a leading fashion which tended to compound the allegations against Sir John rather than to exonerate him.81

Nor do we have to rely solely on the State Papers to expose Burghley’s duplicity, since there are hints and suggestions elsewhere, most notably, and perhaps surprisingly, in the works of Naunton and ECS, Perrot’s first published biographer. Although Naunton suggests that Perrot ‘was strengthened with honourable alliances, and the privy friendships of the Court; My Lord of Leicester, and Burleigh, both his contemporaries and familiars’, he immediately follows this with a telling phrase: ‘but that there might be (as the adage hath it) falsity in friendship’.82 On its own this may not mean very much, but added to what we know about Burghley from the State Papers it takes on new significance. ECS too refers in coded terms to the complicity of a greater man than either Fitzwilliam or Loftus in the conspiracy against Perrot, but the identity of their ‘powerfull friend’ who ‘was neere in favour’ to the Queen and ‘who pretended her safety, as the colour of his intended malice’, is open to interpretation and could include any one of the following, namely, Burghley, Hatton or, though less likely, Ormond.83 Of the three, Burghley is most likely to have been the one intended by ECS because both Fitzwilliam, ‘the then Governour there’, and Loftus the ‘person here [Ireland] transcendent both in power and authoritie’ were his clients.84 Curiously overlooked by historians is the reference in the journal of Sir Roger Wilbraham to Perrot’s downfall and the parts played in it by Burghley and Hatton. According to an entry in the journal for August 1602, Wilbraham noted a conversation he had with Dr Richard Swale in which he [Swale] ‘told me that the plan was that the Lord Chancellor should be opposed to Sir John Perrot, and the Lord Treasurer [Burghley] for him as a friend desirous to gain him justice; and yet it was understood between them that there should be a fine and the 81 82 83 84

Ibid., p. 113. Naunton, Frag. Reg., p. 41. ECS, Govt. of Ireland, epistle. Ibid.

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offender was to meet with his just deserts’.85 Described by Wilbraham as ‘a creature of the said Chancellor Hatton’, Swale had obtained his post as Master of Chancery through the influence of Hatton, who is said to have relied on Swale’s legal expertise for guidance in the discharge of his duties as Lord Chancellor.86 This suggests that the case against Perrot was stage managed and that Hatton may have been part of an elaborate plan to appear as Perrot’s enemy as a counterweight to Burghley’s role as his friend. Unfortunately, Swale does not identify the author of the plan but Burghley is the most likely candidate with Hatton acting, perhaps unwittingly, as his accomplice. Burghley’s motive for masterminding the destruction of Perrot was personal. Fitzwilliam was his client and kinsman by marriage, and when he and Perrot fell out, the Lord Treasurer supported Fitzwilliam rather than Perrot. It may not have been an easy decision for Burghley to make, since he had no personal axe to grind with Perrot, at least not to the extent that might lead the former Lord Deputy to the executioner’s block. Indeed, in January 1589, less than three weeks before Perrot’s appointment to the Privy Council, Burghley had included him on a list of men he thought suitable for promotion to the peerage.87 It is true that their relationship had become strained during Perrot’s quarrel with Loftus and when Burghley’s interests, or those of his clientele were threatened, he could act ruthlessly, but these do not, in themselves, explain his harsh treatment of a fellow Privy Councillor. His conduct was perhaps due in part to his age and increasing infirmity which may have made him more susceptible to intrigue insofar as his major concern in the 1590s was to secure the promotion of his son, Robert Cecil. This, it has been argued, ‘contributed to the emergence of serious, competitive factional alignments’,88 with perhaps Perrot as their earliest victim. On the other hand, it must be remembered that it was Fitzwilliam and not Burghley who first conceived the plot against Perrot, but once stirred, the Lord Treasurer, ‘bankrupt of

85 86 87 88

Scott, ‘Journal’, 51–2. Ibid., 51. J. Guy, ‘Introduction’, p. 4. Graves, Burghley, p. 214.

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new ideas in a changing world’,89 could do no more than bring the full weight of his power and influence to bear against him. It is easier to identify Perrot’s friends than his enemies even though there were different levels of friendship, ranging from clearly close relationships to more distant acquaintances. Working relationships do not necessarily indicate close friendship, while patronage, and even kinship, have a tendency to obscure the true nature of the bond between those involved. Among those on whom Perrot could rely for both friendship and patronage were Leicester, Warwick and Walsingham. This was a formidable list since they were among the most powerful members of the Court and Council and, had they been alive at the time of Perrot’s difficulty, it is hard to imagine the case against him proceeding as far as it did. Indeed, the deaths of Warwick, in February 1590, and Walsingham, less than two months later in April, proved decisive and probably sealed Perrot’s fate, for without their support his enemies were able to dictate the course of events. In fact, a list of Perrot’s friends at the beginning of the 1590s – at least those who could do him the most good – makes for grim reading and pales in comparison with a corresponding list of his enemies. There was none among the Privy Council whom Perrot could call either close friend or patron, which put him at a grave disadvantage, for if he were to fend off the increasingly serious accusations against him this was the arena in which to do it. It was reported in a newsletter sent abroad in March 1590 that ‘the Vice-Chamberlain is affected to Sir John Perrott’, but Sir Thomas Heneage was apparently the only Privy Councillor prepared to sympathize with him publicly.90 How far he was prepared to help is another matter for they can hardly be described as close friends, but even if he was disposed to offer aid, its effectiveness would have been circumscribed by his increasing ill-health. The only reason that has been found thus far to explain Heneage’s favourable disposition towards Perrot, is the latter’s recommendation to Burghley that Heneage be given the post of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster after the death of

89 90

Smith, Government of Elizabethan England, p. 111. Quoted in Tenison, Elizabethan England, Vol. IX, p. 78.

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Walsingham. Described as ‘an avid office-seeker, ready to use his influence with Elizabeth and with influential statesmen to override the claims of others’,91 he may have appreciated Perrot’s gesture, knowing that he had earlier sought the post for himself. Besides Heneage, it is thought that Charles Howard, Baron Effingham and William Brooke, Baron Cobham, both of whom Perrot had congratulated on their promotion to the Privy Council, were well disposed towards him. If so, then they seem rather to have kept their heads down and did not offer the kind of support Perrot might have expected. Of course, we may be doing them and others like them an injustice, for it seems that friendship does not generate as much correspondence and memoranda as hostility, and they may well have been staunch allies working hard behind the scenes to effect his acquittal of all charges. However, one cannot help but think that too many careers were at stake for Councillors to stand openly by Perrot. At Court, Perrot’s friends were rather more numerous, if not obviously active, in his cause. Much the most powerful was Henry Herbert, second earl of Pembroke, and his younger brother, Sir Edward, with whom Perrot shared a friendship going back nearly forty years. Perrot had been an intimate of their father, William, and was a frequent visitor to their London home, Baynard’s Castle, from whence several of his letters were written. The Perrots’ close connection with the Herberts did not die with Sir John but continued in the generous patronage offered to his son, Sir James, by the third and fourth earls, William and Phillip, until James Perrot’s death in 1637. Pembroke was among the richest peers of the realm and although he was never made a member of the Privy Council, he remained a powerful figure at Court and one in whom the Queen placed much trust. He played a prominent part in the trials of Norfolk (1572), Mary, Queen of Scots (1586) and Arundel (1589), and in 1586, on the death of his father-in-law, Sir Henry Sidney, he was rewarded with the presidency of Wales and the Marches. Although there is no evidence to indicate the extent of Pembroke’s support of Perrot after he was accused of treason, there is no reason to think he abandoned him. Due to his presidency of the Council of Wales, Pembroke was often away from 91

Hasler, Hist. Parl., Vol. II, p. 291.

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the Court and when he was not at his official residence in Ludlow, he could be found at his Wilton home suffering from the frequent bouts of ill-health that plagued him from early in 1590. To add to his difficulties, the ageing Pembroke became embroiled in a struggle for control of Wales with the youthful earl of Essex, Robert Devereux, whose determination to build a following in the principality led to serious factional strife. In short, he was in no position to offer Perrot the help he needed. Another courtier whom Perrot called friend was Roger Manners, a younger son of the earl of Rutland. Perrot frequently began his letters to Manners in these words: ‘I finde you as I have alwaies don, an assured and carefull freinde’ and on one occasion he wrote that he wished he ‘might be in the Covent Garden, that you and I might drink up a roundelet of usgarbay, which I send you by this bearer, meaning shortly when I come over to bring more quantity with me’.92 Manners was well known at Court, was trusted by Elizabeth, whom he served as esquire of the body, and though semi-retired since about 1583 he maintained an active interest in affairs of state. This is suggested by Perrot, who wrote to him in January 1586, three years after the Queen had given him leave to attend her only when he wished – a most singular concession – saying ‘I will not trouble you with occurrents of this unhappie State [Ireland], knowing you are in place where you are or maie bee imparted not onelie with these, but also with others of far greater value’.93 That his old drinking friend and fellow sportsman who, like Perrot, delighted in ‘the pleasure of the chase’, did not apparently come to his aid in his hour of need is perhaps not surprising, given his advice to a relative on entering royal service to ‘be no meddler in the cause of others’.94 Nor, it seems, did Perrot’s close friend and ‘cousin’ Sir George Carew exert himself in his cause, being a rising star and keen to maintain good relations with both sides during the dispute. To his credit, he did tactfully refuse to give in to pressure from Fitzwilliam to write letters in favour of his government of Ireland; this would have placed him in an awkward position in respect of his relationship with Perrot whom he 92 93 94

BLO MS Perrott I f. 202. McNeill, ‘Perrot Papers’, 41. Hasler, Hist. Parl., Vol. III, p. 9.

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freely acknowledged had done much to further his career. In May 1590 Carew wrote of his discomfort to Heneage: It was my ill hap to be sent for amongst others by the Lord Deputy [Fitzwilliam] (to what purpose until all was done I knew not), to be at the hering of certain speeches which he used . . . upon certain causes concerning Sir John Perrot. Truly I do protest unto your Honour, before the Majesty of God, that if I had known of the cause then in handling I would not have been present at it; for in causes of such weight, and especially when they concern my honourable friends and superiors, I have no liking to intermeddle myself in them. Excuse me to Sir John Perrot.95

Ironically, it was the young Robert Devereux, second earl of Essex and the son of Perrot’s bitter enemy Walter, who, though late in the day, proved more of a friend. Conspicuous by his absence throughout the case being assembled against Perrot – much of which time he spent in the Queen’s service abroad – it was only after Perrot’s trial and condemnation for treason that Essex at last roused himself in support of his sister’s father-inlaw. Married in July 1583 to Perrot’s son and heir, Sir Thomas, Dorothy Devereux was probably among those willing her brother, the earl, to intervene on behalf of her husband’s father.96 It probably counted in Perrot’s favour that his son, Sir Thomas, and Essex, shared a deep dislike for Sir Walter Ralegh, whom they regarded as their chief enemy at Court. On the very day that Perrot penned his last will and testament in the Tower, 3 May 1592, Essex wrote to enlist Burghley’s help: My very good Lord, Since my coming to the Court I find that the Queen is earnestly pressed to have sentence pronounced against Sir John Perrot; and she seems to be very resolute in it. The day appointed is so near as we have but this day and tomorrow to labour in it; and I am so cried down with the number of voices as, if your Lordship’s authority do not back me, I shall plead in vain. If your Lordship come this day I hope her Majesty may be brought to like of the course whereof your Lordship and I had speech. If your Lordship come not, I shall be alone; and yet will I employ that poor strength I have to the uttermost. If your Lordship, knowing 95 96

Cal. Carew MSS, 1589–1600, p. 26. SP12/238/82.

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how weak the argument of the Queen’s favour is, in so great a cause, will write anything which I may show to the Queen in favour of it, your Lordship shall give me strength, and the cause, I hope, good success. Your Lordship will pardon my motion which proceeds of a desire to bring that to pass which your Lordship wishes. And let me understand by this bearer your Lordship’s pleasure.97

It is clear that, in spite of having discussed Perrot’s case, Essex was unsure of Burghley’s full support which, in the event, was not forthcoming. Given Burghley’s duplicity this is not surprising, but unless Essex was made privy to his correspondent’s true motive with regards to Perrot’s fate, he would have been perplexed by the Lord Treasurer’s apparent lethargy. Undaunted and unlike those who were ‘unwilling to move Her Majesty to choler’, Essex risked his reputation by attempting to persuade the Queen to stay the proceedings against Perrot.98 He failed, but his labour on behalf of Perrot was not unappreciated, as the following sentence written towards the end of the latter’s will makes plain: ‘The Lord bless the Erle of Essex, and keepe hym in hir Majestie’s favoure.’99 It is ironic that while making his last will and testament, Perrot should be so resolute in his belief that Burghley was to be counted among his most loyal and steadfast friends. Perrot stated that ‘I doe owe my Lord Treasurer more for my dyett than I doe knowe that I doe owe anie other man lyvinge: God blesse hym and his, whych is all the paymente I am able now to make to hym’.100 His misplaced faith in the fidelity of the Lord Treasurer leads us to recall John Foxe’s words to the ill-fated duke of Norfolk in 1572: ‘There is no greater cunning in these days than to know whom a man may trust.’101 97

SP12/242/4. W. B. Devereux, Lives and Letters of the Devereux, Earls of Essex in the Reigns of Elizabeth, James I, and Charles I, 1540–1646 (2 vols., London, 1853), Vol. I, p. 253. A letter penned by John Norris in June 1590 suggests that Perrot still had friends on the Irish Council willing to work to exonerate him of charges of treason. SP63/153/4. 99 Life, Deedes and Death, p. 154. 100 Ibid. 101 Neville Williams, A Tudor Tragedy: Thomas Howard, Fourth Duke of Norfolk, (London, 1964), p. 164. 98

5 ACCUSATION AND CONSPIRACY

A great Birth and a great Minde are crushed in Commonwealths, and watched in Kingdomes: They who are too tall to stand, too stubborn to bow, are but too fit to break.1

The conspiracy against Perrot was never planned; it simply evolved. Misrepresentation and misunderstanding were as potent as malice in the scheme to accuse Perrot of treason. Pride too played a part in Perrot’s downfall but it was probably pressure that contributed most to the unfolding of a conspiracy which, as conspiracies go, seems inept. Its origin and success relied on the testimony of ‘a pervert priest’2 called Dennis O’Roughan who hailed from Ireland and for whom criminality was a way of life. Incarcerated in an Irish jail, O’Roughan was under pressure to defend himself from charges that, if proved, might result in the death penalty. His jailer and judge, Archbishop Adam Loftus, may have felt pressurized by the news that his bitter enemy, Perrot, had been appointed to the English Privy Council and would thus be in a position, or so he feared, to do him serious harm. Similarly, Perrot’s successor as Lord Deputy of Ireland, Sir William Fitzwilliam, was possibly feeling the pressure of his predecessor’s conciliar appointment and oversight of Irish affairs. He feared that Perrot would do to him what Sidney had done thirteen years before, namely, use his influence at Court to criticize, interfere and perhaps even replace him. As the plot gathered momentum, Lord Treasurer Burghley was dragged into it and, confronted with a fait accompli, he seems to have 1 2

Lloyd, State Worthies, p. 513. Henley, ‘The Treason of Sir John Perrot’, 406.

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taken the irrevocable step of initially, if reluctantly, supporting and then leading the plotters. Therefore, it may be argued that pressure born of irrational fear coupled with a series of coincidental circumstances was at the root of a corrupt conspiracy that, in an extraordinary turn of events, brought together the four most unlikely conspirators ever to emerge in the murky world of Elizabethan England and Ireland. The first intimation of any suspicion of disloyalty in Sir John Perrot was made by letters sent from Sir William Fitzwilliam to the Queen and Lord Burghley on 16 February 1590. Carried and delivered in person by his son John, ‘who lacketh boldness and is too full of bashfulness’,3 Fitzwilliam had enclosed a copy of a letter asserted to be from Perrot to the King of Spain, Philip II, offering to aid him in the conquest of England and Ireland provided he and his posterity received a grant of the principality of Wales. The Lord Deputy claimed that he had been brought the letter by ‘one Denis Roughan, a priest, . . . together with his wife’.4 Fitzwilliam was well aware of the impact the content of his letter and enclosure would have, for he warned Burghley, ‘If your Lordship did hear what was confessed it would . . . give you more to do than marvel.’5 The Lord Treasurer was also informed that there was more to come because ‘O’Roughan is now writing a book of information. It will take some time as one of the constable’s men bit off a piece of his nose, and he can work only at short fits’!6 That book, completed in April 1590, would form the basis of O’Roughan’s testimony during subsequent examinations. Thus was set in motion the train of events that would end a little over two years later, in the trial and condemnation for treason of Sir John Perrot. Fitzwilliam became the prime mover in the scheme to discredit Perrot but he had not so much conceived a plot as stumbled across an opportunity. That opportunity had been presented to him by Loftus, who was responsible for the arrest and detention in Dublin Castle of O’Roughan. O’Roughan was known to Loftus but not to Fitzwilliam, having first come to the attention of the Irish authorities in 1584 when he returned from 3 4 5 6

SP63/150/44. Ibid. Ibid. SP63/150/44(1).

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Spain. Taken into custody, O’Roughan was examined by Lord Deputy Perrot and a senior Irish councillor, Sir Edward Waterhouse, about the activities of Catholic seminary priests. Clearly impressed by what O’Roughan had to say, Perrot believed he could prove useful to the government as a priestcatcher so long as he was prepared to renounce his Catholicism and embrace the Protestant faith by taking the oath of supremacy. O’Roughan readily agreed and, much to the consternation of some on the Irish Council, he was freed on bail to go about his covert business. Perrot’s employment of O’Roughan was a means to an end because he regarded the seminary priests and their Jesuit allies not merely as religious heretics but as agents of an international Catholic conspiracy. Perrot’s ruthless treatment of political Catholicism, of which Burghley and Walsingham heartily approved, contrasted with his generally benign attitude to the non-political Catholicism of the Irish people whom he hoped to convert to the Protestant faith. Unfortunately for Perrot, O’Roughan proved not only unreliable but criminally so, and following his arrest by the archbishop of Cashel, Miler Magrath, he was jailed for a second time when forged warrants were found in his possession. Worse still, these documents bore the counterfeit signature of the Lord Deputy and when investigated, the trail of deceit led directly back to the Dublin government, more specifically, to an accomplice of O’Roughan’s, Henry Bird, the deputy registrar of the Court of High Commission. Bird was arrested and joined O’Roughan in prison where they were interrogated before being brought to trial in the Court of the Castle Chamber. Besides blaming each other for the counterfeiting, on searching Bird’s office a sheet was found on which Perrot’s signature had been practised; it emerged that they had been involved in an ingenious and elaborate deception to defraud recusants. Acting as a priest, O’Roughan supplied Bird with the names of Catholics whom he promptly blackmailed, instead of arresting, by demanding money for his silence. In spite of his guilt, O’Roughan did not long remain in prison for he was pardoned by Perrot in 1587 and employed by him as a spy to uncover the names of those Irish noblemen who might be disposed to aid the Spanish should they launch an invasion of either Ireland or England. In re-employing O’Roughan, Perrot was taking a calculated risk,

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but in the current atmosphere of near-hysteria following the discovery of plots to assassinate the Queen by Throckmorton, Parry and Babington, coupled with the expected launch by Spain of the empresa (the ‘Enterprise against England’), he may have thought it one well worth taking. Perrot may also have thought that on this occasion O’Roughan would prove more pliant and reliable insofar as he probably owed his life to the Lord Deputy and that any further transgression would result in his death by hanging. The Lord Deputy was to be cruelly disappointed, for O’Roughan’s information proved worthless and he soon went to ground and did not re-emerge until after Perrot’s departure for England, by which time his fate had passed into the hands of Archbishop Loftus. In early 1589, O’Roughan was arrested for fraud and deception linked to his popish activities and, without hope of release, he set about a desperate plan to save his life. As plans go it was an extraordinary one, to turn informer by accusing the former Lord Deputy of Ireland of treason. In return for his information, O’Roughan expected immunity from prosecution, protection from Perrot’s friends, whom he believed would try to kill him, and a pardon for past offences. As much as he hated and feared Perrot, Loftus was no fool and his intitial reaction was, as the following statement shows, one of deep scepticism: ‘I have ever since his coming out of Spain known him to be a dishonest man and void of all truth.’7 This was not the stuff of which successful conspiracies are made, but instead of being dismisssed out of hand, the idea took root in the minds of those to whom Loftus entrusted the information he had received from O’Roughan. The cabal included Fitzwilliam, his private secretary Phillip Williams, Fitzwilliam’s son John, Loftus and the man responsible for the security and detention of prisoner O’Roughan, the constable of Dublin Castle, John Maplesden.8 Like Loftus, Fitzwilliam too was wary of O’Roughan but the latter’s unreliability notwithstanding, he could not afford to miss an opportunity to make 7

SP63/152/12. John Maplesden was appointed to replace Stephen Seager as constable of Dublin Castle within a year of Fitzwilliam taking up his post as Lord Deputy in July 1588. In June 1592 an embarrassed Fitzwilliam was forced to sack his appointee after the escape from the castle prison of Hugh Roe O’Donnell, lord of Tyrconnell. APC, xviii (1589–90), pp. 254–5; CSPI, 1588–92, pp. 518–19. 8

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something out of Perrot’s alleged treasonable letter to Philip of Spain. Whether or not the letter was a fraud mattered little to Fitzwilliam; he was a desperate man who needed a major distraction to relieve the pressure on him and his administration. In the closing months of 1589 he may even have feared that Burghley’s confidence in him was ebbing away, since it was the visit to Ireland of the latter’s son, Sir Thomas Cecil, that caused the people to ‘whisper that he is to be our next Lord Deputy’.9 Burghley was himself informed by Sir Nicholas White that ‘the people needs cry Sir Thomas Cecil Deputy’ and that ‘his coming hath altered the minds of the people and abated the credit of the Lord Deputy’.10 The final straw for Fitzwilliam came when he learnt from Burghley that ‘Sir John Perrot doth not allow of my form of proceedings’, which caused him to respond angrily that ‘my credit and service is already in the balance and cannot long stand overthrown’.11 Pride mixed with anger impelled Fitzwilliam towards conspiracy and, between them, the cabal concocted a plan which relied for its success less on the reliability of O’Roughan than on the credibility of his sponsors. As Perrot’s biographer-son observed, ‘there were heaped on hym [Perrot] divers causeless complayntes’ but because they were ‘prosecuted with such vehemencie and sometimes shadowed with such probabilitie and countenanced by greate men in such sorte that in parte they were beleved.’12 By his forwarding of O’Roughan’s information and ‘the treasonable letter’, Fitzwilliam calculated that the authorities in London would consider the matter worthy of further investigation. However, perhaps plagued by self-doubt, or acting on the advice of more cunning conspirators such as Loftus, he took the extraordinary step of bypassing both Burghley, his patron, and the Privy Council to acquaint the Queen directly with the details of the allegations made against Perrot.13 This was a high-risk 9

SP63/147/46. SP63/147/49. 11 SP63/147/35. 12 Life, Deedes and Death, p. 43. 13 Loftus had a track record of underhand dealing hence his colleague’s attack on him in a treatise presented to the Queen in 1585: ‘Reasons why [Sir Henry] Wallop would not meddle with the Government of Ireland’, SP63/116/8 (1). 10

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strategy which could so easily have rebounded on Fitzwilliam because he faced the prospect of alienating Burghley, exasperating the Privy Council and angering both the Queen and her Secretary of State, Walsingham, who might decide to punish him if the allegations proved unfounded. On the other hand, Fitzwilliam’s fear that Burghley might have been cooling towards him may have convinced the increasingly beleaguered Lord Deputy, that the most effective way of forcing his kinsman’s hand into either supporting or abandoning him, was to present the Lord Treasurer with a fait accompli. Certainly, Fitzwilliam’s letter of apology ‘at having forgotten to send Burghley a copy of the letter and enclosure sent to Her Majesty about Perrot’ is somewhat disingenuous.14 Fitzwilliam knew well that once the Queen had seen the letter, coupled with O’Roughan’s potentially damaging information, there would have to be an investigation. Burghley was furious and on 8 March he despatched John Fitzwilliam back to his father with a letter in which he rounded on the Lord Deputy for not first acquainting the members of the Irish Council with the allegations against Perrot. Had he done so, cooler heads might have prevailed, but in not consulting his fellow councillors Fitzwilliam left himself open to the charge of conducting a personal vendetta against Perrot. A worse sin as far as Burghley was concerned was Fitzwilliam’s singular failure either to acquaint him first with the details of the allegations against Perrot or to show him the alleged ‘treasonable letter’ before the Queen had read it.15 Caught off guard, Burghley had lost the initiative so that he had to confront the Queen without the benefit of his usually thorough preparation. Burghley was in a difficult position and he could do nothing to prevent the Queen passing the matter to the Privy Council, which ordered that a commission of inquiry be set up. The commission appointed consisted of the bishops of Meath and Leighlin, Thomas Jones and Richard Meredith respectively, Sir Lucas Dillon, Sir Nicholas White, Sir Edward Moore, Sir Edward Waterhouse, Justice Edward Walshe and Attorney-General Charles Calthorpe. Unless this was an unbelievable stroke of luck, some form of careful engineering must have gone into its 14 15

SP63/151/34. Ibid.

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composition, for all but one of the commissioners were either fiercely loyal to, or favourably disposed towards, Perrot. Indeed, Bishop Meredith (formerly Perrot’s chaplain), Dillon and White had been among the first members of the Irish Council to learn of the allegations made against Perrot, to whom they wrote immediately to forewarn him, believing that he ‘should know it before Her Majesty’.16 The man most likely responsible for ‘engineering’ the commission was Walsingham because, as the Queen’s principal secretary, he, more than anyone, would have been empowered to do so. The commissioners were ordered to examine O’Roughan, after which they were to send him to London, under guard, and in the care of John Worsley, ‘one of the messengers of Her Majesty’s Chamber’.17 Burghley’s attitude to the affair at this point was probably one of resigned ambivalence; he had not sought Perrot’s downfall, nor did he wish to deal with the distraction that a potentially lengthy investigation might entail. In fact, he tried to get John Fitzwilliam to persuade his father to drop the proceedings against Perrot, but to no avail. Once it became clear he could not persuade Fitzwilliam to desist – matters had probably gone too far for that – Burghley’s principal concern became the protection of his errant client. His motives for doing so were threefold: first, to uphold the integrity of his client network and probably not, as has been said, ‘to save his reputation as a factional leader’;18 second, to prevent Fitzwilliam’s corruption from being exposed; and last, to conceal his own corruption insofar as his involvement in what became a money-spinning enterprise to discover concealed lands in Munster and Connacht, was so aggressive and oppressive that it likely provoked the people of those provinces into joining Tyrone’s Rebellion. Hiram Morgan’s research provides further evidence of Burghley’s corrupt dealing inasmuch as the latter was dogged in his determination to prevent such as Robert Legge and Thomas Lee from acquainting the Queen with proof of Fitzwilliam’s corruption.19 Sir James Perrot too provides ample 16

SP63/150/76. SP63/151/21. 18 Morgan, ‘The Fall of Sir John Perrot’, p. 124. 19 Canny, Making Ireland British, pp. 113–16; Hiram Morgan, ‘Tom Lee: The Posing Peacemaker’, in B. Bradshaw et al. (eds.), Representing Ireland: Literature and the Origin of Conflict, 1534–1660 (Cambridge, 1993), ch. 8. 17

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testimony of Burghley’s protection of Fitzwilliam from impeachment, citing the case of Sir Robert Gardiner’s attempt to expose the former Lord Deputy. Neere this time [1596] Sir Robert Gardener, Cheife Justice and one of the Counsell of Ireland, comes into England, where, before the Queenes Counsell at Richmond, he layes open the cause of the late revolt and rebellion in Ireland, [and] imputes the most parte thereof unto the remisse and corrupt dealinge of the last Lord Deputy, Sir William FitzWilliames, whereof he geives divers particuler instances. This beinge heard at the Counsell table, the Lord Chamberlayne Hunsden asked hym whither he would justifie what he had informed. To whom Sir Robert replied he would prove it upon perill of his life. Then the Lord Chamberlayne sayd the Queene should know it, and soe aroase from the Counsell table; whom the rest of the Counsell followed. When they came to the Queene and tolde hir what Sir Robert Gardener had affirmed, she sware FitzWilliames should answer it with the losse of his head if this were found trew; and willed hym presently to be sent for. But [‘the Lord Treasorer Burley’ erased] by the advise of sum whoe did much favor hym, and had putte hym into that place, word was sent hym of the Queenes displeasure; and they advised hym, as he was not well, soe to let his sicknes appere that his absence might be excused for a time untill the Queenes anger were over.20

In the opinion of M. A. R. Graves, Burghley’s ‘involvement in Irish affairs was one of the bleaker, if not darker, chapters in the story of his service in Elizabethan government’.21 Hiram Morgan goes further and accuses Burghley of having ‘destroyed good servitors and backed crooks in their place’.22 He did this in the cause of his own self-interest but he was not alone, nor was he unusual, in wishing to wring a fortune out of Ireland, if one could be had. In the light of Perrot’s downfall, it may be significant to note that the Court officials most responsible for designing the plantation scheme for Munster were Lord Treasurer Burghley, Secretary of State Walsingham, Lord Chancellor Hatton, Attorney-General John Popham and Solicitor-General Thomas Egerton. Hatton and Popham even 20 21 22

Wood, Chron. Ire., pp. 101–2. Graves, Burghley, p. 197. Morgan, ‘The Fall of Sir John Perrot’, p. 125.

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volunteered to become undertakers in the enterprise to acquire land for colonization. All except Walsingham, whose ideas for plantation differed from those of his colleagues,23 were later to be involved in the prosecution of Perrot. This is not to suggest that all were involved in corruption but it may help to explain the apparent determination of Popham and Egerton to assist in the destruction of Perrot. The composition of the Irish commission to investigate Perrot worried Fitzwilliam sufficiently that he attempted to control the flow of information out of Ireland by banning all travel to England except for merchants. Thus he hoped to starve Perrot of the private correspondence he had been regularly receiving from the members of the investigating commission. Not content with hindering or vetting communications between Ireland and England, Fitzwilliam attempted to persuade Sir George Carew and Sir Henry Harrington to write letters in support of his dealings with O’Roughan, particularly in respect of refuting an allegation that he tried to suborn Perrot’s chief accuser. The accusation may have been made by the Perrot-appointed sheriff of West Breifne, Sir Henry Duke, whom Fitzwilliam ‘findeth to be a busybody, vain and full of words’.24 In the event, Fitzwilliam did not need either Carew or Harrington, both of whom had skilfully avoided complying with the Lord Deputy’s heavyhanded request, for he found an ally in Sir Christopher Hatton to whom he sent his ‘hearty thanks’ for ‘clearing him of the imputation of suborning the priest Roughane’.25 Hatton’s support notwithstanding, Fitzwilliam could not shake free of his fear that the conspiracy might rebound on him, and in an extraordinary exchange with Burghley he tried to distance himself from the consequences of what he had begun: ‘If there be any cause of doubt in Sir Denis O’Rawghane’s book [of information], it shall be his fault and not mine, who have delivered but what I received from him.’26 One reason for this is the patently absurd accusation levelled against Perrot that O’Roughan, in his guise as a Catholic priest, ministered to the 23 24 25 26

Canny, Making Ireland British, pp. 130–1. SP63/153/24. SP63/153/24. SP63/151/93.

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Lord Deputy in secret, during which the devout Protestant is supposed to have heard Mass and received the sacrament. Fitzwilliam’s distrust of O’Roughan is palpable as is his wavering in the face of the pressures being brought to bear by the investigative commission, which, many believed, would find in Perrot’s favour. Ironically, Fitzwilliam was as yet unaware that fate had dealt him a potentially winning hand, for as he penned his letter to Burghley at the end of April 1590 the Lord Deputy’s conspiracy was rapidly becoming the Lord Treasurer’s. On 6 April, Walsingham, the Queen’s principal secretary, died and with him any hope that Perrot might have had of defeating the conspirators who had thus far made little progress. Walsingham’s death enabled Burghley to seize the initiative, which he did in his characteristically meticulous fashion by assuming once again, after an absence of nineteen years, many of the secretarial functions and responsibilities attached to the office of Secretary of State. This is confirmed in contemporary gossip which stated that, though ‘being sick . . . the whole management of the secretary’s place is in his hands’.27 Burghley’s motives for holding on to the office were twofold: to prevent a nominee of his young rival and royal favourite, the earl of Essex, from assuming the secretaryship which he wanted for his son, Robert, who ‘became, by degrees, de facto Secretary of State’,28 and to take control of the investigation against Perrot which was in danger of stalling, given the bias of the pro-Perrot Irish commissioners. As Secretary, Burghley was well placed to manipulate the Queen, since he could manage the flow of information to her and, by its careful selection and presentation, influence her into making more advantageous decisions. Not that the Queen was entirely unaware of the steps often taken by her councillors, even one as close and trusted as Burghley, to ‘deceive her before embarking her on it little by little’.29 This is perhaps why Burghley opted to continue the investigation of Perrot for, as Simon Adams has pointed out, ‘What would spur Elizabeth into action – temporarily – was less pressure from her councillors 27 28 29

SP12/239/159. Graves, Burghley, p. 107. Quoted in Haigh, Elizabeth I, p. 84.

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than a panic or an emotional reaction, but for such an emotional reaction a sufficient danger was necessary’.30 If Tudor England was ‘paranoid about conspiracies’, as suggested by Hiram Morgan, then the danger posed by the alleged treason of a well regarded courtier was, it would appear, sufficient to condemn anyone as a potential suspect, ‘even a trusted official and a staunch protestant like Sir John Perrot’.31 Thus, Burghley was able to persuade the Queen to appoint a commission in England to investigate Perrot, which soon after led to the suspension of the work of the Irish commissioners. They were ordered to deliver the evidence gathered thus far and to send O’Roughan for examination by the English commission. Unbeknown to Perrot the tide had turned against him, for Walsingham’s death, coupled with that of Ambrose Dudley, earl of Warwick, some five weeks earlier on 21 February, proved to be a significant turning point. Henceforward, the case against him would be built up by degrees and additional charges would be brought against him. Perrot seemed genuinely unaware of the danger he was now in and his mood remained optimistic, perhaps absurdly so. In fact, he behaved as an innocent man would, confident that the evidence against him would never stand the test of truth and, with his faith in Burghley’s friendship undiminished, he continued as before. Indeed, within two days of Walsingham’s death, he petitioned Burghley for his support in securing his former patron’s office of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.32 Unperturbed by his rebuff (Burghley had promised the post to Sir Thomas Heneage), two days later he petitioned the Lord Treasurer again in favour of his son, Sir Thomas, whom he thought would make a suitable replacement for Sir Richard Bingham as Chief Commissioner of Connacht, provided the rumours of the latter’s death were true!33 It must have been difficult for Perrot to have sat at the Council table when, in the early stages of the investigation, his fellow Privy Councillors were discussing the allegations against him. He remained, for the most part, remarkably restrained though his 30 31 32 33

Adams, Leicester and the Court, p. 40. Morgan, ‘The Fall of Sir John Perrot’, p. 112. SP12/231/66. SP63/151/66.

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temper did, on occasion, betray his frustration, as may be instanced in a letter he wrote to Burghley complaining that ‘by their [Fitzwilliam’s and Loftus’s] devices all England now speaks of him; some say he is banished the Court and Council, and others suppose that he is committed to the Tower.’34 Nor was he exaggerating, as the following extract from a newsletter sent abroad testifies: ‘What will ensue hereof’ nobody could say; ‘men talk diversely’, some accusing him; others imputing all the trouble ‘to the power of Sir J(s) adversary the Chancellor’ [Loftus].35 One wonders what Perrot and Burghley talked about when they met privately on 11 May to transact Council business in respect, ironically, of a warrant for the keeper of a prison, the Marshalsea.36 Thirteen days later, on 24 May, Perrot attended his last meeting of the Privy Council at Greenwich Palace. That Burghley had assumed the mantle of chief conspirator is suggested by the fact that ‘having delivered the priest to the pursuivant Worsley’ as previously agreed, the Irish commissioners ‘afterwards on sight of a warrant’ delivered him instead to the Lord Deputy.37 It is surely no coincidence that Burghley, working with Hatton, who claimed to be acting on the Queen’s instructions, should entrust Fitzwilliam and his servants with the task of conveying the chief prosecution witness to custody in London rather than to the royal official specifically appointed for the purpose.38 That there was a delay in sending O’Roughan to England due to, according to Fitzwilliam in an apologetic letter addressed to both Burghley and Hatton, ‘the east wind’, must be treated with suspicion.39 Quite what transpired in the few days when O’Roughan, free from the pressure and protection of the investigative commission, found himself in the personal care of Fitzwilliam will never be known, but suffice it to say that the accusations of the Lord Deputy having ‘suborned’ the priest date from the period of this patently illegal detention. 34

SP12/231/73. Tenison, Elizabethan England, Vol. IX, p. 73. 36 APC, xix (1590), p. 120. The Chancellor may also refer to Sir Christopher Hatton. Scott, ‘Journal’, 51–2. 37 SP63/152/24, 25; 151/85. 38 SP63/152/27. 39 Ibid. 35

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It is probable that even if Burghley had wanted to stop the investigation he dare not since Perrot would never have let the matter rest until someone had been called to account. Indeed, Perrot was in no mood to compromise, being as determined as Burghley to see the matter through. In a letter to ‘ye L. of Boorle’, Perrot wrote: My Lord, as nothing shall trouble my mind for my own case, conceiving my conscience as clear from crime in these matters, so assuredly if my impeachment it come, my heart shall be full of sorrow and my mind much troubled [but] rather than any spark of trouble shall come to any for my sake, I will with good will choose the Tower or a worse place for my harbour. And in the end Her Majesty shall find me much truer than my contraries. Only my suit to your Lordship is that I may be charged, and licensed to answer, which in my opinion were good justice. I am but a counter of Her Majesty’s; she therefore may hither make me 1000 or not one. But I am as true to her as any one, in all parts. Praying to God that her purchased favours have been a mean to drive men to malign me, and thereby to work me this disgrace, which assuredly will so appear in the end.40

The Lord Treasurer must have calculated that there was simply too much at stake and that to acquit Perrot was too great a risk; he was just too dangerous and unpredicable to be set free. Ironically, it was in large part Perrot’s confidence in Burghley that contributed to the latter’s determination to destroy him. In a letter to Burghley, written just six days after the death of his patron and protector Walsingham, Perrot widened his attack on Fitzwilliam to include members of his family, stating that ‘the father of this last forgery [O’Roughan] hath no worse nurse to pamper him than Lady Dier [nee Fitzwilliam], appointed by the Deputy her father, and free access at all times to the Deputy’s Secretary Philip Williams a most wicked man’.41 Nor was Perrot alone in condemning the Fitzwilliams, as is made clear in a letter to him from one who wished him well, James Fleming, Lord Slane. For this lord deputy maketh no accompt of no nobleman nor any other within this Realm, but only of his son John, his son [-in-law] Dyer, and of his daughter the Lady Dyer; they ruleth the roost as 40 41

Tenison, Elizabethan England, Vol. IX, p. 73. SP12/231/73.

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pleaseth them with the help of their mother Lady Fitzwilliams; these be his chief councillors. As for Sir Lucas Dillon, Sir Edward Waterhouse and Sir Edward Moore, they have no credit with him.42

Burghley knew well that if Perrot succeeded in bringing down Fitzwilliam, whom they both knew to be unpopular in Ireland, his own complicity in the affair would, sooner or later, come out. Until comparatively recently, few historians would readily have disagreed with Alan Smith’s stated belief that ‘It is difficult to imagine Burghley resorting to such machinations in the high Elizabethan period’.43 Although this is no longer the case, few may be prepared to accept a portrait of a despicable, duplicitous and corrupt Burghley who had more in common with his son and political heir Robert, than has hitherto been acknowledged. Certainly, Professor Smith was attemping to show that Burghley was quite unlike Sir Robert Cecil, whom he condemns for resorting ‘to practices which did him little credit’.44 He cites the case in which Cecil, in concert with his father’s secretary, Michael Hickes, ‘took part in a devious and disreputable plot to secure the appointment of the notoriously corrupt Toby Matthew to the bishopric of Durham’.45 Their reward was a pliant client and a very substantial gratuity, but it is significant that throughout the affair, Cecil’s main fear . . . seems to have been that the Queen would get to know of his scheming behind the scenes. He used his access to her at that time, he informed Hickes, in such a way that she could not suspect that he ‘looked to anything but [her] service’, a tacit admission that he was putting his own interests first!46

Having undergone his political apprenticeship in the tender care of his father, it may well be a case of ‘like father like son’ for, as 42 Alnwick, PLP, VI, 25 f. 51. Although now professing friendship, Lord Slane had been among the ‘three simple lords of the Pale’ who had written to the Queen in July 1585, to complain of Perrot’s ‘threatening extortionate taxation’. Treadwell, ‘Sir John Perrot’, 292. 43 Smith, Government of Elizabethan England, p. 66. For evidence of Burghley’s plotting, see Scott, ‘Journal’, 51–2. 44 Smith, Government of Elizabethan England, p. 65. 45 Ibid., pp. 65–6. 46 Ibid., p. 65.

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Joel Hurstfield has argued, ‘Robert Cecil was a cynic and discussed with his intimates the gifts he took; and some of these discussions have survived among his papers. His father was a hypocrite and he kept his thoughts very much to himself.’47 If the collection of Burghley’s sayings is a true reflection of the man’s thinking, then he was not above involving himself in ‘Attempts [that] are most probable being wisely plotted, secretly carried, and speedily executed’.48 The conspiracy against Perrot may have been ‘secretly carried’ but it was neither ‘wisely plotted’, at least not until the intervention of Burghley, nor was it ‘speedily executed’ for it took the English commissioners more than eight months before formal charges were brought against the accused and a further five months before trial began. The English commission consisted of Burghley, the Lord Treasurer, Hatton, the Lord Chancellor, Hunsdon, the Lord Chamberlain, Howard, the Lord Admiral, and Buckhurst. Within days of taking O’Roughan into custody – he was lodged in the gatehouse of Westminster Palace towards the end of May 1590 – the commissioners summoned Perrot to appear before them to hear the case against him. It must have shaken him to the core to be confronted by his accuser and told that the investigation would not only continue but that, on the Queen’s express order, he was to be placed under house arrest with immediate effect.49 The house to which Perrot was committed on 30 May lay only a few doors from his London residence on the Strand, York House, for he was placed in the care of his ‘friend’ Lord Burghley. According to E. M. Tenison, ‘To be committed to the Tower of London was apt to denote the beginning of the end; and so, when Perrott was first arrested, Lord Burghley had striven to avert that ill-omen by offering to keep him under honourable confinement at Cecil House.’50 This was less an act of kindness than a calculated attempt to sabotage Perrot’s case; he was closely watched and his mail carefully sifted. Significantly, one of Perrot’s correspondents, Edmund 47 A. G. R. Smith, William Cecil, Lord Burghley: Minister of Elizabeth I (Bangor, 1991), p. 24. 48 A. G. R. Smith, The Anonymous Life of William Cecil, Lord Burghley (Lewiston, 1990), p. 143. 49 Alnwick, PLP, VI, 29 f. 57. 50 Tenison, Elizabethan England, Vol. IX, p. 73.

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Yorke of Waterford, complained that he had ‘received but one letter, though Perrot says he has written four’.51 Perrot’s only link with the outside world was via his son, Sir Thomas, then resident at York House, who was a daily visitor to Cecil House. Only now did Perrot seem to grasp fully the gravity of the charges being levelled against him and the danger in which he found himself. Belatedly, but too late, he wrote several letters to the Queen, not all of which reached her, asking for an audience: none was granted. In one letter he wrote: If Your Majesty this last year had not often commanded me to be ready to serve Your Majesty there (which was known to many) Your Highness had never heard of this Machiavellian stratagem devised as a stop of that your purpose without any matter at all as will appear in the end and hath been nourished here as I guess for some respects I will disclose to Your Majesty.52

Worse was to follow when, during June, July and August, Perrot’s friends and allies in Ireland, including those on the Irish commission, were systematically silenced by either suspension or arrest. The first to be ordered to London for questioning were the bishop of Leighlin and Sir Nicholas White, followed by Rhys ap Hugh, the provost-marshal, and the displaced constable of Dublin Castle, Stephen Seager. In Ireland, Charles Calthorpe had already been suspended from office pending investigation while Sir Henry Duke was arrested and imprisoned in Dublin Castle.53 On arriving in London, Leighlin and White were arrested on the advice of Fitzwilliam, who accused them of illegally supplying Perrot with copies of the Irish commission’s proceedings especially in their examination of O’Roughan. Burghley and Fitzwilliam had cause to fear the bishop of Leighlin for it seems that he alone of Perrot’s friends may have come to suspect the Lord Treasurer’s complicity in the conspiracy.54 Having come by some intelligence that a prisoner in Dublin Castle, James Meagher, had offered ‘to prove who did counterfeit the letter of Sir John Perrot to the King of Spain, at what time, and in what 51

SP63/152/48. Alnwick, PLP, VI, 25 f. 51. 53 Duke’s arrest was made possible by the criminal behaviour of soldiers under his command. CSPI, 1588–92, p. 355. 54 SP63/153/54. 52

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place’,55 he wrote immediately to Burghley to acquaint him with the information. According to Meagher, a man named Bullock wrote the letter while Perrot’s signature had been forged by another, an Irishman called Cairbre O’Treabhair or Charles Trevor, formerly secretary to Sir Brian O’Rourke, lord of West Breifne; all was done at the instigation of O’Roughan. If Leighlin expected a positive reaction from one who supposedly wished Perrot well, he was disappointed; Burghley not only dismissed Meagher’s information as ‘A strange devised tale’ but suppressed it. Leighlin had evidently shared his suspicions of Burghley with White; hence Fitzwilliam’s letter of warning to his patron that they are charged with ‘suborning the priest’. Fitzwilliam further advised that White’s son should ‘not be suffered to approach the Queen’.56 Little wonder that on their arrest in London, Leighlin and White were secreted away to close imprisonment. To add insult to injury, the English commissioners took seriously O’Roughan’s complaint that he had been threatened and tortured while a prisoner in Dublin Castle. He claimed that he had been manacled by means of leg-irons and, at night, by a handlock, for which torture he blamed the bishop of Leighlin and Sir Edward Moore. O’Roughan even accused Leighlin and White of trying to persuade him to change his story by declaring Fitzwilliam guilty of concocting the conspiracy against Perrot. Sir Lucas Dillon wrote to Burghley to express his ‘grief at Her Majesty’s sharp letters reprehending the Commissioners who had examined the priest, Sir Dennis O’Roughane’.57 White too complained to Burghley about the ‘bad priest Roughane who hath told many malicious tales of the Commissioners to the Lord Deputy’.58 Neither Dillon nor White could quite believe the level of concern being expressed by the authorities for O’Roughan’s well-being. Even had he been tortured, which they claimed he had not, it was permitted under the law in cases involving treason. Walsingham certainly recommended the use of ‘torture or any other severe manner of proceeding, to gain knowledge of all foreign practices against Her Majesty’s states’.59 Meeting 55 56 57 58 59

SP63/153/49. SP63/153/54. SP63/153/28. SP63/153/30. Bagwell, Vol. III, p. 117.

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O’Roughan must have come as something of a shock for Burghley and Hatton, neither of whom formed a very high opinion of their chief prosecution witness. Indeed, O’Roughan complained to Burghley that he was ‘intimidated by the Lord Chamberlain [Hunsdon] who accounts him no better than a madman for calling Sir John Perrot a traitor’.60 O’Roughan did himself and his case no good by his reckless behaviour in accusing all and sundry of conspiring against him and supporting Perrot. In an ill-advised letter to Burghley, O’Roughan wrote: It is very strange of you to keep a traitor Sir John Perrott within your house this five months. My Lord, if your Honour, or any whatsoever – especially Sir John Perrott himself – can prove that those letters which are showed against him to be counterfeit letters and not his deed, what is the cause that he is restrained from his liberty . . . I may say that you suspect him a traitor (or else he should not be kept prisoner): And it should be tried by law, if ye did minister justice, as ye do not. But ye mock at the truth, and to undo the poor priest; for which, my Lord, I did write to my Lord Chancellor that I am jealous with your poor honour, for I perceive you are very cold in Her Majesty’s cause, concerning Sir John Perrott; because I cannot have him tried by law, the which I require, for the love of God and in way of justice.61

Ten days later, on 24 October 1590, O’Roughan wrote to the Lord Chancellor Hatton: I am in your hand since the month of May last, and I cannot have justice against Sir John Perrott after that I have proved him a traitor by witness and with his own hand written and confessing himself a traitor, the which or never a man in England or Ireland shall prove the contrary but it is his hand. Wherefore it is very strange that he is not committed to the Tower, without that ye are about to hide, drown, and conceal his treasons against Her Majesty . . . I defy any in England or Ireland to save him by virtue of the law; I mean if he be tried at all . . . Council of England, ye are blind and without truth in Sir John Perrott’s case for he is a traitor.62

Clearly O’Roughan’s state of mind was such that he could not be relied on to stand by his allegations let alone deliver the coup 60 61 62

SP12/233/50. SP12/233/110. SP12/233/111.

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de grâce necessary to destroy Perrot. On more than one occasion, O’Roughan came close to retracting his evidence, which was due less to pangs of conscience than to the fear of being hanged in place of Perrot. It was reported that O’Roughan was ‘vehemently troubled in mind and impatient’ and that when he was ‘beyond the seas he would do penance for his offences’.63 Burghley was so concerned that O’Roughan was instructed to write to him and explain himself. His explanation must have done little to reassure the Lord Treasurer for he acknowledged that he had told a fellow prisoner, Malachy O’Mollony, a Catholic bishop, that he would make his escape to Rome or Spain and that he was sorry for accusing Sir John Perrot and others wrongfully. If Burghley will have him ‘make a lie’ at Malachy’s request, he ‘is this day ready to sign a paper’ which Malachy will compose.64 Burghley’s impatience with the priest is evident from those letters of O’Roughan which he endorsed ‘a very vain letter’ and ‘a very frivolous letter’.65 In contrast to O’Roughan’s rambling, paranoid and hysterical manner, Perrot conducted himself with dignity and fortitude. He matched O’Roughan allegation for allegation and his refutation of the charge of entering into treasonable correspondence with the king of Spain was masterful: the forged letter made by Sir Dennis to the Spanish king in my name beareth date the 25 of June 1585 written in English but of Irish orthography a very foolish style, the hand not good, the counterfeit of my hand as ill, the paper worse and neither my private or ordinary seal of arms thereunto, the letters seeming to be an answer to a letter that the Spanish king had sent me when I was president of Munster thirteen or fourteen years before the date of that forged letter in which time I had leisure to write a wiser letter and in some other tongue my self speaking the Spanish and French tongue and understanding the Italian and Latin tongues. And where Sir Dennis saith he brought me a letter in Anno 1584 from the Viscount Baltinglass in the Spanish king’s name, it were strange that I would forget to write in the supposed letter to the king an answer of that letter as well as to answer the said king of that he wrote so long before. And it is possible for me to perform the contents of that 63 64 65

SP12/234/22. SP12/234/25. SP12/232/63, 64.

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forged letter as it is for me to dance around with Paul’s steeple on my thumb.66

Burghley and Hatton were well aware that if the case against Perrot were to proceed, additional evidence of treasonable intent was necessary. Their determination to prosecute the case can be witnessed in the pains they took to draw up a list of forty-six persons to be examined in Ireland ‘touching the disclosures of Sir Denis O’Roughan’.67 A corresponding list was drawn up for the examination of witnesses in England; for assistance Burghley drafted in Perrot’s old enemy, Sir Geoffrey Fenton. In addition to his role as an interrogator, Fenton was also given charge of O’Roughan, whom he watched closely and confined to solitary imprisonment when it seemed he might be persuaded by his fellow prisoners to retract his evidence. Others, too, were confined to closer imprisonment than before; Burghley wrote to White to inform him that the Queen had ordered him to be ‘further restrained of his liberty in the house of the Dean of St. Paul’s’ and that no one should have access to him.68 Perrot too was complaining that his ‘honourable confinement’ in Burghley’s house had turned into something altogether more sinister ‘being of late prevented from taking the air and attending public worship’.69 Soon, others were either rounded up and imprisoned – such as Sir Thomas Williams and his nephew John Morgan, Perrot’s cousins – or were denounced and treated with suspicion, as happened to Sir Edward Moore. If threat and coercion played their part in eliminating Perrot’s friends and allies, so too did patronage and bribery. It is surely no coincidence that having failed to achieve his long-desired promotion to the Irish Privy Council through the influence of Perrot and Heneage, Sir George Carew should thank Burghley for ‘procuring Her Majesty’s letters to place him on the Council’.70 Seven months after his promotion, Carew was apparently content, and trusted, to carry papers concerning Perrot’s cause between Fitzwilliam and Burghley.71 66

Alnwick, PLP, VI, 1 ff. 1–6. SP63/153/7. 68 SP12/233/103. 69 SP12/234/44. 70 SP63/154/40. 71 SP63/158/9. Carew does seem to have initially resisted Fitzwilliam’s attempts to win him over but Burghley’s intervention proved decisive. Cal. Carew MSS, 1589–1600, pp. 30–1. 67

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Pressures of a different kind were applied to the most reluctant of Perrot’s enemies to support the conspirators. Sir Richard Bingham, Chief Commissioner of Connacht, was induced to give evidence against Perrot initially by bribery; he thanked Burghley for ‘procuring him’ what he had long coveted, namely, the house at Athlone;72 but when this did not work threat and harrassment were used. Bingham was already suffering complaints about his allegedly arbitrary rule in Connacht and he wished for nothing more than to be left alone. In truth, he was on no better terms with Fitzwilliam than he had been with Perrot and the support Bingham had received from Walsingham had long rankled with the Lord Deputy (Fitzwilliam), who called him ‘atheist’.73 However, Burghley and Fitzwilliam were just as determined to involve him in the case by presenting him as a prosecution witness of weight particularly in respect of Perrot’s alleged crime of lèse-majesté. It had been reported that Perrot had released unpunished certain Irish rhymers who had been accused of composing seditious songs and poems in which the Queen had been held to be a bastard with no lawful right to the throne. Bingham did not take seriously either the charge against Perrot or the crime itself, and this showed in his tardy treatment of the matter, even though he was under instruction to supply the necessary evidence and witnesses. As Hiram Morgan has pointed out, it was ‘an ironic charge against a Lord Deputy [Perrot] who had paid O’Neill’s rhymer to sing the praises of the queen’ more than two years after allegedly allowing the seditious rhymers to go free.74 Although it soon became evident that there was little to be gained by pursuing the matter, Fitzwilliam was determined that Bingham should not be let off so lightly and he turned his attention to another related charge of lèse-majesté. Bingham was now called on to depose his knowledge about Perrot’s failure to punish Sir Brian O’Rourke, lord of West Breifne, for encouraging the setting up of an image of the Queen and then ordering his kern publicly to drag it through the mud and chop it up. Fitzwilliam brought such pressure to bear on Bingham, his 72 73 74

SP63/154/31. Bagwell, Vol. III, p. 211. Morgan, ‘The Fall of Sir John Perrot’, p. 118.

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brother and their servants, that the Chief Commissioner of Connacht complained to Burghley. In all humbleness I appeal to Her Majesty and Your Honour, as one void of any indifferency here, by reason that none of them are my friends which are commissioners in this cause, and my most Honourable Good Lord it is very hard when young and private men shall be drawn to deliver a declaration against an apparent truth, and extreme threatenings uttered to enforce a witness after an oath and that vehemently to persuade a man to say more than remembrance doth serve him, yea such conjurations (for little better may I term them) have been used to them in the examinations of my knowledge in the treason of the picture, as the commissioners have said that myself and my brother should be hurled together and sent into England to Your Honours with further threatenings of hanging as though we were rebels or traitors. My Good Lord, if we have any way misdemeaned Her Majesty, let us receive due punishment for it, and for this treason of the picture I trust no man will think that I would go about to conceal it or yet deny acquainting Sir John Perrot with it, if I were any way able in conscience to charge him with it, for I would freely deliver it against him as any like matter touching Her Majesty’s service as any man living, under Her Majesty’s dominion, and as soon against Sir John as any man else.75

Burghley did little to satisfy or reassure Bingham, who grew increasingly frustrated and isolated both at home and in Ireland. In a telling letter written to his cousin, Captain George Bingham, Sir Richard shared his suspicions of Fitzwilliam whom he believed to be behind a conspiracy to destroy Perrot. He declared that O’Rourke’s secretary, Trevor, knew well who was responsible for ‘the counterfeiting of the letter to the King of Spain wherewith Sir John Perrot is charged’ and that ‘if the Lord Deputy had pleased he might have had Trevor long ago, for he offereth to come in and declare his whole knowledge, so the Lord Deputy would assure him of his life. The Lord Deputy told John Reynolds within these few days that if he should see Trevor he would do well to kill him.’76 Bingham probably feared that what Fitzwilliam was doing to Perrot would soon be done to him. Additionally, it is clear from Bingham’s voluminous 75 76

SP63/159/20. SP63/160/53.

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correspondence that Loftus too was playing a very powerful part in the conspiracy against Perrot, if behind the scenes.77 He may have been reluctant to play a more conspicuous part in the affair in case anything should go wrong, hence his attempts to avoid commitment. As the following letter to Burghley shows, Loftus was keen to pin down the Lord Treasurer so that he might know in explicit and less coded terms what he intended to do and how far he was prepared to go in the case against Perrot; only then would he be prepared to risk his own neck. I have lately received a joint letter from Your Lordship [Burghley], and others of the Lords reproving me for my last answer, sent unto you, both for the generality and the doubtfulness thereof, and requiring me in more particular manner to signify to Her Majesty, and your Lordships my knowledge of Sir John Perrot’s behaviour towards Her Majesty and the State in his late government. Upon the review and more advised consideration of your Lordship’s private letter, I must and do confess to your good Lordship my mistaking of your meaning for which I humbly crave your Lordship’s pardon, protesting that no other respects in the world stayed me hitherto from informing your Lordship against Sir John Perrot, whose undutiful behaviour I have many times been grieved at, and bemoaned to my dearest friends here, but the remembrance of that known mislike between us, which made me very unwilling to intermeddle in his causes.78

In the course of being interrogated by Burghley and Hatton, it soon became evident that Perrot was to be charged with additional crimes, primarily of complicity in the rebellion of Sir Brian O’Rourke. Perrot was vulnerable because he had corresponded with O’Rourke regularly, as he had with other Irish lords, and as recently as the end of July 1589 when the troubles were at their height.79 Perrot complained that his papers had been taken away from him so that he ‘is not able to show the warrants and reasons for many of his actions’ and that he knows that he ‘shall have but few of his writings if Sir Geoffrey Fenton comes to the fingering of them’.80 O’Rourke’s quarrel with Bingham, closely followed by his rebellion and, upon its 77 78 79 80

For example, SP63/159/36. SP63/157/4. SP63/145/85. SP12/234/44.

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failure, his flight to Scotland, were used to great effect by Perrot’s enemies who attempted to substantiate his treason. However, until O’Rourke’s detention in, and extradition from, Scotland at the beginning of April 1591, to prove Perrot’s complicity in the Irishman’s plot was well-nigh impossible.81 Not that this deterred Fitzwilliam, whom Perrot accused, as early as April 1590, of seeking ‘to make me the author of O’Rourke’s rebellion’ by pressurizing rebel prisoners to confess his part in the affair.82 Nor did it deter Burghley, who felt that the evidence against Perrot was now sufficient, with or without O’Rourke’s testimony, for him to be formally charged. This was done at Ely Place, in the presence of the Privy Council, on Friday, 11 December 1590.83 Playing the role of friend, Burghley wrote to Perrot eleven days later to suggest that the latter write a letter to the Queen setting out his achievements when he was Lord Deputy of Ireland and ‘other such service for Her Majesty’s advantage done by you’.84 Within a day, Perrot replied ‘From the Strand this 23rd of December 1590’, stating that ‘if your Lordship will let me have my books that I left at York House, and some time in conference with your Lordship, I shall then be able perfectly to set down the peculiarities of these things demanded’.85 Neither request was granted. In his letter to Burghley, Perrot hoped that Her Highness will, in her princely heart, think of my long restraint from her presence, and that I have deserved liberty by my faithful services [and that] Her Majesty will not suffer me to entertain my old years with the greatest sorrow and grief of heart . . . to be by a Machiavellian device holden an offender in her sight, that never offended her . . . having followed the Sun only, and not any inferior planet, it may be I have the fewer friends to solicit for me.86

Burghley is asked to ensure that he may be ‘thoroughly charged and heard, which this long seven months I could not obtain. And if I be thereupon found faulty, let me taste of all 81 See Hiram Morgan, ‘Extradition and Treason-Trial of a Gaelic Lord: The Case of Brian O’Rourke’, Irish Jurist, 22 (1987), 285–301. 82 SP12/231/73. 83 APC, xx (1590–91), p. 103. 84 SP12/234/64. 85 SP12/234/65. 86 Ibid.

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extremity’.87 Perrot spent the next ten weeks busily refuting each of the charges laid against him, including additional ones that he had used slanderous words against the Queen, but to no avail, for on 22 March 1591 he was removed from Cecil House on the Strand to the Tower.88 As one contemporary put it, ‘the Attorney [Popham] and Solicitor [Egerton] have been very busily employed in considering the points and proofs’ and that the ‘Treasurer [Burghley] who was said to become sick upon the resolution of sending him [Perrot] to the Tower from my Lord’s house’.89 Playing his role as the grieving friend to perfection, Burghley was not so ‘sick’ that he could not continue conducting interrogations, examining witness statements and drawing up charges against the accused. Yet, in eight months of work it is clear that the weight of the charges against Perrot was moving towards his use of slanderous words against the Queen. This is evident from a collection in Burghley’s hand, of the material points against Sir John Perrot which he drew up in mid-November 1591.90 Along the margin Burghley lists the names of those who gave evidence for each article against the accused. Besides tolerating and discharging notorious papists, and of being one himself, the key feature of the material against Perrot concerned his ‘evil’ and ‘vile words against the Queen’. Towards the end of the list come the ‘suffrance of the rhymers’ and ‘the abuse of an image by O’Rourke’.91 If, as Hiram Morgan contends, the interrogation and subsequent trial of O’Rourke were intended by the authorities as ‘an elaborate propaganda exercise . . . the necessary prelude to the trial of Perrot himself’ then it did not quite go according to plan.92 Once detained in ‘close prison’ within the Tower, O’Rourke was put under enormous pressure to implicate Perrot in his rebellion, but he remained steadfast in his refusal to do so. In one contemporary report, it was said that ‘Orworke has been examined touching Sir John Perrot but swears he knows nothing of what is supposed of Sir John’.93 Certainly, 87 88 89 90 91 92 93

Ibid. SP12/238/82. SP12/238/82. SP63/161/19. Ibid. Morgan, ‘The Fall of Sir John Perrot’, p. 121. CSPD, 1591–94, p. 48.

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casual observers at the trial itself, which was held late in October 1591, seemed to be aware of the connection that the prosecution was attempting to make between O’Rourke and Perrot. In a letter to his father-in-law, Richard Bagot, Richard Broughton states that Upon his not answering, the Queen’s council, to satisfy the audience, opened the indictment and mentioned Her Majesty’s gracious dealing in pardoning his Irish rebellious incursions; and made some glance at Sir John Perrot’s bearing of that shewing of Her Majesty’s picture . . . so that some supposed that Sir John Perrot would shortly come out of the Tower to trial. Sir Thomas Perrot shortly after was commanded to keep his room; some think for sueing for his father’s liberty.94

Although Burghley’s collection does not represent the whole case against Perrot, as the indictment at the trial suggests, it does reveal the thinking behind the prosecution and what it thought was the best – perhaps the only – means of obtaining a conviction. Contemporary gossips came to the same conclusion: Advantages are taken from his [Perrot’s] insolent government in Ireland and irreverant speeches against the Queen which come to light now as is usual when men are called into question and being better proved make the rest more probable.95

Not for the first time Perrot found himself incarcerated in the Tower, ‘the most important treason gaol’.96 His last experience of the Tower, albeit brief, occurred some thirty-five years before during the reign of Mary, when, according to Henry Machyn, ‘Ser John Paratt . . . was cared unto the Towre’.97 On that occasion the Crown did not have enough evidence to proceed against Perrot, whose peripheral involvement in the Dudley conspiracy probably saved him from the executions that befell his more earnest compatriots. On this occasion he faced a sterner test, for although the evidence against him was as circumstantial, flimsy and (based on hearsay) inconclusive as that facing him in 1556, there was now a steely resolve to have him convicted come what 94

Historical Manuscripts Commission Report, 4, p. 336. SP12/238/82. John Bellamy, The Tudor Law of Treason (London, 1979), p. 93. 97 J. G. Nichols (ed.), ‘Diary of Henry Machyn, Citizen of London, 1550–1563’, Camden Society, 1st ser., 42 (1847), 104. 95 96

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may. It is perhaps ironic that it was the discovery, after his death and on the orders of Burghley to make ‘diligent search’, of Walsingham’s private cache of letters that helped to firm up the charge against Perrot of slandering the Queen.98 Ignoring Sir William Wentworth’s warning that ‘it is common custom to keep letters, and years later produce them for evidence against you in court or elsewhere’,99 Perrot’s confidence and trust in Walsingham were such that he expressed his frustration with the Queen more freely than he would otherwise have done. Although not intended as malice towards the Queen, Perrot’s letters to Walsingham could, in the wrong hands, be misconstrued as such. Added to these were Perrot’s catalogue of indiscretions uttered in public which his enemies were only too glad to report, such as: This fiddling woman troubleth me out of measure; God’s wounds, this it is to serve a base bastard piss kitchen woman; Ha, silly woman, ha, fiddling woman, now she shall not rule me, now she shall not curb me.100

Perrot’s complaints of his grief, poor health and impaired memory due to his close confinement in the Tower – he was restricted to a single room with bed, table and chair – were brushed aside by his prosecutors who took the steps necessary to indict him formally with the charges and thereby bring him to trial.101 On Thursday, 27 April 1592, Sir John Perrot was brought by barge up the river from the Tower to Westminster Hall and there stood trial for his life.

98

Wood, Chron. Ire., p. 53. Quoted in Lacey Baldwin Smith, Treason in Tudor England: Politics and Paranoia (London, 1986), p. 221. 100 BL Egerton MS 2877 f. 181b. 101 SP63/161/42; SP12/238/21; 241/16. 99

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1 INTRODUCTION

A great judge of our own time has described Perrot’s trial as ‘the scandalous attempt of prerogative lawyers – of which Elizabeth herself was ashamed – to convert the peevish speeches against her, of that worthy old soldier Sir John Perrott, into overt acts of high treason’.1

Thus did the Oxford-educated Irish historian and Victorian gentleman, Richard Bagwell, seek to explain the iniquity of Perrot’s trial. The ‘great judge’ in question was John, Lord Campbell, who, in a distinguished legal career stretching over fifty years, had served as Solicitor-General, as Attorney-General and as Lord Chancellor. Following in the judicial footsteps of those who had been responsible for drawing up the charges and preparing the case against Perrot, namely, Sir Thomas Egerton, Sir John Popham and Sir Christopher Hatton respectively, Campbell’s legal opinion is, even after a century and a half, worthy of consideration. Certainly, Campbell’s legal successors in the present century would be hard pressed to uphold the guilty verdict pronounced upon Perrot, for in truth as well as in fact, he was innocent of that with which he had been charged. Perrot was no traitor, nor was he, in spite of his ‘peevish speeches’, disloyal, but he was guilty of underestimating the power, influence and malice of his enemies: ‘Thus an Enemie Armed, it was no difficult thing, that a condemned Traytor should bee encouraged in hope of pardon, and some other mercenarie persons to accuse an Innocent.’2 That Perrot was the victim of a ‘forged accusation’ is not in doubt, but that he was found guilty of treason 1 2

Bagwell, Vol. III, p. 232. ECS, Govt. of Ireland, epistle.

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need not occasion any great surprise, since the outcome of a Tudor treason trial was rarely in doubt. In the opinion of a contemporary commentator, writing at the beginning of the reign of Charles I, Perrot’s guilt and sentence of death had been procured as much ‘by the power of his prosecutors’ as by the ‘perjurie of his accusers’.3 Thus, it is possible to argue that, whether he committed treason or not, he came to court because the confluence of events made the accusation convenient and possible to pursue. THE PROCEDURE IN TREASON TRIALS The conduct of criminal proceedings in Tudor treason trials bears only a faint resemblance to modern procedure. The accused had neither the right to counsel nor was he entitled to a copy of the indictment prior to trial. He was nearly always denied pen and ink to take notes of the charges and evidence produced against him, and his witnesses, if he was permitted to call them, were not allowed to depose on oath, nor was he able to compel them to appear. When the duke of Norfolk ‘asked very humbly for leave to be represented by counsel’ at his trial in 1572, his judges informed him that ‘all our books do forbid allowing of Counsel in the point of treason’.4 As far as is known, Perrot did not ask, and he was not given, leave to be represented by counsel. Nor was he given the time or means to gather his thoughts in writing, complaining that, ‘I shall not remember the most of the poyntes’, to which the prosecution replied, ‘You shalbe remembered of everye matter peacemeale’.5 Neither was Perrot permitted to call any witnesses on his behalf so that those called to appear at his trial did so at the behest of the prosecution. Most of the evidence in treason trials consisted of affidavits, depositions from witnesses or confessions from prisoners, the majority of which were rarely supported by oral evidence given on oath. These statements appear to have been read by the prosecuting counsel, and cross-examination, if any, was usually directed to them. In common with the majority of those accused 3 4 5

Ibid. Williams, Tudor Tragedy, p. 234. See ‘The Text’, pp. 139–40.

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of treason, Perrot defended himself, and although he had no formal training in criminal law, he vigorously cross-examined the trio of prosecution lawyers ranged against him. Perrot’s trial was unusual in that some thirty witnesses were said to have appeared in person to give evidence against him, but, of these, he was permitted to cross-examine only three: Dennis O’Roughan, John Garland and Stephen Seager. Although the sworn testimony of a single deponent was usually enough to secure a conviction, the Crown rarely relied on a single witness in treason trials; not that this served as a guarantee of their honesty. Perrot was quite forthright in his condemnation of the veracity of the witnesses assembled against him. He was particularly scathing about O’Roughan, saying that the Irishman ‘was a lowsie villaine, and a roge, and bad the poxe uppon him’.6 The court could be rigged against the accused, and he was deprived of normal privileges in the conduct of his defence. The duke of Norfolk’s complaint that in preparing for his trial he had had ‘very short warning to provide answer to so great a matter’, was probably echoed by Perrot, who no doubt sympathized with the duke’s anger claiming that, ‘I have not had fourteen hours in all, both day and night . . . yet I am put at once to the whole head of the laws, not knowing which particularly to answer unto’.7 Treason was properly tried in the Court of King’s Bench, but the Crown could, and frequently did, bypass this and erect a court of hand-picked nominees by using a special commission of oyer and terminer. This enabled the power and authority of the Court of King’s Bench to be transferred to what was, in effect, a temporary tribunal intended for one particular case. Perrot’s was just such a case, and the nominees picked to try him were drawn from among the Privy Council, the representative body in the Queen’s government against whom the offence of treason was allegedly committed. In the opinion of the late Sir Geoffrey Elton, this need not necessarily be taken as evidence of bias against the accused because it was a fact that, throughout the Tudor period, ‘commoners’ trials for treason were nearly always held before such a commission’.8 On 6 7 8

See ‘The Text’, p. 161. Williams, Tudor Tragedy, pp. 234–5. G. R. Elton, The Tudor Constitution (Cambridge, 1968), p. 80.

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the other hand, he signals a note of caution, for although ‘there was nothing novel or improper about the method, it obviously made it possible to construct the court’.9 The court that tried Perrot certainly bears the hallmarks of careful construction: seven of his eleven judges – Hunsdon, Buckhurst, Anderson, Cecil, Fortescue, Gawdy and Wolley – and one of his three prosecutors – Puckering – were his enemies or had links to those who were.10 If the court could be rigged against the accused so could the evidence. In the opinion of John Bellamy, ‘the clearest and most impressive example of a minister of state giving directions for a treason trial is to be found in the scheme drafted by Burghley, in 1586, for handling the evidence and the introduction of witnesses against Mary, Queen of Scots’.11 Although no such draft scheme exists for Perrot’s trial, the fact that Burghley played a leading part in the proceedings against the accused – drawing up the list of witnesses, drafting the interrogatories to be given them, and the receiving back and annotation in his own hand of the examinations – suggest that the Lord Treasurer was certainly capable of issuing instructions about the conduct of a treason trial. Having learnt his trade under his father, Sir Robert Cecil too showed no compunction in issuing instructions to the Attorney-General responsible for prosecuting the earl of Essex for treason in 1601, telling him that he was ‘not to let certain words in Sir Christopher Blunt’s examination be read out’.12 If the surviving interrogations and examinations taken prior to Perrot’s trial are compared with the report of their use in the trial record, it suggests that the prosecution used only parts of the evidence while supressing information that might seem to cast doubt upon the guilt of the accused. Burghley’s interests in Perrot’s trial were represented in the person of his son, Sir Robert, who acted as one of the judges. This lends credence to the charge that the Lord Treasurer had a hand in the conduct of proceedings, such as in the selection and suppression of evidence, much of which he had gathered himself. 9 10 11 12

Ibid. See ‘The Text’, p. 134. Bellamy, Tudor Law of Treason, p. 146. Ibid.

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If the manipulation of evidence was within the compass of ministers of state, so too was the goading and instructing of witnesses. Those that appeared at Perrot’s trial were sufficiently well prepared, and trusted, not to come unstuck when they were confronted, let alone cross-examined, by the accused. Only in respect of Phillip Williams, Perrot’s former secretary and a key source of damning evidence against his former master, did someone in authority order that he was not to appear as a witness at the trial. That Williams was, apparently, ‘showing signs of wavering [and] was best out of the way’,13 may indicate that that ‘someone’ had the power not only to involve himself in the decision-making process, but also to overrule the Attorney- and Solicitor-General, even though they, ‘in theory, were responsible for the handling of the prosecution both in and out of the courtroom’.14 Given his fragile mental state prior to the trial, Dennis O’Roughan, the chief prosecution witness, was probably the one most likely to crack under the strain of appearing to deliver his evidence. Indeed, even as he took the ‘booke being offered him to sweare’, Perrot badgered the hapless Irishman by loudly exclaiming that, ‘yt was noe matter whether he were sworne or not for his woord and his oath were all one, for there was nether truth nor honestie in him’.15 It is possible that O’Roughan was stiffened in his resolve to appear by a promise that he should be pardoned, rewarded, and set free after Perrot’s conviction. The fact that this actually transpired, suggests that someone in authority had the power to offer such generous terms. That person was very likely Burghley, for as Paul Hammer reminds us, after Hatton’s death, in November 1591, the Lord Treasurer ‘gained an unprecedented dominance over government and policy’.16 The procedural advantage enjoyed by the Crown, and the difficulties experienced by the accused, in the conduct of treason trials, has caused some historians to declare them a travesty of justice.17 In many respects they were, but this is to judge them 13

Henley, ‘The Treason of Sir John Perrot’, 417. Bellamy, Tudor Law of Treason, p. 145. 15 See ‘The Text’, p. 157. 16 Paul E. J. Hammer, The Polarisation of Elizabethan Politics: The Political Career of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, 1585–1597 (Cambridge, 1999), p. 343. 17 Ibid, p. 344. 14

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by our standards and not theirs, and in so doing, we run the risk of misunderstanding the fact that they were, to all intents and purposes, political show-trials. They were political propaganda wrapped up in judicial theatre but with the very serious objective of securing the realm from the threat posed, real or imagined, by enemies without and from malcontents within. There is no doubting the fact that the procedure in treason trials was heavily weighted against the accused, and that the often thin-spun tissue of evidence – founded on hearsay, confession and doctored examination, hardly a shred of which would have been admissible under the modern rules of evidence – was delivered by what appeared to be a vindictive prosecution. According to Elton, ‘Normally the Crown could rely on the wide reach of the treason law and the bias of the trial’ to secure a conviction, hence, his conclusion that, ‘In view of all this, it is not surprising to find that very few men accused of treason ever escaped the net’.18 Offhand, he could think of only two – Lord Dacre in 1534 and Sir Nicholas Throckmorton in 1554 – but the fact that some men ‘escaped the net’, suggests that it might be unwise to accept the notion that a prisoner’s guilt was invariably decided beforehand and that the trial was a mere formality. Elton’s belief that ‘the vast majority of those executed as traitors were . . . in fact guilty in law’,19 does not apply to Perrot since he was innocent of the charge of treason. In Perrot’s case, it is not so much the procedure of the trial that was at fault in finding him guilty of treason, but the trial itself. When called upon to offer his opinion on whether he had had a fair trial, Perrot said that he had, inasmuch as ‘he fownd no falte in the proceeding of the Lawe but that he had good and orderly proceeding therein’.20 The travesty of his conviction is due, in large measure, to the way in which the treason law and the accompanying evidence was perverted and fashioned into a tool to beat him.

18 19 20

Elton, Tudor Constitution, p. 81 n. 2. Ibid., p. 81. See ‘The Text’, p. 170.

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INDICTMENT AND TRIAL More than a year elapsed between Perrot’s confinement in the Tower of London, on 22 March 1591, and his trial, which opened on 27 April 1592. According to John Bellamy, ‘this pretrial period of captivity was one of the most crucial stages in the whole legal process . . . because of the duress frequently inflicted’ in order ‘to weaken the prisoner’s body and thus his resolution. This was an area where rules were few and precedents illdefined, and the crown had room to operate in a high-handed, even ruthless, manner.’21 In spite of his frequent complaints of close confinement, grief and loss of memory, Perrot remained defiant and resolved to defend himself against the charges laid against him. Perrot was formally indicted on 11 April and tried sixteen days later, at Westminster Hall, on charges of high treason before ‘commissioners of Oyer and Terminer’ sitting in the Court of King’s Bench. According to the indictments, framed, as far as can be determined, under the terms of the general statute concerning treason of 1571,22 he was arraigned on two counts: The First Indictment 1. Imprimis that he should seeke the death of her Majestie by thoverthrowe of her Dominions by forrayne powers. 2. Secondly that he should receave lettres from the king of Spaine and from Parma for thaccomplishm[en]t of the first Article. 3. Thirdely that he releeved one Orache [O’Rourke] being an Irish Traitor. 4. Ffowerthly that he wrote lettres to the King of Spaine, Parma, and others the queenes enemyes that he would assiste them. 5. Ffiftlie that the said Qrach [O’Rourke] was anymated to treason by Sir John Parratt against her Majestie. The Second Indictment Ffirst he Conspired her Majesties deathe. Second he practised with Sir William Stanley to bring forraine powers into Walles and England. Therd he sent lettres to the king of Spaine, and Parma to ayde them when they would approche.23 21

Bellamy, Tudor Law of Treason, pp. 93–4, 130. PRO KB8/50 m.1. Alan Warham, Treason: Famous English Treason Trials (Stroud, 1995), pp. xiv–xv. 23 BLO Willis MS 58 f. 245. 22

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Treason indictments were always compiled with care and those drawn up against Perrot, and approved by the grand jury that met in April, were no exception. Indeed, given the precedent set more than half a century earlier by Thomas Cromwell, it is possible that Burghley too may have been responsible, in collaboration with the Queen’s learned counsel, for composing the indictments.24 However, when they came to be read out to the jury at his trial, a little over a fortnight later, there was a subtle addition, inasmuch as attention was drawn to the accused’s contemptuous and malicious speeches against the Queen. Although not specified in the original indictments, the prosecution opened and, subsequently, concentrated, much of its efforts on showing that Perrot’s ‘treason proceeded from the imaginacion of his hart’ which manifested itself in ‘vile and treayterouse speeches, and from thence to horrible and heynous accions’.25 The omission of Perrot’s alleged ‘contemptuouse wordes’ from the original indictment is, perhaps, surprising given the considerable effort taken in compiling such evidence by the Crown prosecutors and by Burghley. If, as the prosecution alleged, Perrot’s speeches ‘conteyned in theym high treason’, it was sufficient under the restored terms of the Treason Act of 1534, the centrepiece of which was treason by words, to charge him for attempting to deny or deprive the monarch of his or her title whether by deed, by writing, or by means of the spoken word. Repealed in 1547, that part of the 1534 Treason Act was redrafted by government lawyers in order ‘to make mere words against Elizabeth treasonous’, and restored to the statute-book by the Act of 1571.26 It was intended to deal, in the short term, with the aftermath of the northern rebellion and, in the long term, the threat posed by the rising tide of Catholic recusancy. It is interesting to note that during his trial the prosecution attempted to taint Perrot with being a closet papist. The prosecution clearly intended to influence the thinking and shape the opinions of the jury by showing that ‘these speeches did shew a disloyall mynd’ and ‘did declare his mallice against her Majestie’. If, as has been claimed, trials then, as now, 24 25 26

Bellamy, Tudor Law of Treason, p. 145. See ‘The Text’, p. 142. Williams, The Later Tudors, p. 259.

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are ‘at one level a story-telling contest’, then perhaps ‘the decision about the character of the accused was necessary in order to choose one story over its competitor’.27 Perrot’s explosive character and expletive-ridden language made for a colourful story, and the recounting of his verbal indiscretions tended to stick in the minds of those who heard them. Consequently, Perrot fell victim to that state of mind which magnified the most trivial and innocent remark and action into a grand design of infamy. This fits the general belief, some have called it paranoia, prevalent in Tudor society that there existed a conspiratorial web of wickedness. This goes to the heart of the Tudor political mentality in which the matrix of assumptions that conditioned the way in which contemporaries viewed traitors like Perrot was harnessed by the prosecution, and dictated the manner in which they represented his villainy. In opening for the Crown, Sergeant Puckering was assisted in his endeavour by the evidence provided by Perrot’s former secretary, Phillip Williams, who now served Fitzwilliam in the same capacity. Williams’s evidence proved as damaging as that submitted by the chief prosecution witness, Dennis O’Roughan. Although Perrot complained bitterly that Williams, ‘a naughtie lewed man and of no credite’, was his mortal enemy, the very public nature of his outbursts meant that he could not deny that he might, in moments of exasperation, have used some ‘impatient expressions’ regarding the Queen, but he strenuously denied the imputation of conspiracy or treason.28 Nevertheless, though they were no more than the ‘bad-tempered remarks of a highly strung personality’, in the hands of ‘astute lawyers, who had the rope already prepared for him’, they were evidence of a traitorous heart expressed in malicious words which bespoke of Perrot’s intended treason.29 In a cruelly ironic twist, Perrot’s defence that ‘notwithstanding any speeches what soever, yet . . . he executed her Majesties comanndement therein’, was refuted 27 David Lindley, The Trials of Frances Howard: Fact and Fiction at the Court of King James (London, 1993), p. 5. 28 See ‘The Text’, p. 146; Henley, ‘The Treason of Sir John Perrot’, 417. 29 Henley, ‘The Treason of Sir John Perrot’, 418; Morgan, ‘The Fall of Sir John Perrot’, p. 122; Bellamy, Tudor Law of Treason, p. 32. At the trial of the duke of Buckingham in 1521 it was stated that ‘merely to intend the king’s death was high treason and such intention was sufficiently proven by words alone’.

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by the prosecution which reminded him that he was not charged with ‘not executing her Majesties comanndement, but with contemptuouse speeches used against her Majestie in the matter’.30 Thus, Perrot fell victim to the most potent weapon in the prosecution’s armoury, that of character assassination. Although Perrot’s words were clearly ‘constructed’ as treasonable by the court, they were merely a preliminary to the case proper, for as the trial record makes clear, once the jury had been acquainted with them ‘they proceeded to the Treason’. Henceforward, the prosecution followed the indictments as rehearsed to the jury, though it could not resist exploring Perrot’s religion when, in a well-laid trap, the accused was drawn on the issue of whether his failure to apprehend a known traitor and seminary priest was due to his incompetence or his sympathy for Catholicism. A furious Perrot ‘marvaled that he, having knowen religion these 45 yeares, should be charged with favoring of Papists and massemongers’, but as soon as he had finished, the prosecution, in the person of the Attorney-General, John Popham, willed the accused ‘not to stand uppon religion for then . . . we shall prove you irreligious’.31 This Popham attempted to do, with the active assistance of Solicitor-General Egerton, but in seeking to convert inference into evidence he fell far short of his objective. Of all the instances during the trial in which evidence was twisted in Perrot’s disfavour this has to be the most extraordinary, for the former Lord Deputy was no Catholic sympathizer, secret or otherwise. Perrot was a passionate Protestant, who had risked his life to shelter and protect Protestant divines during the dark days of Marian persecution. Deeply wounded by the accusation, Perrot ‘stormed and was angrie sayeing they wente about not onllye to make him a treator to his prince but a treator to god: which, he sayed, he would never doe’.32 It is a theme to which Perrot returned in his will, written on 3 May, some six days after his trial, and to which he offered the most convincing refutation to the charge of being a closet Catholic. He cited the fact that he had ‘suppressed more 30 31 32

See ‘The Text’, pp. 144, 145. See ‘The Text’, pp. 150–1. See ‘The Text’, p. 152.

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monasteryes and fryars while [he] goverened that lande of Irelande, than was done by all the governoures before in thirtie yeares’.33 In the very next line of his will, Perrot reveals the possible reason why such baseless charges about his religious standing had been made against him, and how his actions might have been deliberately misconstrued: ‘Neather did I ever favoure papist for papistrie’s saike, but I did justice to, and for them upon anie complainte, as I did to others accordinge to the commaundment, which I receaved from hir Majestie.’34 Perrot’s conduct in court was not that of a submissive prisoner. He would persist in interrupting the judges to have his say and thought nothing of challenging the integrity of the witnesses and the impartiality of the evidence produced against him. He dismissed with utter contempt the affidavits submitted by his former servants, whom he accused of betraying their master, namely, Rhys Thomas, his chamberlain, John Garland, his messenger and Stephen Seager, his constable of Dublin Castle. He demanded the right to have Williams brought to court so that he might question him face to face, but this was refused. However, he did succeeed in cross-examining Garland, who stubbornly clung to his evidence as did Captains Merbury and Woodhouse, who also gave their evidence in person at the trial. Dennis O’Roughan too was called to give his evidence in person along with some twenty-four witnesses, the majority of whom are not named in the trial record.35 In a credible portrait of the man, Sir Robert Naunton perhaps best captures Perrot’s resilience and strength of character: ‘at his arraignment, he was so little dejected by what might be alledged and proved against him, that he rather grew troubled with choler, and in a kind of exasperation despised his Jury, though of the Order of Knighthood, and of the speciall Gentry.’36 Perrot’s spirited defence notwithstanding, the jury took the almost customary three-quarters of an hour to find him guilty. However, instead of sentence being pronounced, Perrot 33

Life, Deedes and Death, p. 152 Ibid. 35 The names of some of those who took part are listed in other versions of the trial. For example, Thady Nolan in BL Egerton Manuscripts 2877 f. 181b or Richard Harding in BL Additional Manuscripts 15664 f. 181 seq. 36 Naunton, Frag. Reg., p. 44. 34

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requested leave to speak to the judges in private. His request to speak privately with the prosecuting commission was in itself unusual, but to be granted a hearing was quite extraordinary. It can only be a matter of speculation what passed between Perrot and his judges when they adjourned to a room prepared for them in the Chancery Court, but, whatever was said, it was sufficient for judgement against him to be delayed until the Queen was consulted. THE JUDGEMENT The court was due to assemble and deliver its sentence on Perrot on 2 May, but it was prorogued. In fact, in the weeks following his trial, judgement against him had been stayed on no less than six occasions. It may be significant that although Perrot was a prisoner in the Tower and denied access to family and friends, the staying of judgement, together with other news from Court, was made known to him. During this seven-week period of detention, there was much activity in trying to secure Perrot’s release, or at least the remittance of the expected sentence of death. Six days after the trial, on 3 May, on the very day Perrot was composing his last will and testament, Robert Devereux, earl of Essex, was busily employed in enlisting Burghley’s help in trying to persuade the Queen to stop the proceedings against his sister’s father-in-law. Three weeks later, on 27 May, Burghley received a letter from Perrot’s son and heir, Sir Thomas, who begged the Lord Treasurer to use his influence to save his father’s life.37 There must have come a point when both Essex and his brother-in-law, Perrot junior, concluded that Burghley’s support for Perrot senior was rather half-hearted, but this is unlikely to have occurred to them much before the 16 June when, after a number of false starts, sentence was finally pronounced. At no point, or so it seems, did either suspect Burghley’s duplicity, for as he was offering them an apparently sympathetic, if apathetic, ear, ‘old Saturnus’ was actively engaged in suppressing information that, if made known, might yet have saved Perrot. On 20 May, Burghley received a letter 37

CSPD, 1591–4, p. 223.

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from George Bingham ‘touching certain clauses of letters’ written by his brother, Sir Richard Bingham, ‘concerning one Trevor depending upon the traitor O’Rourke, lately executed, which may seem to excuse Sir John Perrot of some matters laid to his charge’.38 This evidence, pointing the finger of suspicion away from Perrot towards Trevor and his accomplices, was never presented to the court. If, as has been alleged, Burghley ‘was responsible for introducing a new brutality into high politics by his subtle destruction of Perrot’,39 then he was surely aided and abetted by the Queen, who did little to save her former Lord Deputy and Privy Councillor. Elizabeth’s relative anonymity in the proceedings against Perrot has, thus far, drawn little comment from historians possibly because the evidence does not permit them to come to any firm conclusions. The fact that the business that passed in Court was often conducted on a verbal level, leaving no written traces, is a clear impediment to gauging Elizabeth’s attitude to Perrot’s condemnation and trial for treason. Following comments made by contemporaries, such as Camden, Naunton and the enigmatic ECS, it is possible to conclude that the Queen may have been badgered into approving Perrot’s trial and conviction: That great and just Prince (incensed to displeasure by such an one as was neere in favour . . . ) was urged to give way, even against her heart to his prosecution, as appeared by her answer to the newes of his condemnation . . . said thus in the hearing of men of good account, and some neere to me in blood and acquaintance. Is he found guilty? Then, in my conscience, they have found an Innocent guilty.40

This suggests that she was an unwilling participant in the affair, but the ‘badgering’ Elizabeth received may have been misinterpreted, inasmuch as the pressure applied to her may have come from her frustrated ministers responding to her characteristic indecisiveness. Her unwillingness to go to extremes – her agonizing over the executions of Norfolk, Mary, Queen of Scots and Arundel (and later Essex) is well documented – may have been a 38 39 40

CSPI, 1588–92, p. 488; SP63/164/38. Hammer, Robert Devereux, p. 398. ECS, Govt. of Ireland, epistle.

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factor in the delay in pronouncing Perrot’s death sentence. Indeed, there is evidence to suggest that the Queen had, almost from the beginning, adopted a more consensual approach to Perrot’s prosecution. ECS states that the Queen’s displeasure was, ‘exasperated by some part of the accusation’, while Sir Walter Ralegh is reported to have said ‘that which most exasperated the Queen, and gave advantage to his [Perrot’s] enemies, was . . . words of disdain’.41 If this is so, then either the Queen was a willing accomplice in the prosecution or else it was but a device to serve as a sharp corrective to an otherwise valued servant. If the latter is true, then it was possibly only meant to last as long as the Queen’s anger, but that it went further, may have been due to the malice of Perrot’s enemies taking advantage of Elizabeth’s indecisiveness by sowing the seeds of doubt. It was not until Friday, 16 June, that the court finally assembled to pronounce formal sentence of death on the accused. Knowing what was to come, Perrot was surprisingly bullish and far from the cowed prisoner the judges might have expected to confront in open court. Perrot’s adversarial manner appears to have caught the Crown’s lawyers off guard for, as an eye-witness testifies, there followed ‘vehement speeches betweene the Attorney and the prisoner’.42 Soon Hunsdon, Buckhurst and Anderson joined in the verbal mêlée that served only to delay the inevitable, which, after nearly two hours, was reached at ten o’clock at night, when Perrot was sentenced to death. Perrot was to suffer the brutal execution customarily reserved for those condemned for treason, namely, to be drawn on a hurdle through the London streets to the gallows, there to be hanged, cut down alive and ‘his bowells and pryvie members to be cutt and cast in the fire in his sight’, after which his head was to be struck off and his body cut into quarters ‘to be disposed at the Queenes pleasure’.43 The barbarous severity of the sentence had little effect on the still bellicose Perrot, who said ‘that he wished not nowe to live, seeing his infamy in his Country, and that his name and bludd was corrupted’.44 His biggest regret was that he was the first of his ‘howse and name that ever was attainted or 41 42 43 44

ECS, Govt. of Ireland, epistle. See ‘The Text’, p. 172. See ‘The Text’, p. 177. See ‘The Text’, p. 178.

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suspected’, and, in a final defiant rally, he courageously exclaimed, ‘I care not for death . . . I feare it not’.45 Later, he was given leave to petition the Queen about his wishes for better lodgings in the Tower, a preacher to attend him, followed by a plea to die a gentleman’s death and a wish that ‘her Majestie . . . be good and gracious to his sonne’.46 Perrot was removed from the bar and taken back to the Tower to await his grisly fate. Only the Queen’s pardon could save him but none was forthcoming. In preparing the case for trial, efforts were made to meet the demands of English legal procedure, but hardly those of any concept of unimpeachable evidence. Decisions were made and plans laid behind closed doors, confidentially, even secretly. His accusers were able to take advantage of circumstances and attitudes that were inclined to accept rumour as fact and prophecy as plausible design. In sum, Sir John Perrot was a victim of his times: of political circumstances beyond his control, of personal relationships and political rivalries of the most intense sort, and of developments that, in retrospect, made him one of the first victims of the Queen’s declining years. THE TRIAL RECORD Six manuscript copies of the trial are extant. All, bar one, are in the British Library and can be found in Additional Manuscripts 15664 f. 181 seq.; Cottonian Manuscripts Julius f. vi, f. 224; Egerton Manuscripts 2877 f. 181b; Harleian Manuscripts 39 f. 393 and Lansdowne Manuscripts 72 f. 8. seq. The single exception is that contained in Willis Manuscripts 58 f. 245–8, 263–305 in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. The best, and most authentic, account of Perrot’s trial, and the one reproduced here, and also the one from which Thomas Howell, the editor of the fifth and definitive edition of State Trials (originated by William Cobbett in 1809), apparently derived his narrative, is that contained in the British Library’s Lansdowne Manuscripts.47 Prior 45

See ‘The Text’, p. 178. See ‘The Text’, p. 180. 47 BL Lansdowne MS 72 f. 8 seq.; A Complete Collection of State Trials, Vol. I, ed. T. B. Howell (London, 1809), pp. 187–98. This is the earliest surviving, and most complete, version of the trial. 46

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to its publication in earlier editions of State Trials, dating from the 1730s, ‘The Araignement and Judgement of Ser John Perrott knight attainted’ was largely unknown to the wider public. It was apparently consulted in manuscript by various interested parties and copies were made, either in full or in summary, and deposited in other archives, nearly all of which found their way to the British Library. The editor of State Trials gives no indication as to its origin, but it is likely to have been among those manuscripts of Sir William Cecil, Lord Burghley, that passed into the possession of his secretary, Sir Michael Hickes. In 1682 Hickes’s great-grandson, Sir William, disposed of his collection of manuscripts to Richard Chiswell, a stationer in London, who sold them to John Strype, the ecclesiastical historian, biographer and vicar of Low-Leighton in Essex.48 It is likely that the editors of the early editions of State Trials, Thomas Salmon and Sollom Emlyn, had Strype to thank for permission to consult, and subsequently publish, the report of Perrot’s trial. On Strype’s death in 1737, his manuscript collection was sold to the politician and antiquary, James West, from whom it was purchased, in 1772, by Sir William Petty, earl of Shelburne and, from 1784, marquis of Lansdowne. Two years after his death, in 1805, Lansdowne’s entire collection of manuscripts and rare books was sold to the British Library, which drew up a comprehensive catalogue of his muniments in 1819.49 The report of Perrot’s trial reads like a detailed record compiled by an eye-witness to the proceedings. For example, there are one or two occasions when there is a blank in the text as if the scribe had failed to catch a word or misheard a name. This suggests that the document was written up later, presumably from scribbled notes taken at the trial itself, with the intention of filling in the gaps. These fully written-up accounts were often supplemented by memory and perfected, after due consultation, with others present at the trial. This process would partly explain the fluency and consistency of the scribe’s written style and why there are so few errors in the text of the report. That said, it is clear that the author had taken great care in the composition of the trial record and that he was no mean scrivener, 48 49

H. Ellis (ed.), Catalogue of Lansdowne Manuscripts (London, 1819), p. ix. Ibid.

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but an accomplished man of letters. He is unlikely to have been one of the many shorthand writers or ‘brachygraphy men’, whom the court was keen to dissuade from attending such trials, on account of the fact that their ‘scurvy pamphlets and lewd ballets’ almost always followed.50 The fact that the report was found among Burghley’s papers may suggest that the scribe was either Court-appointed, and tasked with compiling an official record of the trial, or, he was working in a private capacity for the Lord Treasurer. Whoever the author was, he had a deep interest in Perrot’s fate, since, unusually, he gave as much space to the judgement as to the events of the trial proper. There is no reason to doubt the veracity of the scribe’s report, for although the narrative is, to some degree, dictated by the prosecution, the events described are corroborated by other, mainly shorter and independently compiled, transcriptions of the trial. It is perhaps of interest to note that the scribe spent as much time compiling his report on the trial as on the judgement. EDITORIAL NOTE The following edition is a transcription of the original late sixteenth-century manuscript entitled ‘The Araignement and Judgement of Ser John Perrott knight attainted’. I have followed the original spelling in all cases, but where doubts exist, I have cross-referenced with the text of Cobbett’s State Trials. With the exception of quotation marks, which are my own, modern punctuation has been kept to a minimum. Capital letters used within sentences have been retained from the original as have sentences written in bold. Unless otherwise stated, words enclosed thus [we] are taken from Cobbett’s State Trials and inserted. The margin headings used in the original manuscript have been retained but italicized. In order that the reader may keep pace with the original foliation of the text, I have inserted, in brackets, the numbered pages as they appear in the manuscript.

50

Lindley, The Trials of Frances Howard, p. 153.

2 THE TEXT: THE ARAIGNEMENT AND JUDGEMENT OF SER JOHN PERROTT KNIGHT ATTAINTED

The Arraignement and Judgement of Sir John Perrott knight on Thursday being the xxviith of Aprill 1592. Before her Majesties Commissioners viz. The Lord Chamberlayne [Henry Carey, Lord Hunsdon] The Lord Buckhurst [Thomas Sackville] Sir Robert Cecil Secretary [John] Woolley Mr. [John] Fortescue The Master of the Rowells [Sir Gilbert Gerard]

[Sir Edmund Anderson] Lord Cheefe Justice of The Comon Pleces Justice [William] Peryam Justice [Francis] Gawdie Justice [Edward] Fenner Mr. [Ralph] Rookebye, one of the Masters of her Majesties Court of Requests

His comminge to the barr

Then Sir John Perrott came to the Kinges bench barr accompanied with the Leuetenant of the Tower1 and Ser Henrie Lee;2 1 Sir Michael Blount (d. 1609) of Mapledurham, Oxfordshire. Appointed lieutenant of the Tower in June 1590, he was dismissed in November 1595 for his pro-Catholic sympathies and loose conversation about the succession. He was briefly imprisoned in the Tower between November 1595 and January 1596. 2 Sir Henry Lee (d. 1611) of Quarrendon, Buckinghamshire. He was royal champion from 1559 to 1590 and was well known to Perrot. He owed his early promotion to Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester.

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Proclamacion for Scilence being made, the Leuetenant was commannded to retorne his writt of Haebus Corpice3 Then was Sir John commanded to hold upp his hand. Heare Sir John Parrott lo made lowe obeysance and desired he might be herd [to] speake before he held upp his hand. He protested that he never had thought of treason against her Majestie and desired that the witnesses might be good and sufficient: he knewe well the place whereunto he was brought and therefore he would submytt himself4 to theire honnors, and said, ‘Sithence it was gods will and her Majesties, he gave god hartie thankes therefore.’ Then was he bidd [to] hold upp his hand againe, whereunto he answered, ‘looke what is to be donne, I will doe [and]5 here is as trewe a mans hand as ever came in this place.’ The Effecte of [the] Indictement [2] Deprive the Queene, to take her liefe, rebellions. Januarie xxvith Eliz.

That the last of Januarie 1585 in the xxviith yeare of the Queenes Majesties raigne,6 he, the said Sir John Parrotte, falslie and Trayterouslie, he did Imagine in his harte to deprive, depose, and disinherite the Queenes most excelent Majestie from the Royall seate, to take her life awaye, to make slaughter in her realme, to raise rebellion in England and 3 The writ of habeas corpus [L. you must have the body] required a person to be brought before a judge or into court following a lawful period of detention. 4 State Trials has inserted ‘humbly’. 5 The exact form of the sentence is not clear here. 6 The discrepancy between the date given in the marginal note – xxvith of Eliz. – and that given in the text – xxviith yeare – is likely due to human error. The latter is intended since Perrot did not take up his post in Ireland until June 1584.

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Ireland; and that he did procure a forrein power to invaid the Realmes. March xxvii Eliz. Viscount Baltinglas

That one Jeames Eustace, Viscounte Baltinglas,7 being a false traitor to her Majestie and the state, sent lettres of treason from Madrill8 in Spaine to the said Sir John Perrott by one Dennys Oroughan,9 an Irishe Priest. Lettres sent to Spaine

That the said Sir John sent lettres of treason10 to the said Viscount Baltinglas into Spaine by the said Dennys Oroughan. Conference of treason with said Dennys

That Sir John Perott sent for the said Dennys Oroughan to his chamber to talke with him of treasons and to confer with ways he might bring his treasons to passe. Lettres from the Queene to Sir John

That whereas the Queenes Majestie, in April the xxviiith of her Majesties raigne did, writt her lettres11 to the said Sir John Perrott signifieing unto him that her Majesties pleasure was that the said Sir John should not proceed in any matter of goverment without the advise of some of her Majesties Counsell in Ireland, wherein shee gratiouslie advised him not to murmur, but to take the same 7 James Eustace, third Viscount Baltinglass, headed a failed Catholic insurrection in 1580. He fled Ireland for Spain where he died in 1585. Perrot was responsible for drawing up the act of attainder in respect of Baltinglass’s rebellion and ensuring its passage through the Irish Parliament in April 1586. 8 Madrid. Baltinglass’s alleged letters to Perrot were never produced in court. 9 Dennis O’Roughan. 10 No copies exist of Perrot’s alleged letters to Baltinglass which were never produced in Court. 11 The Queen’s letters were delivered by Fenton in the last week of March. BL Cotton Titus F v fos. 198–9. The Queen sent a further letter to Perrot on 14 April 1586. SP63/123/34.

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duetyfully and in good parte; notwithstanding he, the said Sir John, shortly after the receipt of the said lettres, did send for the Archebushopp of Dubline,12 and reading the said lettres unto him in a great furye said these wordes: His words to the Archbushopp of Dubline

Yf shee would use men thus shee will have could Service and one daye, shee will have need of me. maynetaine treators

That in the xxixth yeare13 of the Queenes Majestie he did maynteyne horrible and knowne treators, not doeing justice unto theym. xxixth of Eliz.

That Pope Gregorie xiiith14 and the Kinge of Spaine prepared an Armye to invaid England; at which tyme the said Sir John sent lettres to the Kinge of Spaine15 promising him Aide and Assistance in the [army]16: which lettres Dennys Oroughan caried into Spaine and receaved of the said Sir John diverse somes of mony therefore. Amynating of Bryan Orurk a treator

That Sir Bryan Orurk,17 a notoryous false treator, was procured and aminated by the said Sir John to move and stire upp rebellion in Ireland. 12 Adam Loftus (d. 1606) of Swineside, Yorkshire. He was appointed Archbishop of Dublin in 1567 and Lord Chancellor of Ireland in 1581. DNB, Vol. XXXIV, pp. 73–6. 13 November 1586–October 1587. 14 Pope Gregory XIII (1572–85). 15 Perrot’s alleged letter[s] of treason to Philip II (d. 1598) of Spain – ‘owt of the castle of Dublyne the 25 of June 1585’ – exists in copy only. The copy is in the handwriting of Sir William Fitzwilliam and endorsed: ‘A tru copy tacken the xvi of February 15[90]’. The letter or letters suggest that Perrot had last been in correspondence with the Spanish king when he was Lord President of Munster between 1571 and 1573. SP63/150/44(1). 16 Left blank in the original manuscript. State Trials has inserted ‘army’. 17 Sir Brian O’Rourke (d. 1591), lord, and Crown-appointed sheriff, of West Breifne.

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The end of the first Inditement. Sir John Perrott lxiiiior yeares of age

Theare againe Sir John desired to speak and said that he was lxiiiith yeares old18 and had beine long ymprisoned, yet very honorably used [at] my Lord Treasurers, but found fault with his lodging in the Towre,19 and said he was by nature cholerik and knewe not what ymperfeccons his ymprisonment might worke in him; And therefore, if he should happ to fall into any extraordinarie speeches in that honorable place he craved pardon, alledging that the same should not proceed for want of dutie or obedience. [3] Sandes

Then Mr. Sandes20 [Clerk of the Crown] asked him if he were guiltie of this first Indictment.21 Sir John

He answered clapping his hand uppon the barr [in] these words: ‘I am not guyltie of any parte of that which is layed downe.’ Then was he willed to hould upp his hand againe, whereunto he said, holding upp his hand, ‘what again[?] here is a true mans hand’. The effecte of the second Inditement.

18 Perrot was actually 63 years old. He was born sometime between 7 and 11 November 1528. See Turvey, ‘A Note on the Date of Birth of Sir John Perrot’, NLWJ, 30 (1994), 233–8. 19 Perrot remained under house arrest in Cecil House on the Strand, the London residence of Sir William Cecil, Lord Burghley, from 30 May 1590 to 22 March 1591. The location of Perrot’s lodgings in the Tower has not been identified. 20 Miles Sandys (d. 1601) of Fladbury, Worcestershire. He was Clerk of the Crown and attorney of Queen’s bench for nearly forty years between 1559 and 1597. Hasler, Hist. Parl., Vol. III, pp. 341–3. 21 In the original manuscript the author has mistakenly written ‘judgement’.

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Receaving of lettres from the Duke of Parma

That the xvth daye of Maye in the xxviith yeare of the Queene,22 Sir John Perrott being at Dubline receaved lettres from Alexander, Duke of Parma,23 craving his furtherance in giving Aide to the Kinge of Spaines power. Conserning Sir William Stanly

That the xxth of June in the xxviiith year of the Queene,24 he sent for Sir William Stanly25 to entreate and confer with him touching his traytorose purposes; and that one the xxxth of June, xxviiith Eliz., he talked with the said Sir William Stanly to that effecte.26 Sandes, Sir John

Then he was asked if [he] were guiltye of this Inditement, whereunto he answered these wordes viz. ‘Even as guiltie as you are [in] speaking,27 Mr. Sandes.’ Sandes

Mr. Sandes asked him by whom he would be tryed. Sir John

‘I wilbe tri[e]d’, said Sir John, ‘by God and Good men. I shall not remember the most of the poyntes.’ 22

15 May 1585. Alexander Farnese (d. 1592), duke of Parma. Appointed governor of the Netherlands in 1578, Parma was responsible for prosecuting the war against William the Silent and the rebellious Dutch. Parma denied ever communicating with Perrot nor were his alleged letters produced in Court. In fact, he was astonished to learn of Perrot’s imprisonment. SP12/238/135. An English spy returning from Spain reported that he had ‘Never heard of Sir John Perrot’s matter until he came to England’. SP12/242/121. 24 20 June 1586. 25 Sir William Stanley (d. 1630) of Hooton, Cheshire, was a career soldier who had served in Ireland for some fifteen years years prior to his embarkation to the Netherlands. DNB, Vol. LIV, pp. 82–3. 26 30 June 1585. 27 In the original manuscript the author has written ‘speaking to’ perhaps in error for ‘speaking so’. State Trials has ‘in speaking’. 23

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Sergent Puckering

Then said Sergent Puckering28 unto him, ‘You shalbe remembered of everye matter peacemeale.’ Sir John

‘I praye god the Lord be not angrie with these courses, there is a Judge in heaven who knoweth all.’ Shiref Midd.

Here the shiref of Middlesex29 was commanded to retorne the precepe directed unto him for the Summoning of the Jurie for our Soverigne Ladie the Queene, and an oyes made that every Jurie should answere to his name. The Names of the Jurie.30 Richard Martyn Knight John Vavausor Richard Weeks Christopher Reed Henry Goodyer John Powell John Hawtrey Thomas Russell John Stone Henry Roe Richard Edlyn John Page

Thomas Ffowler Hugh Offley Esq. Humffrey Wild Henry Holford John Machell William Hichcock Robert Carr William Kinton William Pagenton Bartholomewe Queney William Megges George Myllett

28 Sir John Puckering (d. 1596) of Flamborough, Yorkshire. As justice and then chief justice of the Carmarthen circuit (1577–92), he had conspired with Perrot’s enemies to have him tried on charges of corruption brought against him by Thomas Wyrriot. Hasler, Hist. Parl., Vol. III, pp. 256–8. 29 John Garrard and Robert Taylor were sheriffs of London and Middlesex for 1592. 30 The jurors were likely nominated by the Crown which may explain why a fair proportion of them regularly appear in a number of treason trials held between c.1586 and 1601. See Bellamy, Tudor Law of Treason, pp. 127–8. Sir Richard Martin (d. 1617) and Hugh Offley esquire were by far the most significant members of the jury. Martin was thrice elected lord mayor of London (1581, 1589, 1594) and was warden (1560–95) and master of the mint (1581–1617). He also

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[4] Oath of these xxiiiitie were xii taken whereof the forman was Hughe Offley Esq.31 Then Mr. Sandes willed Sir John to mark the Jurye well as theye were called to be sworne to see if he knewe cause of challeng to any of theym [before they were] to be sworne betweene our Soveraigne Ladie the Queene and him. Sir John

Whereunto he answered, ‘Woe is me that shee is made a parte against me.’ And then [he] demaunde[d] of my Lord Chiefe Justice of the Common Place32 howe many he might challendge. Lord Chamberlen

My Lord Chamberlen33 answered, that they of the bench were not to give counsell to the prisoner.34 Lord Buckhurst

Then said my Lord of Buckhurst35 unto Sir John, ‘if you have any just cause of challendge against any of theym, you maye challendg, if not, whie should you challendge’[?] acted as goldsmith to Queen Elizabeth. Hugh Offley was the son of Sir Thomas Offley (d. 1582), a former lord mayor of London (1556). 31 The trial transcript is preceded by a list of the twenty-four men selected for jury service. BL Lansdowne MSS 72 f. 7. 32 Sir Edmund Anderson (d. 1605), a career lawyer, he was knighted and appointed Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas in 1582. DNB, Vol. I, pp. 373–6. 33 Henry Carey (d. 1596), Baron Hunsdon, was the son of Anne Boleyn’s sister and therefore cousin to Elizabeth. He was a soldier-politician who also served the Queen on diplomatic missions abroad. DNB, Vol. IX, pp. 68–70. 34 Not only were prisoners at treason trials not allowed to have legal counsel, they could not ask their judges for advice. When Perrot asked how many jurors he might challenge he was not told, nor was the reason explained to him. Bellamy, Tudor Law of Treason, pp. 140–2. 35 Thomas Sackville (d. 1608), Baron Buckhurst, was the recipient of one of only two new peerages to be granted in Elizabeth’s reign. In 1599 he succeeded Burghley as Lord Treasurer. Hasler, Hist. Parl., Vol. III, pp. 316–17.

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Challendge

Then he challenged two of the Jurors,36 and said, ‘Lord send me Justice, and for Godes sake let me have good men’; and wished he might have men of his owne sorte, and such as he knewe Served and feared god; and desired that none might goe uppon him that had any suytes in lawe with Sir Thomas Perrott his sonne;37 and wished for more good Aldermen: yet if they [that] were sworne feared god, he cared not. Here the Inditement was redd unto the Jurie, and after an oyes made, to knowe if any man were there to give evidence against the prisoner at the barr in the behalfe of her Majestie.38 Sergeant Puckering

Then Sergent Puckering rehearsed unto the Jurie the principall poyntes conteyned in the Inditement aforesaid. But before he handelled the same, he opened unto the Jurie that the originall of this treason proceeded from the imaginacion of his hart; which imaginacion was in it selfe highe treason. Albeit the same proceeded not to any overt fact, and the hart being possessed with theabundance of his treayterouse imaginacones and not being able so to conteine in it selfe, burst fourth in vile and treayterouse speeches, and from thence to horrible and heynous accions; for Mr. Sergent said, Ex abundantia Cordis Os loquitur.39 36

The identities of the challenged jurors are unknown. Sir Thomas Perrot (d. 1594) of Haroldston, Pembrokeshire, was the eldest son and heir of Sir John. 38 It has been suggested that this was meant as an appeal by the Crown prosecution for supplementary evidence which could be used as the trial wore on. Bellamy, Tudor Law of Treason, p. 141. 39 The main part of a treason trial, the offering of the evidence, was frequently begun with a speech by the king’s counsel to the jury which effectively summarized the charges recently read out in the indictment. In this instance Puckering has, in addition, opted to review the background to the offence. Bellamy, Tudor Law of Treason, p. 147. 37

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Sir John

Then Sir John prayed Sergeant Puckering to laye aside wordes, and to proceed to the matter of the Inditement.40 Whereunto he answered, ‘he would proceed by degrees but would first begine with his contemptuouse wordes which conteyned in theym high treason.’ Sergent Puckerign

Then Sergeant Puckering shewed that Sir Nicholas Bagnoll, Marshall of Ireland,41 being with Sir John Perrott in his howse, and entering in communicacion together, and falling into hote wordes. Wordes to Sir Nicholas Bagnoll, Marshall of Ireland

Sir John brak fourth into these speeches, ‘If it were not for yonder pild and paltrie sword that lieth in the wyndowe, I would not brooke these Comparosones’, speaking of her Majesties sword of Justice caryed before him. [5] Sir John

To this answered he, that he ‘termed the same after that sorte because the Scabbard of the same sword was old and worne’; and within one week after caused a newe scabbard to be made.

40 Bellamy suggests that this may have been an attempt by Perrot to repel the attacks of the king’s counsel in order to impress the jury by asking that specific charges only be charged. If a prisoner was ‘reasonably sharp-witted, knew some history, and had at some time attended a treason trial as a spectator, he might have learned that the prosecution, although impressive against the less mentally agile, could be flurried and even embarrassed by the right responses’. Bellamy, Tudor Law of Treason, p. 150. 41 Sir Nicholas Bagenal (d. 1590) of Newcastle-under-Lyme. Bagenal was twice appointed Marshal of Ireland in 1547–53 and 1565–90, and served twice as Chief Commissioner of the government of Ulster in 1577 and 1584. Hasler, Hist. Parl., Vol. I, p. 384.

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Lord of Buckhurst

And then falling from that poynt to other idle discourse, my Lord of Buckhurst told him that he was before a bench verye wise and learned, and before a wise Jurie and, therefore, yf he spoke not to purpose it would but hurte his cause and give theym all occasion to thinke that he had nothing to speake in his owne defence, for if he had, he would not goe from the same and followe other frivolous and unnessarie matters. Wordes to Sir Tybert Butler

Then it was shewed that the Queenes Majestie having directed her lettres of commandement to Sir John Perrott in the behalf of Sir Tibert Butler for the placing of the said Sir Tybert in the Baronie of Kaire,42 he, the said Sir John, being moved therein by the said Sir Tybert Butler at the counsell table in the castle of Dubline, used these speeches, ‘Stick not so much uppon the Queenes lettres of Comanndement, for shee may comannd what shee will, but we will doe what we lyste’. Sir John

To this matter Sir John answered that he remembred not what speeches he then used, and said it might be he used some speeches cholerickly as naturallye he used to doe, for that it was his disposicion, but notwithstanding any speeches what soever, yet he saied he executed her Majesties comanndement therein; and added that he did alwayes from tyme to tyme execut her Majesties comanndements or warrants in all things whatsoever.

42 In July 1585 Sir Tibbot (Theobald) Butler had written to the Queen to complain that he had not yet received his promised annuity which was attached to the barony of Cahir. Upon instruction from the Queen, Perrot put right what should have been dealt with by his predecessor, Lord Deputy Grey. SP63/118/23, 24.

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Lord Chamberlayne

Then said my Lord Chamberlayne, [you are not charged] with not executing her Majesties comanndement, but with contemptuouse speeches used against her Majestie in the matter. Sir John/Lord Anderson

Then Sir John goeing from the matter, and speaking more then was needefull, My Lord Anderson willed him to have patience to heare all and then to answere all. Sergaent Puckering

Then [it] was shewed that Sir John calling a parliament at Dubline, among other matters, moved to supresse the Cathedrall Churche of St. Patrick in Dubline. Wordes proved by the Archbushopp of Dubline and the Bushopp of Meath

Her Majestie then sending lettres to the contrarye, he used these wordes with a sterne countenannce, ‘Nay, godes woundes, I thinke it strang shee should use me thus’. With these wordes the Bushoppe of Meath43 was moved, and found fault with his undutifull demeanor and said, ‘he speake as thoughe the Kingdome were his owne and not the Queenes’. Sir John

To this matter Sir John answered by waye of excuse and said that the Bushopp of Dubline was his mortall enymye, and that the reason whie he was moved to supprese the said Cathedriall Church was to have an Universitye erected thereuppon; but he said he was withstood by the said Archbushoppe because he and his childeren reaceaved by the said 43 Thomas Jones (d. 1619). Appointed bishop of Meath in 1584 he succeeded his ally and patron Adam Loftus as archbishop of Dublin and Lord Chancellor of Ireland in 1605. DNB, Vol. XXX, pp. 163–4.

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Cathedriall Church viiiC marks a yeare.44 And he said further, that the said Archbushoppe bare him the greater mallice, for that the Queenes Majestie sending of her lettres unto him for the dischareging of mayne idle pensciones and unnecesarie [pensions], he discharged among the rest one of the bushoppes sonnes.45 [6] Sergeant Puckerin/Queenes lettres/wordes to Phillipe Williams

It was then declared that whereas the office of the clerke of the [Ex]Checker46 was void, and that Mr. Erington47 had made humble suet unto her Majestie to be preferred to the said office, inconsideracion of his good and dutifull service; her Majestie directing her lettres to Sir John for admitting the said Mr. Erington into the said office, he, the said Sir John Perrott, [used] these undutifull speech[es] uppon the recepte of the said lettres, ‘This fidling woman troubleth me out of measure; Gods woundes, he shall not have the office, I will give it to Sir Thomas Williams’. Prooved by the o[a]th of Phillipp Williams.48 Sir John

Against Phillippe Williams Sir John tooke excepciones, affirming the said Williams to be his mortall enemy, and said he was a naughtie lewed man and of no credite, and had abused my Lord Treasorer in a lettre for the which he said, he did beate him in 44

Wood. Chron. Ire., p. 48; Life, Deedes and Death, p. 118. This may refer to Captain Dudley Loftus. 46 The Clerk of the Cheque also acted as muster-master for the royal forces. Perrot granted the office to Thomas Williams. J. L. J. Hughes (ed.), Patentee Officers in Ireland (Dublin, 1960), p. 139. 47 Captain Francis Errington was subsequently appointed clerk of the ordinance and then governor of Ostend in August 1585. HMC, Calendar of the Manuscript of the Marquis of Salisbury at Hatfield House (24 vols., London, 1883–1976), Vol. XIII, pp. 328, 392. 48 Phillip Williams had served as secretary to William Herbert, earl of Pembroke, but on his death in 1570, had transferred to Perrot’s service. By his own admission Williams had served as Perrot’s secretary since at least 1571. 45

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his chamber.49 And further he said, he did write to the Master of the Rowles,50 and to Mr. Powle,51 touching the lewd and undutifull behavioure of the said Williams. Queenes lettres/His wordes to Phillippe Williams

Sir John Perrott having receaved [a] lettre from her Majestie, wherein shee checked him for diverse complaints, having read the said lettre, he used these undutifull speeches, ‘It is not safe for her Majestie to breake such unkind and sower bread to her servantes’, he being Lord depuie and a servant of trust. Spooke to Phillippe Williams. Afterwardes Ph[illipp]e Williams being his secretarie writing unto her Majestie in Sir John Perrotts name, among other things he said, he would be sacrificed for her; which words Sir John reading, bad Williams put them out. In readd lettres or greater hand this52 His woordes to Phillippe Williams

Sayeing he had litle cause to be sacrificed for her, adindge that he would not forgett her ever since the tyme he could not gett Justice of her against some of her garde for murdering some of his men.53 His woordes to Phillippe Williams

When it was bruited abroad that the Spanishe fleet was in preparacion for the invading of England,54 49

The letter is no longer extant. Sir Gilbert Gerard (d. 1593) of Ashley, Staffordshire, served as AttorneyGeneral from 1559 to 1581, before succeeding as master of the rolls which he held to his death. Hasler, Hist. Parl., Vol. II, pp. 183–4. 51 Thomas Powle (d. 1601) was attorney in Chancery and Clerk of the Hanaper from 1546 until his death. W. J. Jones, The Elizabethan Court of Chancery (Oxford, 1967), pp. 130–4. 52 As it stands the sentence makes little sense and is probably unfinished. 53 As far as is known, this is the only reference to this incident. 54 Perrot wrote to Walsingham to acquaint him with current intelligence reports on the Armada preparations. CSPI, 1586–88, p. 523. 50

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Sir John, entring into communicacion with Phillippe Williams touching the said armye, Phillippe Williams said he hoped god would blese use for her Majesties sake: whereunto Sir John Perrott answered, ‘Gods woundes, and why for her sake, never the more for her sake’. Provid by the deposicion of Williams. Sir John & Mr. Atturney

Here Sir John called for Williams that they myght speake face to face: whereunto Mr. Atorney55 said that Williams was in the Tower in the same state that he was [and was] to answer to matters of his treason as well as hee. [7] Queenes lettres/Sir John

The Queene sente him a lettre wherein shee wrote verye favorablie unto him, whereunto in Mr. Attourney advising him to looke well unto his chardge, about the tyme the Spayneardes should come: whereupon he speake these wordes, ‘Ah seely woman, nowe shee shall not curb me, she shall [not] rule me nowe, godes Lady deare, I shalbe her white boye nowe againe; doth shee thinke to rule me nowe.’ Queenes lettres/His woordes to John Garland/Sir John/his wordes to Nathainell Dillan

Shortlie after John Garland56 brought a lettre from her Majestie to Sir John Perrott, whereat he conceaved greate discontenment, insomuch that he breack forth into these undutifull tearmes following, ‘Godes woundes, this it is to serve a bastard 55 Sir John Popham (d. 1607) of Wellington, Somerset. A lawyer by profession with a string of important appointments behind him – serjeant-at-law (1579), Solicitor-General (1579–81), Attorney-General (1581–92), justice in the Court of Common Pleas (1589–92) and chief justice of the Court of Queen’s Bench (1592–1607) – he was admitted a Privy Councillor in 1599. 56 John Garland was one of a number of royal messengers Perrot had inherited from previous administrations.

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piskitchin woman. If I had served any Prince in Christendome, I had not benne so delt withall.’ Here he prayed the divell might take him bodie and sowle if ever he uttered such woordes, and exclamed against Garland. Sir John talking with Nathanyell Dillan,57 Clarck of Counsell of Ireland, asked him this question, viz. ‘Yf her Majestie should be distressed, doste not thow think that I am the fittest man in England to have the keeping of her bodie[?]’ Veryfied be the oath of Natheinyell Dillan. His woordes to the Archebushoppe Dublin

Talking with the Archebushoppe of Dublin in his chamber touching the coming of the Spanyardes, Sir John said, ‘Godes woundes, let them doe in England what the cann, we shall doe well ynnough in Ireland; yf her Majestie were gonn, we should [do] here in Ireland better then they in England should doe.’ Justifyed by the oath of the Archebushoppe of Dubline. [Whereunto he said, he renounced God’s Mercy if he ever spake any such words] Sergeant Puckering

And all this, Sergeant Puckering said, did declare his mallice against her Majestie. Lord of Buckhurst

My Lord Buckhurst told him that these speeches did shew a disloyall mynd. Sir John

Here Sir John exclayned against the witnesses, calling theym lewd and wicked men and sayeing that he was bought and sould.58 57 Nathaniel Dillon, Clerk to the Irish Privy Council (appointed in April 1582), may have been related to Sir Lucas and Sir Robert Dillon. 58 The defaming of witnesses’ characters was often employed by those on trial in order to discredit their evidence. Bellamy, Tudor Law of Treason, p. 157.

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Sir John/Mr. Popham

When Sir John Perrott said that he wrote his lettres to her Majestie desiring to be revoked and called home, and made suite to Sir Ffraunces Walsingam to that effecte,59 Mr. Popeham60 tould him that when he sawe him curbed, as himself termed yt, by the Counsell, and that he could doe nothing without theyer privitye; then he fought to com a waye with an intent to mak himself a ruler in Wales. Here they proceeded to the Treason. Mr. Atturney/Doctor Craugh a trator favored by Sir John

Mr. Atturney declared Doctor Craugh61 being a knowne Treator and a man that had mayntayned rebellyon62 from tyme to tyme, and had seduced many people in Ireland, and [was] a daungerous Instrument to be suffered in those partes; and Sir John beinge geven hereof to understand, did not use that dilligence in the apprehending of him, as becam his place: for after he had geven out warrantes for the seeking of him, the[n] he gave out a countermannd that they should use all dilligence in apprehending of him in all places except in the White Knightes Countrey,63 where Sir John knewe the said Craughe to be; which did manyfestly shewe he would not have him taken. [My Lord Buckhurst said to Sir John, that he granted Warrants to take him where he was not] [8] Sir John standinge [in] religion

Sir John said there was a god that knewe all and marvaled that he, having knowen religion these 45 59

McNeill, ‘Perrot Papers’, pp. 56–9. Sir John Popham. See n. 55. 61 Born near Cahir in County Tipperary, Dr Dermitius McCragh was the Roman Catholic bishop of Cork and Cloyne. 62 The author of State Trials preferred ‘religion’. 63 The territory of the White Knight, Edmund Fitzjohn Fitzgibbon (d. 1608). 60

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yeares, should be charged with favoring of Papists and massemongers.64 Mr. Atturney/Sir John of no religion

Mr. Attourney willed him not to stand uppon religion for then, said he, ‘we shall prove you irreligious. Will any man of religion seeke to have men murdered[?] Will any man of religion stabb a man in the Cheeke, and after bring him to the fire to be rosted to make him confesse that he knoweth not, and afterwards handg him by martiall lawe[?]’65 Persuading Serger to kill Sir Dennyes/his wordes to Seager

Mr. Atturney, to prove Sir John of no relligion, farther shewed that Sir John, being in his Chamber at the Castell of Dubline, looked out at his windowe and espied Sir Dennyes Oroughan who knewe all his secrett treasons, and willed his Chamberlayne66 to call unto him Steven Seager,67 who being com, Sir John commannded awaye his Chamberlayne and locked the Chamber, and willed Seager to looke out at the windowe and sayd, ‘Seest thou not one beneath in a black mantell[?]’ Seager said he sawe none there, Sir John said, ‘there is one there you see howe I ame crossed by some of the Counsell here, and he is goeing to the North with lettres from some of the Counsell to move them against me. I would have thee take these lettres from him, kill him, cast him aside, and bring the lettres to me.’ Steven Seger hereunto answered, that he would robe him of the lettres, but he would not 64 This refers to Perrot’s education in and conversion to the Protestant faith. In his will, Perrot stated that he had ‘ever sithence the beginning of King Edwarde the syxthe his raygne abhorred the Pope’s idoll of the masse’. Life, Deedes and Death, p. 151. 65 The identity of the victim of Perrot’s alleged cruelty is not known. 66 Rhys Thomas was one of over thirty of the so-called ‘Castle Welshmen’ that Perrot brought with him and who formed part of his regular household. 67 Stephen Seager was appointed constable of Dublin Castle after Perrot had sacked his predecessor for negligence in December 1585.

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kill him with his handes or if he would geve commanndement to haung him by martiall lawe, he would see it downe. Whereupon Sir John said, ‘goe thy wayes, thou arte a paltrie fellow; I did it but to prove thee’. Proved by the oath of Seager. Sir John called then for Seager to speak with him face to face, who justified all that he had said.68 Lord Chamberlaine

My Lord Chamberlayne said, ‘you see nowe you bad him kill one’. He reproved not Seager

Then said Sir John, ‘because he hath sworne yt, I will not reprove him; yt maye be I speake such woordes, but I remember it not’. Mr. Attorney

Mr. Atturney said, ‘we have alledged these matters against you to shewe you to be a man of no religion’. Sir John

Whereat Sir John stormed and was angrie sayeing they wente about not onllye to make him a treator to his prince but a treator to god; which, he sayed, he would never doe. Mr. Sollicitor

Mr. Sollicitor69 tould him that all the Papishe desired his government theire. 68 Although the accused was rarely permitted to cross-examine witnesses, Perrot was given leave to do so only in respect of Dennis O’Roughan, John Garland and Stephen Seager. His request that Phillip Williams be brought into court to be crossexamined was denied. In retrospect, it may have been a mistake to cross-examine Seager who stuck rigidly and convincingly to his story. Bellamy, Tudor Law of Treason, pp. 160–61. 69 Sir Thomas Egerton (d. 1617) of Ridley, Cheshire. A lawyer by trade, Egerton served as Solicitor-General for eleven years (1581–92) before being promoted Attorney-General (1592–94). He became lord keeper and member of the Privy

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Mr. Attourney

Mr. Attourney then declared further that one Richard Moriec,70 a Priest, a notororious traytor, being a passer from Ireland to Viscount Baltinglasse in Spayne, and from thence to Rome, to conferre of rebellions and invasions for England and Ireland. [9] Richard Morrice a treator discharged

Sir John Perrott knowing the said Morrice to be a most dangerous persone to the estate, would not geve order for the taking of the said Morrice as he should have donne: but the Bushoppe of Cashell71 caused him to be apprehended of his owne authoritie, and sent him to Mr. Poore,72 the Sheerif, to be sent to the Castle of Dublin; whereuppon the frendes of the said Morrice told theym that Morrice had better frendes then all they had. And shortly after Morrice was discharged and never called more in question. And all this was affirmed by the oath of the Bushoppe of Casheill, and of the said Poore, viva voce. Craugh better trusted by Sir John then the Sheriffe Poore

Then Mr. Attourney shewed that Halie73 being a man that conversed with Craugh and delt with him in his treason, and tould him that Poore had a warraunt to apprehend him and other[s]. Whereuppon he answered that he could be better trusted then twentie such as Poore was that should take him, presuming upon the favor of Sir John Perrott. Council in 1596 and was appointed Lord Chancellor in 1603. Hasler, Hist. Parl., Vol. II, pp. 80–3. 70 Richard Morrice was a seminary priest based in Clonmel. 71 Miler Magrath (d. 1622). Appointed archbishop of Cashel in 1571, his attempt to have Dr Cragh arrested and interrogated was prevented by Sir Tibbot Butler. DNB, Vol. XXXV, pp. 325–7. 72 William Power was sheriff of County Cork. 73 Dr Nicholas Haly was a seminary priest based in Cashel. As part of the investigation against Perrot he was induced (September 1591) to give evidence against Miler Magrath, archbishop of Cashel. CSPI, 1588–92, pp. 418–19.

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Hath a treator/Articles of treason against Halye all for Sir John

The Archebushoppe of Cashill did complaine to Sir John that the said Halye was a notorious treator and thereuppon delivered to Sir John articles against him and others, and desired Sir John to graunt him a Comission for the apprehending of them; prayeing him in the meane tyme to keepe the said articles secret untill they were apprehended. Articles put to to Halye in secrett

Notwithstanding, before they hended, within three daies, the were taken from one Patricke partner with the said Halye in thereuppon they all escaped.

could be appreself same Articles Young,74 being a his treasons; and

Mr. Sollicitor to the Jurye

Mr. Sollicitor then said unto the Jurie, ‘you see, Halye was accused of treason and the Accusacons being delivred to Sir John in secrett, he sent them to Halye before he could be apprehended which was plaine treason’. And this was verefied by the Bushoppe of Cashell his othe. Lord Chamberlaine

The Lord Chamberlaine said, ‘you ought to have acquainted no bodie with the cause untill they had beine apprehended’. Sir John

Sir John protested and tooke god to his record he was ignorant what was becom of him. Mayntayning of three treators

Then Mr. Attorney turning to the Jurye said, ‘by this which hath bene proved, you maye see howe he 74 Patrick Young was a seminary priest ordained by Bishop Cragh. He was said to be ‘dwelling in Cashel and always to be found in the company of Nicholas Haly’. CSPI, 1588–92, p. 376.

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hath allwaies being a confederat and mayntayner of notable traytors against her Majestie; namlid these three, Craugh, Morrice and Halye, with others there confederates’. [10] Treayterous rymes by reblles.

Att what tyme a rebellion was raysed in the North parte of Ireland diverse of the said rebells made rymes of her Majestie, wherein they shewed themselves treators as concerning her byrth, traytors concerning her person, and treators to her Royall dignitie. Which rimes came to the handes of Sir Richard Bingham,75 and the rymes taken and comytted to prison, and one of the said rymes sent to Sir John Perrott by Woodhouse.76 Sir Richard Bingham sent theym unto Sir John Perrott certefyeing him what he had done and prayed Sir John to write his pleasure what should be done with theym. Whereuppon Sir John sent him woord to dischardge theym all. Howbeyt Sir Richard detayned the chiefest of theym in prison, but Sir John afterwardes sent a speciall warrant to the said Sir Richard to dischardge him, takeing bondes of him for his apparaunce by a daye. Probat et confeis.

All which he confessed to be trew, saying that by vertue of his patent he might pardon theym. Proved to be trew by Marburie77 and Woodhouse, viva voce.

75 Sir Richard Bingham (d. 1599). One-time mercenary soldier who held the office of Chief Commissioner of Connacht from 1584 until his recall in 1596 on a charge of ‘exercising undue severity’. DNB, Vol. V, p. 52. 76 Thomas Woodhouse was first appointed captain in Ireland in 1581 when he, in company of Captain Turner, was detailed to lead 300 men from Warwickshire and Shropshire. 77 Captain John Merbury was one of Bingham’s commissioners in Connacht.

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Mr. Attorney

Whereunto Mr. Atturney answered, that he could pardone no traytors to her Majesties person but ought rather to have proceedid in Justice against theym. And here he willed the Jurie to consider uppon this poynt.78 Mery speeaches to Mr. Atturney

Sir John then said to Mr. Atturney, ‘by god, I never sawe such a man since I was borne. I praye you sitt downe and lett me speake’; and so turned his talke to Woodhouse and said he had spoylled the North parte of Ireland, with other frivolous speeches. Orurcke abusing the Queenes picture

Sir Bryan Oruck, a notable traytor and executed of late at tyburn, abowte that tyme in a xpmas [Christmas],79 disposing himselfe to villany, tooke downe a picture, and did write Eliz[abeth] thereuppon. And using the same in most contemptuouse and dispitefull manner, tied the same to a horse tayle, and he with other[s] dragged it in the dyrt and hacked it with Gallow glasse axes,80 signifieng howe they would have used her Majestie if they had her in theyr powre. This treaterouse acte being made knowen to Sir John Perrott, he would not give order for the Apprehending of the said Orurke to doe Justice uppon him for so horrible a treason. Whereas he might have had him if he had sent but his horsebodie for him, and after was knowne to be in company with him. To this he said litle.81 78 Perrot had exceeded his authority because he was not empowered to pardon treason that concerned the Queen’s person. 79 Sir Brian O’Rourke’s trial for treason took place on 28 October 1591, he was executed the following month. On the scaffold, O’Rourke refused the ministration of Miler Magrath, archbishop of Cashel. 80 Literally ‘foreign soldier’ or mercenary, they were employed as armed retainers by Gaelic lords. 81 Perrot said little because he could not deny that he had corresponded regularly with O’Rourke whom he had commended to the Queen in April 1586 as an Irish lord that might be trusted.

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Sir Dennyes

Sir Dennyes Oroughan being called to teastifie against Sir John, and the booke being offered him to sweare, Sir John said yt was noe matter whether he were sworne or not for his woord and his oath were all one, for there was nether truth nor honestie in him. Lord Buckhurst

My Lord Buckhurst said he must be sworne for it is for the Queene. [11] This Sir Dennys Oroughan said he tould Mr. Poore, that he had beine in Spayne and had brought lettres from Viscount Baltinglasse to Feugh Mackheugh82 in Ireland, and divers others. And said that he had newes to tell the Lord deputie that he would save the Queene a hundred thousand powndes. Poore discovered this to Sir John Perrot and Dennys was comytted to prison in the Castle of Dubline. Conference with Sir Dennys in his bedd Chamber

Sir John knowing that Dennys Oroughan was in prison, sent for him to come unto his Chamber, where he had conference with him and tould Sir John that he had brought him a lettre from Viscount Balting[l]asse in Spayne. Sir John demaunded of Dennys whie he gave him not the lettre at his first coming out of Spayne[?] he answered, ‘for feare of being executed as one Doctor Halie late [was]’. And sent a lettre and a token to his wife, that she should bring him the said [lettre] which was in a boxe. Which lettre and boxe Margrett Lennard,83 82 Feagh MacHugh O’Byrne (d. 1597), a clan chief from Wicklow, was a onetime confederate of Viscount Baltinglass. Hiram Morgan, ‘Perrot’s Poison Plot’, Connor O’Brien (ed.), Feagh McHugh O’Byrne The Wicklow Firebrand. The Journal of the Rathdrum Historical Society, Vol. I (1998), 182–96. 83 Acting on the instructions of her husband, O’Roughan, Margaret Leonard was said to have hidden Perrot’s letter to the King of Spain in a dovecot where it lay for five years. SP12/233/44.

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wife of Sir Dennis, did short[l]ye after deliver to Sir John Parrott in his bedd Chamber. F[or] proofe whereof one Richard Thomas84 and Margrett Lennard both deposed, that said lettre was delivered to Sir John Parrott as was declared. Feugh Mackheugh his wife affirmed that Dennys brought her husband a lettre from Baltinglasse in Spayne. Setting Sir Dennys at libertie and his good usage

Nowe Dennys beinge knowne to have had conference with a notable treator in Spayne and to bring to notable treators in Ireland, and commytted to the Castle for treason, was neverthelesse set at libertie in the Castle, and had access to Sir John earely and late for a loing tyme together, and had his meate and drinke in the porters lodge in the withdrawing Chamber, next to his bedd Chamber, and other places, and commaundement to have wine and whatsoever he wanted, and had a private waye to his bedd Chamber. This did Sir Dennys testifie himselfe to whome Sir John said, ‘a mischeefe one thee, I praye god, woe be to the tyme that ever thow wert borne or that ever I sawe thee’. John London.

One John London85 also justified that the said Dennys had the favoure and mayntenance of Sir John Parrott for halfe a yeare together. Sir John pressed by the Queenes Counsell

Here Sir John Parrott being pressed by the Queenes learned Counsell, said unto theym, ‘no one man can answere three such grave learned Men as you art, you cloy me nowe, I cannot speake.’

84 85

Richard Thomas may have been one of Perrot’s Welsh servants. The identity of John London is not known.

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Lord Buckhurst

Then said my Lord Buckhurst unto him, ‘trueth will answere it selfe and innocencie will defend it selfe.’ Lord Chamberlaine/he had his lettres and writings with him

Then my Lord Chamberlaine tould that never was any man that came to that place delte withal so favorrably as he was. And greater men then he have not hade that favore as to bring their writings and lettres with him.86 Sir Johns good speeches of the Queenes majestie

The Sir John said, he thanked god and the nourse of mercie, the Queenes Majestie, whome he called the handmayde of Jesus, and said, he alwayes caried so revrent an opinnion of her, that had she not beine a Queene, he would have made her one, if it had liene in his power. [12] His malice against the Cavener

Then was touched the extreme malice of Sir John sheweth against the Cavener87 and the better to execute his purpose, found meanes that the Cavener should offend the lawe by making an escape out of prison, and so being escaped, was after taken and hanged. Sir John

This matter being urged against Sir John, he said, ‘You winne menes lyves awaye with woordes’. 86 John Bellamy suggests that the privilege extended to Perrot of having his ‘Writings and Letters’ with him in court was a new step. Tudor Law of Treason, p. 145. 87 The ‘Cavener’ referred to may be the ‘Cahir Ore Cavanaugh’ being hunted in September 1585 by Captain Thomas Lee acting on the ‘Lord Deputy’s commission’. CSPI, 1574–85, pp. 578, 579. It may also be linked to the escape of prisoners, including pledges from the O’Byrnes, O’Connors, O’Mores and Kavanaghs, from Dublin Castle gaol in December 1585. McNeill, ‘Perrot Papers’, 48–9.

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Lord Chamberlaine

The Lord Chamberlaine said, ‘I feare me the Caverners blood will light uppon you.’ Discredit of Sir Dennys

Nowe Sir John Perrott began to discredite the testimony of Dennys the Priste, saing, he had changed his religion five tymes in sixe yeares and that he did counterfett himself a regist Bushoppe.88 Mr. Atturney

The Queenes Atturney then said, ‘If [he] were so lewd a man of his life, I marvayle whie you would connverse with him and reposed of much your selfe uppon his honestie.’ Sir John

‘A man of no religion can be no witness’, said Sir John, ‘he is a sorcerer and a witch.’ Mr. Atturney/two pardons by Sir John to Sir Dennys

‘Yf he were so defamed’, said Mr. Atturney, ‘whie did you favour him so much[?] How many pardons have you given him’[?] It was said he had given him two. More of dischredit of Sir Dennys

Sir John prosecuted still against Sir Dennys and said he had counterfitted his hand above eight tymes, [was] a common drunckard, a common lyer, and had benne forsworne a thousand tymes. Mr. Atturney

The Atturney then said, ‘if he were the worse man in the world, yet was he worse for Sir John Perrott.’

88 This refers to ecclesiastical appointments by the Roman pontiff which were not acknowledged by the English Crown.

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The lettres to the Kinge of Spaine/Prince of Wayles

Dennys was called then againe and said, that Sir John delivred him two lettres to carie to the Kinge of Spaine signifieng that he would be [a mean to] helpe him to England and Ireland, so he might have Wayles. But he would have it as the Princes of Germaynes have there Dukedomes, that is jure regio, to be a prince and Lord himselfe, and not to depend on any other. And here withall he delivred to the said Dennys fiftie powndes, and so the said Dennys departed to Rosse.89 Confederate and sworne with Orurke to further the King of Spaine

The said Dennys did further swere that Sir John and Sir Bryan Orurke were confederate together in the parlament, and each of theym swore to other to further the King of Spaine in the Accion of England.90 [13] Here Sir John waxed hott against Sir Dennys and said, he was a lowsie villaine, and a roge, and bad the poxe uppon him. Sir Dennys chaunged silver into gould at Rosse/wished Sir William Stanley to revolte

One Ffraunces White,91 and others of Rosse, [said] that true it was that the said Dennys was at Rosse ready to goe for Spaine, and cam to him to chainge silver into gould. But after fearing and suspecting some bodie in the shippe, he would not goe himselfe but procured one Davie92 to carie the said lettres into Spaine with in [great charge for the safe 89

Rosslare in county Wexford. A letter written by Perrot to the Queen in April 1586 contradicts this assertion. He wrote to inform her that O’Rourke, along with other important Irish lords, were willing to attend Parliament which might discourage their plotting with Spain. McNeill, ‘Perrot Papers’, 52. 91 Francis White, a merchant of Rosslare, may have had a connection with the Master of the Rolls, Sir Nicholas White, who had served as seneschal of Wexford since 1568. 92 The identity of ‘Davie’ is not known. 90

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delivery thereof, and gave him] c s. [100s. or £5] for his paynes. It was further declared that Sir John, having conference with Sir William Stanley in Ireland, Sir John wished him to revolte, assuring him that the Ireshemen would lyve and die with him. Sir William Stanley/Feugh Mackheugh

Sir William Stanley goeing from Ireland to have xviC men for the Lowe cun[tries],93 Feugh Mackheugh, being a knowne treator, brought him certen men and badd his men doe as Sir William Stanley would have theym to doe, whether it were right or wrong. And thereuppon they sook hands and parted. Sir John

To this Sir John Parrott said, ‘if Stanley be a treator, what is that to me’[?] Sir Thomas Williams

It was proved that Sir Thomas Williams94 sent lettres from Ireland into England to Sir John Parrott, with straight chardge geven to the berer that he should deliver theym safelie to his owne handes; and made theym to be sewed to the lyninge of his dublett within his bosom. proved

Which lettres were delivered to Sir John at Yorke house.

93 Stanley had been commissioned to raise an Irish troop for service in the Netherlands by his patron the earl of Leicester. As a friend and client of Leicester, Perrot gave Stanley every assistance. 94 Sir Thomas Williams’s kinship with Perrot has not been established. He may have been a younger son of Sir James Williams of Pant Hywel, Carmarthenshire, whose father, William, was first cousin to Perrot’s stepfather, Sir Thomas Jones.

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Sir William Stanley/Mylford Haven/the Spanyardes had frendes in Wales

John Bargh of Abson at the Groine95 had conference with Sir William Stanley who, among other speeches, asked him what places in England were fittest for Landing if the King of Spaine should invayd England again[?] Bargh answered, ‘Portsmouth’. Sir William Stanley disliked of that sayeing he knew nothing but rather thought Milford Haven the fittest place; affirming they should find better frendes in Wales than the Queene had any, and some of theym were nere the Queene.96 Lettres to and from the Duke of Parma

Lettres were sent from the Duke of Parma to Sir John Parrott by one Browne, and an answere from the said Sir John to the said Duke by the said Browne, to whome the Duke gave a barke.97 Proved. Lettres to Sir William Stanley.

Yt was likewise proved that he sent lettres to Sir William Stanley. Sir John would have a pardone

When Sir John Parrott was to come to England, he went about to gett a pardon for his Accions before he would com over, wherin he shewed his guiltye conscience.98

95 The identity of John Bargh of Abson is not known. The ‘Groine’ refers to La Coruña in Spain. 96 It it not clear whom Stanley had in mind but Perrot’s half-brother, Sir Henry Jones, arguably the most powerful man in Carmarthenshire, might have been among those thought capable of treason. In the mid-1570s Jones was accused of being an ‘earnest papist’ and his name appeared on a list of sympathizers drawn up by an adherent of Mary, Queen of Scots. Hasler, Hist. Parl., Vol. II, p. 383. 97 This may refer to the John Browne of Knockmechy attainted for treasonable conduct in the Dublin Parliament of 1586. Cal. Carew MSS, 1575–88, p. 425. 98 Nothing in writing exists to substantiante this charge against Perrot.

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[14] The Jurie chardged to goe together

Here the Queenes lerned Counsell praied the Jurie to consider well of that which had benne said and willed theym to goe together. Sir John to the Jurie

Then Sir John Parrott willed theym to consider their chardges and have a conscience in the matter, and to remember that his blood would be required at their handes if they delt further than their conscience did warraunt theym.99 found guiltie of the treason

Then the Jurie departed from the barr and within three quarters of an howre returned to the barr; and being demaunded whether the prisoner were guiltie or not of the severall treason[s] in the Inditement, they answered, ‘guiltie’.100 Judgement praied/A peticion made by Sir John

Then Sergeant Puckering in the Queenes Majesties name began to pray Judgement; and Sir John desired moste humblie that he might speake with some of their honnors before sentence of Judgement should be pronounced. Judgement stayed

Whereunto they condiscended, and commaunded he should be brought to talke with theym in the Chauncerie; where after som communicacion had among theym, they all repared to their places. And Sir John cam to the Courte of Kinges Bench being 99 It was customary for the accused to make a final, usually short, address to the jurors after the prosecution had finished. 100 According to Sir Thomas Smith, from the moment they retired to consider their verdict, the jury were not permitted to have meat, drink, candle, fire, or, in some cases, furniture to sit upon. Consequently, three-quarters of an hour to an hour for jury deliberation was about average in treason trials. Smith, De Republica Anglorum, ed. L. Alston (Cambridge, 1906), pp. 100–1.

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with theym, and Judgment was stayed untill her Majesties pleasure was further knowne.101 Then was the Courte adjorned to the Tuesday next, being the second of Maye, and so the Courte ended, and every man said, God save the Queene. Itlemencion of offices

For the better understanding of the aforesaid Araignement of Sir John Parrott and the Inditement which followeth, it is to be knowne that at the tyme of his Araignement, being the xxviio of Aprilis, Anno Eliz.xxxiiiito Mr. Puckering was the Queenes Sergeant at Lawe, Mr. Popham her Atturney generall, and Mr. Egerton Solicitor. Lord Keeper, Lord Cheiff Justice, Mr. Atturney

But before the daye he was brought to receave Judgement, her Majesties learned Counsell were removed as followeth; that is to saye, Mr. Puckering was made Lord Keeper of the great Seale of England; Mr. Popham was made Lord ChiefeJustice of the Queenes bench, and Mr. Egerton of Sollicitor was made Atturney generall.102 This making and removing of Officers was donne at the Court of Greenewich on Satterdaie the xxviiith of Maye 1592. [15] Lord Keeper taketh his oath.

My Lord Keeper went to Westminster to take his oath very honorable, with Lords, Knightes and 101 Unless the Crown intervened, the delivery of judgement on a convicted prisoner normally followed the return of a verdict by the jury. 102 Apparently, the author became confused in relation to Egerton’s promotion, for having crossed out ‘atturney’ he wrote ‘sollicitor’, his current post, before correctly writing ‘Atturney generall’.

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gent[lemen] on Satterday 4to of June 1592. And Regine Eliz. xxxiiiito. And that [day] tooke his o[a]th, and sate first in the Chancerie, one Wednesdaye following 7o June he first sate in the Starr Chamber. The judgement geven against Sir John Parrott uppon his Inditement of highe Treason at Westminster one Ffrydaie the xvith daye of June anno 1592. The judgement geven against Sir John Parrott uppon his Inditement of highe Treason in the Kinges Bench at Westminster one Ffrydaye the xvith daye of June Ao. Regine Eliz. die gratia er xxxiiiito Anno domini 1592 with the effect of most of the speeches uttered both against him and by him at that tyme together with the whole order of the Proceedinges therein.

Before these of the Queenes Majestie Commissioners of oyer and terminer thereunto especially appoynted viz. The Commissioners that sate.103 The Lord Chamberlain The Lord Cheefe Justice of the Common Pace The Lord Buckhurst Justice Gawdie Sir Robert Cecill knight Justice Ffenner Secretarey Wooley Mr. Rookebie one of her Majesties Court of Requestes Mr. Fortescue

103 Sir Gilbert Gerard and Justice William Peryam were not present at the judgement. Gerard was chronically ill and he died eight months later in February 1593. Peryam, who had twice briefly served in Ireland during the 1560s, may also have been ill, being known for ‘his delicate state of health’. Hasler, Hist. Parl., Vol. III, p. 209.

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His Conduction from the Tower

Ffirst, the said Sir John Parrott that morning was brought in a coch from the Tower to the old Swanne and therehence conveayed by water in a bardg to Westminster bridge. The tyme and meanes of his comming to the barr.

Betweene the howers of viii and ix of the clock he landed at Westminster bridge and was brought into Westminster halle, being accompayned with Mr. Crooke, sonne-in-lawe to the Lieuetenaunt of the Tower,104 one his right hand, and Mr. Blunt, sonne to the Lieuetenaunt, on his left hand. And being strongly guarded with divers of the Yomen of the gard with Halbardes and the Lieuetenauntes men with weapons all rownd about him. And in that sorte he stood for a quarter of an hower bareheaded expecting the coming of the Comissioners. But Mr. Rokebie, one of the Comissioners, was sett who had taken his place before the coming of Sir John Parrott in the hall, and tarried for the [coming of the] rest of his associates. [16] His apparell

Then Sir John Parrott was clothed in a dobled and hose of black satten plaine and a Gowne of Black Velvett furred, and a square or flate Crowned black felt Hatt, with a smale band and a plaine whit ruffe. The Lieuetenaunt was sicke

The said Mr. Crooke and Mr. Blunt the Lieuetenauntes sonne supplied the roome of the

104 John Croke (d. 1620) of Chilton, Buckinghamshire. Croke was ‘brought up in the plain study and learning and profession of the law’, he married Catherine, daughter of Sir Michael Blount, was knighted in May 1603 and appointed serjeantat-law and King’s serjeant. By his own admission, Croke had little time for ‘the tyranny of Spain, the Pope’s ambition, and the rebels in Ireland’. Hasler, Hist. Parl., Vol. I, p. 678.

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Lieuetenaunte for that he was sicke and could not be there in person. Staiing for my Lord Chamberlaine

Divers of the Queenes Commissioners and the Queenes learned Counsell being com to the Hall, staied untill the coming of the Lord Chamberlain, at whose coming they all tooke theire places and sate in Judgment. Returning the writt/Oyes made

Then an oyes was made and the Lieuetenaunt of the Tower called to returne his writ or warrant directed unto him for the bringing of the Prisoner fourth. Returning the writt

Then Mr. Crooke having the said warrant, which was written in parchement, and having iiii or v seales of read wax annexed to the same by slitt lables, delivered in the same to the Courte, and humbly craved that the Lieuetenaunt might be excused for his absence, and declaring the cause thereof. Whereunto Mr. Sandes, Clerk of the Crowne, taking the said writt and turning his face to the Lord Chamberlaine, read the retourne thereof, being in Latten, the common and ordenarie retourn of an Heabeas Corpus. Sergeant Snagg moved for Judgement

Then Sergeant Snagg105 for the Queene, being one of her Majesties learned Counsell, moved the Lords to this effect, that whereas Sir John Parrott was before that tym indited of treason and arrayned, 105 Thomas Snagge (d. 1593) of Letchworth, Hertfordshire. In 1577, Walsingham obtained for Snagge the attorneyship of Ireland at £100 above the usual salary. His three-year tenure of the Irish attorneyship was marred by a violent quarrel with the Master of the Rolls, Sir Nicholas White. He was appointed serjeant-at-law in 1580 and Queen’s serjeant in 1590. Hasler, Hist. Parl., Vol. III, p. 410.

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pleading not guilty, and put him selfe uppon [the] countrey, who founde him guiltie of highe treason, therefore prayed, one her Majesties behalf, that Judgment might be geven accordingly. Sandes speaketh to the prisoner

Then Sandes, Clerck of the Crowne, speak unto Sir John sayeing, ‘thou hast benne heretofore indited of highe treason by the nam of John Parrott late of London Knight, and being thereupon arraigned, thereunto didst plead not guiltie, and didst put thy selfe uppon the Countrey, who fownd thee guiltie of high treason. What hast thou nowe to saye for thy selfe whie thou shouldst not receve Judgment to die’[?] Sir John to the bench

Sir John making lowe obeysance, asked first whether he might be permited to take any eccepcion against the Inditment, and if he might, then he requested he might be thereunto admytted.106 Lord Anderson

To this Lord Chiefe Justice Anderson answered he might not be permited. [17] Sir John protesteth Innocencie extolling her Majestie for her mercye.

Then Sir John made a protestacon of a quarter of an howre long, wherin includid the mercie of her Majestie towardes him, extolling her to be the onlye mirror of mercie of all the Princes of the world; and said, ‘god forbid that ever my hart should imagine treason or utter such unreverend speeches of her sacred Majestie, who had exalted him so highely from the estate of a gent[leman], 106 Prisoners normally had three options open to them when seeking to say something meaningful in arrest of judgement: plead for mercy, find error in the indictment or find error in the judicial process. Only when he was denied the opportunity to challenge the indictment did Perrot plead for mercy.

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and of whose bountie and greacious favor he had liberally tasted’. Complaynneth against the witnesses.

But Complayned of the hard delinges of the wittnesses towardes him in this causes, who, he said, falscely, maliciously, perjuredlie accused him, but said he fownd no falte in the proceeding of the Lawe, but that he had good and orderly proceeding therin. Extolling againe the Queene.

And againe extolling her Majesties greate mercey and favor towardes him and protested [his] Innocencie in the cause to be such that he forsooke godes mercie and his [Saviour’s] meryttes, yf ever he ment any treason or treacherie towardes that greatious Queene Eliz[abeth]. Judgement sixe tymes deffered.

And said, that he knew her Majesties greate cleamencie and mercie towardes him proceeded from her Majesties owne heart, by the meere provedence of god who knewe his innocencie in this cause, in staing him so long from Judgement, which he affermed to be nowe sixe tymes; espeacially after such heinyous matters being proved against him, but, as he said, most falslye and untrew.107 Lord Chamberlaine to Sir John

Whereuppon my Lord Chamberlaine conceaving his wordes to tend that her Majestie had so long deferred Judegement being perswadid thereunto of his innonencie in the fact, and that her Majestie was perswadid that he had beinge hardly delt withall, and unworthyly condempned. Wherefore my 107 From the trial record and entries in Burghley’s diary, it is possible to suggest the following days when judgement against Perrot was deferred, i.e. 2, 5, 10, 20, 28 May and 4 June. HMC, Cal. Salisbury MSS, Vol. XIII, Addenda, pp. 464–7.

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Lord Chamberlaine said he was much to blame to use any such speeches to that end or purpose, and said that the conceipt of his innonencie was not the cause her Majestie defered his Judement so long; and used very vehement speeches against the said Sir John Parrot in that poynt, saying his treason[s] were much manyfest and aparaunt, and for his tryall he receaved more favore then any other treator that ever he sawe, and [there were] more [witnesses] of his owne men and others then ever he sawe against any other treator. Sir John to the Lord Chamberlaine

Whereuppon Sir John said, ‘I praye your Lordshipp interupt me not’: for the Lord Chamberlaine began these speeches in the midest of Sir Johns matter. Lord Chamberlaine proceedeth

Then said my Lord Chamberlaine, ‘you must be interupted in this matter’; and proceeded more vemently [and earnestly] against him then before. Sir John explaineth his meaning

Sir John prayed his Lordshipp not to misconster his meaning and said, he ment no such matter towching her Majesties concept of his hard usage, as his Lordshippe tooke his woordes to be; for, sayed he, ‘I canne recyte my woordes againe’, which, in effect, were that her Majestie being the onlye prince of mercye, had dealt with him most gratiouslie in the tollerating this long with him for his Judgment. [18] Mr. Attorney moveth touching Sir Johns woordes

Mr. Egerton, nowe Atturney, then stood upp, and directing his speeches to my Lord Chamberlaine and the reast of the bench, sayeth, he had thought to have moved their Lordshippes touching Sir John Parrottes speeches in that poynte, which, as he said, was by protesting his innocencie to seduce and

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deceave the Audience to thinke him Innocent and not guilty of treason, and that he had benne injuryouslie condempned. Whereas it was most manyfest that he was most justly condempned of most heinous treasones, and that in his tryall he reaceved most favourable dealing. Sir J

Whereunto Sir John Perrot replyed and said, ‘Mr. Attorney, you did me wrong nowe as you did me before.’ Mr. A

‘I never did you wrong’, said Mr. Attorney. Vehement speeches betweene the Attorney and the prisoner

‘You did me wrong’, said Sir John. Mr. A

‘Instance wherein I did you wrong’, said Mr. Attorney. Sir John

‘You did me wrong’, said Sir John. Mr. A

‘I never did you wrong’, said Mr. Attorney. All these speeches were spoken with great vemencie each to other. Lord Buckhurst to Sir John

My Lord Buckhurst directing his speeches towardes Sir John to the like effect, touching his giltines and triall as my Lord Chamberlaine had shewed before; adding further, that whereas he went about to perswad the Audience108 that the cause which moved 108 The audience refers to the public gallery. It is likely that Perrot’s wife and two sons were witnesses to his trial.

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her Majestie to deferr his Judegment was her concept of some hard proceeding against him at his Arraygnement, which was not the cause in deede, and that therin he did injurie to the Judges, Jurie and wittnesses; and said yt was very evell donne of him to utter any speeches to any such end: saying further, that my Lord himself had benne at and uppon the tryall of diverse treatores before that tyme, farr Sir Johns betters, and said he had seene many treators condemptned of treason uppon the tenth parte of there evidences that was against him, and yet justly condempned of treason. And you, Sir John, justlie condempned justly of a masse of treasons, and saied in his concience he thought him guilty of most haynious treason, and that he was woorthely condempned. Saying also, that diverse and sundry wittnesses very suficient had proved treason against him most manyfest; and said, ‘will you, Sir John, have all these, being so many in nomber, as testified against you, to be all [perjured],109 and you only belyved[?] Noe, no, it is not possible to be trew, nether will any man belyve it, Sir John.’ [19] Lord Chamberlaine

My Lord Chamberlaine speake against him and said their had benne xxxtie wittnesses produced against him at his Arraignement who proved treason against him, and that he was a traytor woorthely condempned of treason. And sayed, he never sawe any traytor have such indifferent triall and such sufficent prooffes produced against. Adding further, that he might speake his will, but no man would belive him; and that he had spoken much already, but not a trewe woord of all he spake. 109

The original manuscript has ‘permitted’.

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Sir John complaneth against the Irish wittnesses

Then Sir John alleadged that the matter was sett forward and followed by his enymies in Ireland, and that he was condempned by Irishe wittnesses all, and that not one Englishe wittness had proved treason against him. Lord Buckhurst

My Lord Buckhurst said, he had both Irishe and Englishe wittnesses, and those his owne men. Sir John

Sir John said, ‘it was [more] then he knew.’ Sandes

Sandes said, ‘Phillippe Willyams was an Englishe man.’ Sir John

Sir John Parrott said, he proved no treason: and further he said, that the Irishe wittnesses had noe respect of an othe; and said that for a smalle value, a man might procure a nomber to sweare any thing. And fro prooffe thereof, said he, appealed to some of the bench that had beene in Ireland, and threw his hand towardes Mr. Rokebye, that they knew the same to be trew.110 He also said that god would plage the prosecutors of this cause against him for their corrupte dealing theren. He never intended murther nor was treator

He also, with greate protestaciones in the midest of his speeches, utterly denyed that he never intended or ment to murder any man, as he was falsly accused; and said that now latelie he had found among his wrytinges a lettre of that wicked fellowes that caused111 him therof, Steven Seager, and 110

Ralph Rokeby served two years (1569–71) as chief justice of Connacht. This letter is missing. It does not appear to be among Perrot’s defence papers in the archive of the duke of Northumberland at Alnwick Castle. 111

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said he had the lettre about him to prove his testimony false; and sayed that that matter grieved him more than any other matter. He also with great protestacons denyed that he was ever papishe in hart or sowle, or ever favored any of theym, but was of a sound relligon these 45 yeares ever sithenc the second yere of King Edward;112 and for tryall therof, he referred himself to divers there present that were old parlament men, of hes speeches towching religion in divers parliments.113 [20] Lord Chamberlaine

My Lord Chamberlayne answered him, that he was not chardged for murdering or intending to murther any person, although the same was proved to his face by his owne man. Sir John

Sir John said, although the same was not objected to his chardge, it was layed open against him to make him infamouse to the world, which grieved him most of all; and sayed, that Seager in the end denyed it agayne. Lord Chamberlayne

My Lord Chamberlayne said, he denyed it not, but justified it to his face. Sir John

Sir John said, that Seager said Sir John tould him that he did it but to prove him what he would doe.

112

This would fix Perrot’s conversion to Protestantism sometime in 1548. Although there is no evidence from surviving records to support Perrot’s claim that he spoke on religious issues in parliamentary debates, the audience to whom he addressed his remarks would have known the truth of the matter so he had no reason to lie. 113

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Lord Anderson

Then my Lord Anderson, Cheefe Justice of the common pleas, asked him whether he had any thing to saye in arrest of Judgment[?] Sir John

Sir John answered, seeing it pleased god and the Queene he should com to that passe, he had nothing to saye, but humbly submytted [himself]114 to lawe and their Lordshippes. Lord Anderson

My Lord Anderson then asked if he had the Queenes pardon[?] Sir John

Then he sayed, he had no pardon. [21] Lord Anderson no pardon

Then my Lord Anderson proceeding to pronounce Judgment, began with a long discourse, reciting divers good blessinges of god uppon this realme, namely, the establishing of the trewe relligion, and to be governed with so gratious a Prince, and other good blissinges of god bestowed uppon us. Yet, notwithstanding divers wicked and traytorous persons, discontented with the estate, had practised diverse and sundry treasons, which by the great and mightie providence of god, had benne from tyme to tyme revealed. And omitted diverse forraigne treasons and beyond the sease treasons manye treasons had benne practised heare at home. And sayed, that he himselfe had benne at the arraynement of diverse, as namely Babington, Abington, with others;115 114

The original manuscript had ‘theymselves’. This refers to the so-called Babington Plot to free Mary, Queen of Scots in 1586 and the subsequent trial of Sir Anthony Babington and his co-conspirators, including Edward Abington. 115

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adding, that the treason of Sir John far surpassed theym all, most wickedly conspiring her Majesties death and deprivacion, and invacion of this Realme by forreigne enymies, and taking in the Spanyardes, to the distrucion of so many thowsandes of good and naturall subjectes. And [Lord Anderson] consented with the former spp[e]ches of the ii other Lordes, that he was worthely and justely condempned of treason uppon good and sufficient proofe; and sayed, that at his arraignment he had indifferentcie with favor, and commendid the goodness and substanciallness of the Jury that tryed him at his arraignement. And then he proseedid to Judgment, which was by him pronounced to this effect: The Judgment/in redd lettres Sir John in redd lettres Siant?

That he should be brought by the Leiuetennante of the Tower, to the Tower, which was the place whence he came, and from thence to be drawne uppon a hardell thorowe the Citye of London to the place of execucion, and there to be hanged, and to be Coutt downe alive, and his bowells and pryvie members to be cutt and cast in the fire in his sight, his hedd to be cutt, and his bodye to be cutt in fower quarters, and to be disposed at the Queenes pleasure. And god have Mercie uppon thee.116 [22] Sir Johns woordes after Judgment

Then said Sir John, seeing it pleased god and the Queene that he should be this Judged, his life nowe stood in her Majesties mercyfull handes, whose life he wished, and prayed god that it might three tymes, yea, five tymes as long as shee hath lyve already; with diverse very good and godly wishes to her Majestie. And prayed god that among the her 116 This traditional method of execution for traitors was nearly always commuted to simple beheading for those of a higher social class.

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subjectes the Innocent lambes might be knowne from the scabbed Goates; and if the living god whoe knewe his Innonencie would put in her princely hart to be mercifull unto him for his life, that he would, as alwayes heretofore he did, serve her Majestie most faythefully against her malycious Eenymies. Yea and to stopp the mouth of the Cannon, and fight againste the dogges the Spanayards, and said he knewe her Majestie to be the fountayne of mercye, and wished that utter distruccion might ensue to him and his progenye if ever he ment treason against Queene Elizabeth. Which very wordes he uttered and wished divers other tymes before and after, and said, that shortely god doubtles would make manyfest his Innonency, and that to her Majestie and the world. He also said, that he wished not nowe to live, seeing his infamy in his Country, and that his name and bludd was corrupted, which had beinne of auncient contynuance and never before that tyme spotted. And said, ‘wo[e] be unto me that am the first of my howse and name that ever was attainted or suspected’, and shooke his hand, sayeing by a Carnacion which he had in his hand, ‘I care not for death the value of this flower, I feare it not’; and wished that he had never offendid god more then he had offendid the Queenes Majestie. Which words he pronounced contrary at the first, but presently reformed theym. [23] Sir Johns peticion

Then he declared the he had certayne peticions which he humbly desired their Lordshippes to move her Majestie in one his behalfe. The first Peticion

The first was, that it would please her Majestie of her abundant mercy to pardon his life, that he

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might have a better rome, for his lodging was a short Chamber, only rome for his bedd and a table, and that he never went forth of dores, nor had any aire to comfort him. Lord Chamberlayne answere

To this my Lord Chamberlayne answered, that the Rome was such as was fitt for such a man as he was. The second peticion

The second peticion was, that he might have a preacher appoynted unto him, and that he might be permitted to receave the sacrament, which he said he did not sithence his commyttement to the Tower, but sayed he receaved the same in my Lord Treasureres howse. Lord Chamberlayne

To this peticion my Lord Chamberlayne answered, that he never herd that he desired or wished any such thing before, which if he had, it might have benne graunted him. Sir John/Mr. Crooke denyeth

Sir John Parrott said, that he had requested the Lieuetennante for the same twentie tymes; and said, ‘here is a man that knoweth the same’, meaning and poynting at Mr. Crooke, standing next him one his right hand. Which thinge Mr. Crooke voluntariely and without any asking disavowed and said he knew no such thing. Then Sir John said, ‘Mr. Lieuetenannte well knoweth it, and will confess the same.’ Lord Chamberlayne graunted his request

My Lord Chamberlayne said, he should have his peticion herein graunted. And that they, the Justices and Commissioners, had authoritie to graunt the same without moving her Majestie therein.

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[24] The third peticion

The third peticion was, that if he should suffer death, that then their Lordshippes would be humble suters to her Majestie, that seeing he was a gentleman borne, and that he had benne advaunced to place and calling by her Majestie and served her highnes in place of honor, that he might die a gentlemanes death, and to be spared from drawing through the Streetes, and the rest of the Judgment; and said, he was a gentleman of auncient discent, and but a gentleman. The fowerth peticion

The forth peticion was, that they would move her Majestie to be good and gracious to his sonne, meaning Sir Thomas Parrott, and that they would put her Majestie in remembrance of her gratious promise made unto Sir Phillippe Sidney117 and Sir Thomas Parrott, that her Majestie would be good unto theym. And specially that her Majestie would be good to that vertuouse and gratious Ladie, my Ladie Dorothie: and then said, that he never receaved one peny of the marriage, nor ever assured her any Joynter, for which he was nowe very sorrye; and sayed, that some thing moved him so to doe, which nowe greaved him very sore.118

117 Sir Phillip Sidney (d. 1586) of Penshurst, Kent. Perrot’s son, Sir Thomas, and Sidney were close friends. As far as is known, there is no written record of the Queen’s promise to which Perrot alluded to in his petition, but it may have been made at the time of the birth of Sidney’s daughter, in October 1585, for whom Elizabeth agreed to became godmother. Sir Thomas Perrot’s daughter, Penelope, was born earlier that same year. 118 Dorothy Devereux (d. 1619), daughter of Walter (d. 1576), first earl of Essex, and sister to Robert (d. 1601), second earl of Essex. She married Sir Thomas Perrot in a clandestine marriage performed at Broxbourne church, Hertforshire in July 1583. Neither Sir John nor the Queen approved of the match.

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That he had made estates of his landes/Sir Thomas Parrott his young sonne

He also said, that he had made estates of his landes, a doozen, xviten and is xxtie yeares past; for that he had Children by diverse ventries, and that he would have his landes to remayne in his name, and now he had but one sonne, the other died in her Majesties service.119 But said, peradventure holes maye be nowe found in the same and therefore requested that their Lordshippes would move her Majestie to be good to his [son] and his wife, and as he herd to a litle sonne which they had, and which hereafter maye doe her Majestie service.120 [25] Stating his innocency againe

He also oftentymes protested with great protestacion that he never ment evill to her Majestie, and wished confusion to him and his posterity if he were guilty of treason. And if he were, he utterly renounced the meryttes and mercy of his savioure Jesus Christ. Comparing his trueth with any in England

And then speaking to my Lord Chamberlayne, said he excepted [his] Lordshipp, for that he sate Commissioner for her Majestie, otherwise he was as trew a subject as any in England whosoever; and herewith clapped his hands uppon the barr mightily. Smallness of his living

And as he was departing from the barr, he retorned againe towardes the Lords, and said, he could not dispend xiiC li. [£1,200] a yeare, although it was bruited he could dispend many thousandes. 119

William, son of Perrot’s second wife, Jane Pollard, died in Ireland in July 1587. Born sometime between March 1591 and April 1592, Robert, only son of Sir Thomas Perrot and Dorothy Devereux, died in infancy. 120

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He also made mencion he was in debt. His conveying to the Tower againe

Then was he conveyed awaye from the barr in sorte as he was brought thether, and brought by water to the ould Swane, for that he could not shoote the bridge, and all the gards and others that attended him were all in whiries attending the bardge; and from the ould Swane [he] was conveyed in a Coch into the Tower in sorte as he was brought from the Tower to Westminster that morning. He referred all things to god

He also semed in his speeches to refer all things to god, who, as he said, knewe best the secrett of his Cause against and, very zealously, wished and hoped that all thinges should be by him made manyfest; and in all his protestacions and speeches referred him and his to god alone. Then the Lords and Commissioners sitting a litle space after Sir Johns departure, and untill he tooke barge, an Oyes was made, and the Commission of Oyer and Termyner was detirmined by proclamacion made in these wordes following: The determining of the Commissioners

All manner of persons of England and Ireland that had any thinge to doe before my Lords the Queenes Majesties Justices of Oyer and Terminer in this present cause, maye depart hence in godes peace, and the Queenes Majesties, and keepe their daie heare again uppon a newe somons, for my Lords the Queene and keepe the Justices doe determyne their Commission. And then they all cried, God save the Queene. Amen. At what howre the Lords arose

Then my Lords arose, and it was at the stroke of tenne of the Clock at night.

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[Afterwards the Queen began to be appeased towards him, and was often heard to applaud that Rescript of Theodosius, Honorius, and Arcadius: If any Person speak ill of the Emperor thro’ a foolish rashness and inadvertency, it is to be despised; if out of Madness, it deserves Pity; if from Malice and Aversion, it calls for Mercy. But while he thus had hopes of his Life, he fell sick, and died in the Tower in September following; but the Queen granted his desire, in suffering his estate to go to his son, who had married the Earl of Essex’s sister.]121

121 Adapted from Camden’s Annales (p. 411) and added by the author of State Trials.

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Treason doth never prosper, what’s the reason? For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.1

Contemporaries were not slow to suggest reasons why Sir John Perrot had fallen so spectacularly from grace, or why he had come to suffer such an ignominious death. In the opinion of Perrot’s son, Sir James, his father was partly to blame: If he had byn able to bridle that passion of choller, wherto he was by nature much adicted, and to forbeare over free speach when he was offended, his dayes might have byn longer and his ende more happie.2

William Camden evidently agreed: Thus did this well deserving and Noble Gentleman procure his owne ruine through the unbridled saucinesse of his tongue. For opprobrious speeches do leave a deepe and sharpe impression in Princes minds.3

Sympathy apart, there were others who were willing to express their misgivings about Perrot’s hard fate more forcefully. ECS was not shy of publicly stating that ‘The Honourable, Just and Wise Governour Sir John Perrot’ was struck down, not just by the ‘light proofes produced against him’, but by a ‘devillish plot’, the centrepiece of which was a ‘forged accusation’.4 Sir Robert Naunton was equally sure that Perrot was ‘exempt and clear from the guilt of treason and disloyalty’, but, unlike his contemporaries, he alone admitted that ‘to say the truth, the 1 2 3 4

Sir John Harington, Epigrams (1618), bk. iv, ep. 5. Wood, Chron. Ire., p. 53. Camden, Annales, p. 411. ECS, Govt. of Ireland, p. 88.

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Priests forged Letter was at his arraingement thought but a fiction of envy’.5 This is an astonishing statement which, if true, suggests that some, perhaps many, of those who witnessed the trial and who heard the evidence, did not find O’Roughan a creditable witness. Although Naunton was writing with the benefit of hindsight, it is entirely conceivable that the twentynine-year-old was among those who attended Perrot’s trial at Westminster Hall and, if so, was in a better position to gauge the mood of the audience. Nor is it inconceivable that Naunton was joined in the public gallery by William Camden, then a schoolmaster at the nearby Westminster School, Sir James Perrot, who was a student at the Middle Temple, and perhaps even by the apparently well-connected ECS. Thereafter, writers were inclined to follow their lead, particularly Naunton, in depicting Perrot as an innocent wronged. Perrot’s last will and testament, dated 3 May 1592 (an earlier will made in August 1584 is still extant), is over three pages long and, in reality, is nothing more than a vindication of his conduct, coupled with an appeal for mercy; none came.6 Contrary to Camden’s oft quoted statement that Perrot died ‘of sicknesse’ in September 1592, he actually passed away on 3 November 1592, and was buried a week later within the grounds of the Tower in the church of St Peter Ad Vincula. He died before sentence could be carried out or, as seems likely in view of the Crown’s favourable treatment of his family, before the Queen could issue a pardon. Certainly, his widow, Jane, was granted Carew for a term of years and his son, Sir Thomas, was, with the active support of his brother-in-law, Robert Devereux, earl of Essex, restored in blood to the family’s estates, in March 1593, less than four months after the death of his father.7 In the opinion of Paul Hammer, the speedy restoration in blood of Sir Thomas Perrot by an act of the 1593 parliament suggests a political quid pro quo by which Elizabeth agreed to allow Perrot’s condemnation, whilst his enemies accepted that his destruction would be political and not 5

Naunton, Frag. Reg., p. 43. Life, Deedes and Death, pp. 150–4. 7 T. E. Hartley (ed.), Proceedings in the Parliaments of Elizabeth I (3 vols., Leicester, 1981, 1995), Vol. III, p. 146. 6

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extend to his life or lands. In this process, Perrot’s innocence of treason seems to have been irrelevant.8

Sir John Perrot’s death was but the beginning of a sequence of cruel events that struck the family hard. His widow, Jane, did not long survive him, she died in January 1593, nor did his son, Sir Thomas, and grandson, Robert, both of whom were dead by February 1594. Following these deaths, the Crown ‘took advantage of the former Attainder’ to resume control of the family’s estates which left Perrot’s daughter-in-law, Dorothy (née Devereux), his granddaughter, Penelope, and his bastard son, Sir James, to compete for their possession in what proved to be complex and expensive litigation lasting over twenty years.9 The man responsible for the seizure of the Perrot estates was the newly appointed Attorney-General, Edward Coke, who, in turn, was likely acting on the instructions of his patron, Lord Burghley.10 Perrot’s enemies it seems had, after all, succeeded in completing the utter destruction of him and his family. In stark contrast to the declining fortunes of the Perrot family, those who had persecuted, perjured and prosecuted Perrot largely prospered. Among the first to be rewarded were the three who had conducted his prosecution – Egerton, Popham and Puckering. Barely a month after Perrot’s trial Thomas Egerton was promoted to Attorney-General, John Popham was appointed chief justice of the Queen’s Bench and knighted, while John Puckering secured a knighthood, a seat on the Privy Council and the office of lord keeper. Nor were those smaller fish, who had either conspired willingly or been forced to perjure Perrot, forgotten. A week after Perrot was condemned to death, the Privy Council minutes for 23 June reveal that Stephen Seager was to be restored, with arrears of pay, to the office of constable of Dublin Castle. His restoration coincided with Fitzwilliam’s sacking, for negligence, of the man, John Maplesden, he had appointed to replace Seager. Fitzwilliam was reprimanded for Maplesden’s negligence and Seager’s original dismissal.11 Perrot’s messenger, John Garland, returned to 8 9 10 11

Hammer, Robert Devereux, p. 344 n. 13. Naunton, Frag. Reg., p. 43. Hasler, Hist. Parl., Vol. I, pp. 622–5. APC, xxii (1591–2), pp. 560–1; Morgan, Tyrone’s Rebellion, pp. 132–3.

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Ireland with the ‘gratious favor’ and ‘good likinge’ of the Queen and Council. Armed with this ringing endorsement, Garland was to be shown ‘good and lawfull favor’ by Fitzwilliam’s government which was to re-employ him as a ‘servitor of that realme’.12 In view of their ‘painefull and dilligent service performed of late in the causes of Sir John Perrott’, a host of witnesses and deponents were similarly rewarded, among them Nathaniel Dillon, Thady Nolan and Captains Woodhouse and Merbury.13 Phillip Williams, Perrot’s former secretary, received his reward when, on the 16 November 1592, and barely a week after his late master’s burial, Fitzwilliam wrote in favour of his release from the Tower.14 With all charges apparently dropped, Williams resumed his role as Fitzwilliam’s secretary until the latter’s recall and retirement in 1594. Thereafter, there is every reason to suspect that he entered Burghley’s service since there is a reference, dating to March 1599, of a Phillip Williams acting as one of the secretaries to the late Lord Treasurer.15 The irony of his employment by Burghley would not have been lost on those who had come to suspect the Lord Treasurer’s role in Perrot’s downfall. Perrot’s persecutors too found their reward. Lord Deputy Fitzwilliam continued his corrupt government of Ireland, which is thought to have contributed to the outbreak of the devastating Nine Year’s War in April 1593. Known also as Tyrone’s Rebellion, the trouble began when Fitzwilliam went back on his word to support the succession of Hugh Roe MacMahon to the lordship of Monaghan. Having been bribed by MacMahon, Fitzwilliam thought it expedient to execute the Irish chieftain rather than risk his corruption being exposed. As the war raged unchecked and amid a litany of complaints, Fitzwilliam was eventually recalled in the summer of 1594. In spite of pressure to investigate his alleged corruption and misgovernment, Burghley ensured that his kinsman lived the remaining five years of his life in relative peace and security.16 Fitzwilliam’s confederate, Archbishop Adam Loftus too soon found himself in trouble. 12 13 14 15 16

APC, xxii (1591–2), p. 587. Ibid., pp. 485, 579. SP63/173/19. HMC, Cal. Salisbury MSS, Vol. IX, p. 112. Hasler, Hist. Parl., II, pp. 130–1; see Morgan, Tyrone’s Rebellion, pp. 55–81.

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At the beginning of August 1592, Loftus faced charges of serious misconduct and financial mismanagement made by Robert Legge, a senior official in the Irish exchequer. Although dismissed from his post by Fitzwilliam, whom Legge also accused of corruption, he continued to attack Loftus until the Privy Council was forced to take notice. Loftus was saved by the timely intervention of Burghley to whom he addressed a letter thanking him for the withdrawal of the accusations.17 In spite of persistent rumours of intended investigations into his conduct, Loftus, with the aid of Burghley and his son, Sir Robert, maintained his powerful position at the heart of Irish government until his death in 1605. Burghley achieved his twin aims of cementing his son’s place in government and in securing, if not a Regnum Cecilianum, then certainly a Cecilian ascendancy at Court. Burghley saw out the remainder of his life secure in the knowledge that, having obtained for his son and political heir, Sir Robert Cecil, the coveted post of Secretary of State, his progeny would continue to influence policies and events at the heart of government. It is perhaps ironic, that within a year of succeeding his father as Elizabeth’s chief minister, Cecil should lament the passing of Perrot when confronted by the realities of Irish politics. In tribute to the former Lord Deputy, Cecil stated that ‘till within these last five years her Majesty held Ireland in as good terms as any of her predecessors. When Sir John Perrot left, the Queen had not a word out against her.’18 As for Dennis O’Roughan, ‘the perjurer who had sworn away Sir John’s life’, a pardon, ‘subscribed by Mr. Popham when he was Queene’s Attorney’ (before 28 May 1592), was granted to him and his wife within days of the passing of Perrot’s sentence of death.19 They were pardoned by the Queen ‘of all treasons by them commytted before the xx daie of Februarie in the xxxii yere [1590] of her Maties Raigne’.20 As if this was not reward enough, in March 1593, a little over four months after Perrot’s death in the Tower, Burghley ensured that O’Roughan received 17

DNB, Vol. XXXIV, p. 76. Evans, ‘Sir John Perrot’, p. 226. C66/1396/30; 54. Quoted in part in Tenison, Elizabethan England, Vol. IX, p. 84. 20 Ibid. 18 19

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an annual pension of £40. Granted by letters patent of the Queen, the not inconsiderable sum was to be enjoyed by ‘Dennys Oroghan an Irish Preeste . . . untill he shalbe provyded of some other preferrments of the lyke or greater value, eyther in this our realme of Englande or in our Realme of Irelande’.21 Thereafter, O’Roughan disappears from the scene and he is not heard of until the early 1620s when it was reported that, ‘the villaine a little before his death (being not many yeares since) confessed with a seeming remorse for his so falsly accusing an Innocent’.22 O’Roughan’s apparent deathbed confession was, it seems, common currency in late Jacobean England and is referred to by Naunton.23 It must have come as a bitter blow for Perrot’s son, Sir James, finally to learn the truth from one whom he described as the ‘primary, if not the principall cause of his [Perrot] most lamentable overthrow and distruction’.24

21 22 23 24

Ibid. ECS, Govt. of Ireland, p. 89. Naunton, Frag. Reg., p. 43. Life, Deedes and Death, p. 113.

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ORIGINAL SOURCES: UNPUBLISHED Alnwick Castle, Northumberland Percy Letters and Papers, Vol. vi: Perrot Papers Syon House MS Y Bodleian Library, Oxford Perrott MSS Rawlinson MSS Tanner MSS Willis MSS Wood MSS British Library, London Additional MSS Cotton MSS Egerton MSS Harleian MSS Lansdowne MSS Sloane MSS Stowe MSS Cambridge University Library, Cambridge Ee 3 56: Burghley Letters Carmarthenshire Record Office, Carmarthen Cawdor (Lort) MSS Dynevor MSS

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College of Arms, London MS.6 Hatfield House, Hertfordshire Salisbury MSS: Cecil Papers Lambeth Palace Library, London Carew MSS National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth Dynevor MSS National Library MSS Northampton Record Office, Northampton Fitzwilliam Papers Public Record Office, London C66 Chancery, Patent Rolls E101 Exchequer, King’s Remembrancer, Various Accounts KB8 King’s Bench, Indictments SP10 State Papers Domestic, Edward VI SP11 State Papers Domestic, Mary I SP12 State Papers Domestic, Elizabeth I SP15 State Papers Domestic, Addenda SP63 State Papers Ireland, Elizabeth I ORIGINAL SOURCES: PUBLISHED Acts of the Privy Council of England Alston, L. (ed.), Sir Thomas Smith, De Republica Anglorum (Cambridge, 1906). Brewer, J. S. and Bullen, W. (eds), Calendar of the Carew Manuscripts preserved in the archiespiscopal library at Lambeth, 1515–1624 (6 vols., London, 1867–73). Calendar of Close Rolls Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Marquis of Salisbury at Hatfield House (24 vols., London, 1883–1976). Calendar of Ormond Deeds, Vols. iii–iv (1413–1603), ed. E. Curtis (Dublin, 1935–54).

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Calendar of Patent Rolls Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Calendar of State Papers, Ireland Camden, W., Annales: The True and Royall History of the famous Empresse Elizabeth, Queene of England (London, 1625). Clifford, A. (ed.), State Papers and Letters of Sir Ralph Sadler (2 vols., Edinburgh, 1809). Dwnn, L., Heraldic Visitations of Wales, ed. S. R. Meyrick (2 vols., Llandovery, 1846). E.C.S., The Government of Ireland under Sir John Perrot, 1584–1588 (London, 1626). Ellis, H. (ed.), Catalogue of Lansdowne Manuscripts (London, 1819). Heywood, T., England’s Elizabeth: Her Life and Troubles (London, 1632). Historical Manuscripts Commission, Report 4. Historical Manuscripts Commission: Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Marquess of Salisbury, Vol. XIII (London, 1915). Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Duke of Ormond, Vol. VII (London, 1912). Howell, T. B. (ed.), A Complete Collection of State Trials (London, 1816), Vol. I, pp. 1327–32. Holinshed, R., Chronicles, ed. H. Ellis (6 vols., London, 1807–8). Hughes, J. L. J. (ed.), Patentee Officers in Ireland (Dublin, 1960). Lloyd, D., State Worthies (London, 1665). McNeill, C. (ed.), ‘The Perrot Papers: The Letter Book of Lord Deputy Sir John Perrot between 9 July 1584 and 26 May 1586’, Analecta Hibernica, xii (1943), 1–67. Naunton, Sir Robert, Fragmenta Regalia, 3rd edn, London, 1653. In English reprints, ed. Edward Arber (London, 1895). Nichols, J., The Progresses of Queen Elizabeth (3 vols., London, 1823). Nicholls, C., The Reckoning: The Murder of Christopher Marlowe (London, 1992). Owen, E. (ed.), Catalogue of Manuscripts Relating to Wales in the British Museum (4 vols., London, 1900–22). Scott, H. S. (ed.), ‘Journal of Sir Roger Wilbraham’, Camden Society Miscellany, Vol. X (1902).

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Turvey, R. K. (ed.), A Critical Edition of Sir James Perrot’s ‘The Life, Deedes and Death of Sir John Perrott, Knight’ (Lewiston, 2002). The Works of Jonathan Swift (6 vols., Dublin, 1735 and 1738), vol. VI (1738). Wood, H. (ed.), The Chronicle of Ireland 1584–1608 by Sir James Perrott (Dublin, 1933). SECONDARY SOURCES Adams, S., Leicester and the Court: Essays on Elizabethan Politics (Manchester, 2002). Bagwell, R., Ireland under the Tudors (3 vols., London, 1885–90). Bellamy, J., The Tudor Law of Treason (London, 1979). Bernard, G. W. (ed.), The Tudor Nobility (Manchester, 1992). Bindoff, S. T. (ed.), The History of Parliament: The House of Commons, 1509–1558 (3 vols., London, 1982). Bossy, J., Giordano Bruno and the Embassy Affair (London, 1991). —— Under the Molehill: An Elizabethan Spy Story (London, 2001). Braddock, R. C., ‘The Rewards of Office Holding in Tudor England’, JBS, 14 (1975), 29–47. Brady, C. (ed.), Worsted in the Game: Losers in Irish History (Dublin, 1989). —— The Chief Governors: The Rise and Fall of Reform Government in Tudor Ireland, 1536–1588 (Cambridge, 1994). —— A Viceroy’s Vindication?: Sir Henry Sidney’s Memoir of Service in Ireland 1556–1578 (Cork, 2002). Brooks, E. St. J., Sir Christopher Hatton (London, 1946). Canny, N., Making Ireland British 1580–1650 (Oxford, 2001). Cross, C., et al. (eds.), Law and Government under the Tudors (Cambridge, 1988). Devereux, W. B., Lives and Letters of the Devereux, Earls of Essex in the Reigns of Elizabeth, James I, and Charles I, 1540–1646 (2 vols., London, 1853). Edwards, F., Plots and Plotters in the Reign of Elizabeth I (Dublin, 2002).

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Jones, W. J., The Elizabethan Court of Chancery (Oxford, 1967). Lawlor, S., ‘Fitzwilliam in Ireland, 1588–94’, Retrospect (1974), pp. 3–10. Lee, S. (ed.), The Concise Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 1939). Lehemberg, S. E., Sir Walter Mildmay and Tudor Government (Austin, 1960). Lindley, D., The Trials of Frances Howard: Fact and Fiction at the Court of King James (London, 1993). Lloyd, H. A., ‘The Essex Inheritance’, WHR, vii (1974), pp. 13–59. Lloyd, J. E. and Jenkins, R. T. (eds.), The Dictionary of Welsh Biography down to 1940 (London, 1940). Lloyd, R., Elizabethan Adventurer: A Life of Captain Christopher Carleill (London, 1974). Loades, D., The Tudor Court (Rev. edn, Bangor, 1992). MacCaffrey, W. T., Elizabeth I (London, 1993). Mathew, D., The Celtic Peoples and Renaissance Europe (London, 1933). Matthew, H. C. G. and Harrison B. (eds.), The New Dictionary of National Biography (60 vols., Oxford, 2004). Mears, N., ‘Regnum Cecilianum? A Cecilian Perspective of the Court’, in J. Guy (ed.), The Reign of Elizabeth I, pp. 46–64. Morgan, H., ‘Extradition and Treason-Trial of a Gaelic Lord: The Case of Brian O’Rourke’, Irish Jurist, 22 (1987), pp. 285–301. —— Tyrone’s Rebellion: The Outbreak of the Nine Years War in Tudor Ireland (Woodbridge, 1993). —— ‘Tom Lee: The Posing Peacemaker’, in B. Bradshaw et al. (eds.), Representing Ireland: Literature and the Origin of Conflict, 1534–1660 (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 132–65. —— ‘The Fall of Sir John Perrot’, in J. Guy (ed.), The Reign of Elizabeth I, pp. 109–25. —— ‘Perrot’s Poison Plot’, in Connor O’Brien (ed.), Feagh McHugh O’Byrne: The Wicklow Firebrand, The Journal of the Rathdrum Historical Society, Vol. I (1998), pp. 182–96. Nolan, J., Sir John Norreys and the Elizabethan Military World (Exeter, 1997). Nichols, J. G. (ed.), ‘Diary of Henry Machyn, citizen of London, 1550–1563’, Camden Society, 1st ser., 42 (1847).

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Abermarlais (Carms.) 4, 17 n.14, 76 Acts of Parliament (Eng.) Poynings (1494) 36, 37, 41 Treason (1534, 1571) 124 Adams, Simon 53, 97 Anderson, Sir Edmund 120, 130, 134, 141 n.32, 145, 166, 169, 176–7 Antrim (Ire.) 23 Armagh (Ire.) 21 Arundel, trial of 84, 129 Asteley, Catherine 51 Athlone (Ire.) 15, 108 Babington, plot 75, 91, 176 n.115 Bagenal, Captain Dudley 25 Bagenal, Sir Henry 25 Bagenal, Sir Nicholas, Marshal of the Army 20, 21, 25, 28, 33, 41, 62, 63, 143 n.41 family of 28 Bagot, Richard 113 Bagwell, Richard 26, 80, 117 Baltimore (Ire.) 12 Baltinglass, viscount see Eustace, James Bancroft, Richard 27, 73, 74 Banister, Mr 8

Bargh, John 163 n.95 Barlow, William, bishop of St David’s 5 Baynard’s Castle 84 Beale, Robert 58 Bellamy, John 120, 123, 143 n.40 Berkeley, James 4 daughter of, Mary 4 Berkeley, Maurice, Lord 4 Bingham, Captain George 109, 129 Bingham, Sir Richard 19, 20, 21, 34, 41, 63, 74, 98, 108–10, 129, 155 n.75 Bird, Henry 90 Blount, Sir Michael 134 n.1, 135, 168, 179 son of 167 Blunt, Sir Christopher 120 Brooke, William, 10th Baron Cobham 54, 84 Brooks, Eric St John 74 Broughton, Richard 113 Browne, John 163 n.97 Buckhurst, Lord see Sackville, Thomas Buckingham, duke of 125 n.29 Burghley, Lord see Cecil, Sir William

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INDEX

Butler, Hugh 71 Butler, Thomas, 10th earl of Ormond 10, 17 n.14, 19, 20, 21, 22, 28, 31, 41, 46, 76–8, 81 Butler, Sir Tibbot (Theobald) 144 n.42, 153 n.71 Cahir (Ire.) 144 n.42 Calthorpe, Sir Charles 21, 93, 103 Camden, William 52, 54, 59, 60, 71, 72, 73, 75, 78, 129, 184, 185 Campbell, Lord, John 117 Canny, Nicholas 17 Carew (Pembs.) 10, 17 n.14, 19, 77, 185 castle of 8, 11, 17, 43, 76 lordship of 8 manor of 9 Carew, Sir George 40–1, 50, 54, 58, 62, 69, 85, 86, 96, 107 n.71 Carey, Henry, Lord Hunsdon 95, 102, 105, 120, 130, 134, 141 n.33, 145, 152, 154, 159, 160, 166, 168, 170–1, 172, 173–4, 175, 179, 181 Carleill, Captain Christopher 18, 24 letter to Walsingham 24 Carlow (Ire.), sheriff of 20 Carmarthenshire, elections in 6 Carr, Robert, juror 140 Cashel (Ire.) see Magrath, Miler, archbishop of Castiglione 59 ‘Castle Welshmen’ 151 n.66 Catherne, Thomas 8, 9 Cavanaugh, Cahir Ore (Cavener) 159 n.87 Cecil, Sir Robert 59, 82, 97, 101–2, 120, 134, 166, 188

Cecil, Sir Thomas 68, 92 Cecil, Sir William, 1st Baron Burghley 10, 17–18, 23, 24, 27, 32, 52, 55, 56, 57, 59, 60, 63, 65, 75, 76, 78–83, 86–7, 88, 89, 92–3, 95, 97–9, 100–14, 120, 124, 128, 132, 133, 138, 187, 188 letters of 26, 59, 73, 107 letters to 26, 29, 30, 31, 33, 34, 37, 38, 67, 68, 69, 86, 100, 104, 105, 109, 110, 111, 146 servants of 48 Cecil House 102, 103, 112, 138 n.19 Charles I, reign of 118 Cheyney, Sir Thomas 7 Chiswell, Richard 132 Christ Church (Ire.) 26 Chronicle of Ireland 30, 64, 79 n.74 Cinque Ports, Lord Warden of 7 Cobbett, William 131, 133 Cobham, Lord see Brooke, William Coke, Edward 186 Coedrath (Pembs.) 9 Coleraine (Ire.) 18, 24 Connacht (Ire.) 19, 34, 38, 41, 94, 108 composition of 41, 64 Cork (Ire.) 10, 12 Cornwallis, Sir Thomas 46–7 Coruna, La (Groine) 163 n.95 Council in Wales and the Marches 10, 84 Covent Garden 85 Cox, Samuel 48 Croft, Sir James 56, 57 Croke, John 167 n.104, 168, 179 Cromwell, Thomas 124

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Dacre, Lord 122 ‘Davie’ 161 n.92 Davison, William 40, 52 n.33 Dawtrey, Captain Nicholas 32 Delvin, Lord 31, 74 Deryfold, pirate 12 Desmond, earl of 34, 38 Devereux, Dorothy 86, 180 n.118 Devereux, Sir Richard 6 Devereux, Robert, 2nd earl of Essex 85, 86–7, 97, 120, 128, 129, 180 n.118, 185 Devereux, Walter, 1st earl of Essex 71, 86, 180 n.118 Dictionary of National Biography, The 14, 80 Dillon, Sir Lucas 20, 21, 22, 66, 67 n.24, 69, 93, 94, 101, 104, 149 n.57 Dillon, Nathaniel 148–9 & n.57, 187 Dillon, Sir Robert 21, 22, 149 n.57 Drury, Sir Dru 77 Drury, Sir William 12 Dublin 10, 15, 19, 20, 23, 36, 64, 139, 145 archbishop of see Loftus, Adam Castle Chamber, Court of 90 castle of 33, 69, 89, 91 n.8, 103, 104, 144, 151, 153, 157, 158, 159 n.87, 186 university 26, 41, 145 Dudley, Ambrose, earl of Warwick 6, 14, 16, 17, 43, 50, 55, 56, 83, 98 Dudley, John, duke of Northumberland 6, 45 Dudley, Sir Robert, earl of Leicester 9, 16, 17, 38, 44, 50, 52, 56, 59, 81, 83, 134 n.2, 162 n.93

201

Dudley conspiracy 8, 113 Duke, Sir Henry 69, 96, 103 & n.53 Dunlop, Robert 14, 79 Dunluce (Ire.), castle of 23 Dwnn, Lewys 71–3 Dyer, Sir Edward 49, 73 Dyer, Lady (nee Fitzwilliam) 100 ECS 62, 77, 79, 81, 129, 130, 184, 185 Edlyn, Richard, juror 140 Edward VI 6, 7, 45, 48, 76, 175 Egerton, Sir Thomas 95, 96, 112, 117, 152–3 n.69, 154, 165, 171–2, 186 Elizabeth, princess of France 6 Elizabeth I 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 16, 27, 29, 39–40, 44–5, 47, 56, 63, 85, 92–3, 97, 129–30, 183 coronation of 9, 46 Court of 14–15, 16, 27, 31, 41, 43–53, 77 ladies-in-waiting 51 n.28 letters of 32, 37–8, 147 Elizabethan England 80 Elton, Sir Geoffrey 119, 122 Ely Place 111 Emlyn, Sollom 132 Englefield, Sir Francis 55 Errington, Captain Francis 146 n.47 Essex, earls of see Devereux, Robert; Devereux, Walter Eustace, James, 3rd viscount Baltinglass 34, 106, 136 & nn.7,8, 157, 158 Evans, P. C. C. 68, 80 Farnese, Alexander, duke of Parma 123, 139 n.23, 163

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Fenner, Edward 134, 166 Fenton, Sir Geoffrey 19, 20, 21, 22, 27, 31, 33, 35, 41, 62, 65, 107, 110, 136 n.11 Fitzgibbon, Edmund Fitzjohn 150 n.63 Fitzmaurice, (Fitzgerald) James 10 rebellion of 10 Fitzwilliam, John 89, 91, 94, 100 Fitzwilliam, Sir William 42, 60, 62–9, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 85, 88, 89, 91 n.8, 92–3, 94–5, 96, 97, 99, 100, 103, 107, 108, 186–7 appointment as Lord Deputy 62–3 Irish Offices 62 letters of 64, 68, 69 queen’s opinion of 63 son-in-law 100 wife of 101 Fleming, James, Lord Slane 100, 101 n.42 Fortescue, Sir John 53, 54, 56, 57, 120, 134, 166 Fowler, Thomas, juror 140 Foxe, John 87 France 6, 8 Francisci, Jacomo di (Captain Jaques) 74–5 Fynglwyd, Dafydd 5 Galloway (Ire.) 41 gallowglass 156 n.80 Gardiner, Robert 21, 95 Garland, John 119, 127, 148 n.56, 149, 152 n.68, 186–7 Garrard, John 140 n.29, 166 n.103 Gawdy, Francis 120, 134, 166 George, Sir William 12

Gerard, Sir Gilbert 134, 147 n.50 Germany 161 visitor from 35 Gilbert, Sir Humphrey 10 Goodyer, Henry, juror 140 Government of Ireland . . . under Sir John Perrot, The 77 Graves, M. A. R. 57, 95 Greenwich, palace of 12, 46, 57, 99, 165 Gregory XIII, pope 137 Grey, Arthur, baron de Wilton 15, 16, 17, 18, 144 n.42 Guy, John 56 Haigh, Christopher 73 Haly, Nicholas 153–4 & n.73, 155, 157 Hamilton, H. C. 70 Hammer, Paul E. J. 54, 121, 185 Haroldston (Pembs.) 4, 8, 11 Harrington, Sir Henry 96 Hastings, Sir Edward 8 Hatton, Sir Christopher 47–8, 49–50, 52, 57, 59, 60, 69, 71–3, 74, 75 n.62, 79, 80, 81, 82, 95, 96, 99 n.36, 102, 105, 110, 117, 121 alleged daughter of, Elizabeth 71–3 Haverfordwest (Pembs.) 9, 11 borough of 9 election in 55 n.46 gaol 9 mayor of 9, 11 priory of 9 Hawtrey, John, juror 140 Heneage, Sir Thomas 56, 58, 83, 86, 98, 107 Henley, Pauline 80 Henllys (Pembs.) 9 Henry II, king of France 6

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Henry VIII 4, 5–6 Court of 5 Herbert, Sir Edward 8, 84 Herbert, Henry, 2nd earl of Pembroke 84 Lord President of Wales 84–5 Herbert, Phillip, 4th earl of Pembroke 84 Herbert, William, 1st earl of Pembroke 7, 8, 50, 57, 84, 146 n.48 Herbert, William, 3rd earl of Pembroke 84 Hichcock, William, juror 140 Hickes, Sir Michael 48, 101, 132 High Commission (Ire.), Court of 90 Holford, Henry, juror 140 Howard, Charles, Baron Effingham 84, 102 Howells, Thomas 131 Hunsdon, Lord see Carey, Henry Hurstfield, Joel 102 Inns of Court 73 ‘Introduction to Polite Conversation’ 3 Ireland 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14–42, 43, 54, 60, 65, 158 Council of 19, 24, 25, 36, 37, 58, 63, 66, 68, 69, 89, 94, 107, 136, 149, 151 Lord Deputy of see Grey, Arthur; Sidney, Sir Henry; Perrot, Sir John Lord Justice of 18 parliament of 34, 35–9, 41, 145 revenues in 34–5, 41 Ireland under the Tudors 80 Jenyson, Thomas 21 Jones, Sir Henry 5, 13, 17, 76, 163 n.96

203

Jones, Sir Thomas 4, 45, 162 n.94 Jones, Thomas, bishop of Meath 21, 37, 93, 145 n.43 wife of, Mary (nee Perrot) 4 Kentish Knocks 12 Kilkenny (Ire.) 29 Kingston, Sir Anthony 8 Kinton, William, juror 140 Knollys, Sir Francis 50, 55, 57, 70, 71 Laugharne (Carms.), castle of 11 Lea, Captain Henry 24 Lee, Sir Henry 134 n.2 Lee, Captain Thomas 64, 94, 159 n.87 Legge, Robert 64, 94, 188 Leicester, earl of see Dudley, Sir Robert Leinster (Ire.) 38 Leonard, Margaret 157–8 & n.83 Llanegwad (Carms.) 4 Lloyd, David 72 Loades, David 48 Loftus, Adam, archbishop of Dublin, Lord Chancellor 18, 19, 21, 25–8, 29–30, 31, 32, 34, 37–8, 41, 60, 62, 64, 65, 68, 69, 70, 71, 74, 78, 81, 88, 89, 91, 92 n.13, 99, 137 n.12, 145, 149, 187–8 faction of 28 family of 28 letters of 26, 33, 37, 110 St Patrick’s, dispute over 26–8, 29–30 Loftus, Captain Dudley 146 n.45 London 5, 6, 56, 103, 104 Tower of 8, 14, 52 n.33, 86, 99, 102, 105, 112, 113,

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London, Tower of (cont.) 114, 123, 128, 131, 134, 138, 148, 167, 179, 182, 188 London, John 158 n.85 Long, John, archbishop of Armagh 21 Lough Foyle (Ire.) 23 Ludlow (Salop.) 85 McCragh, Dr Dermitius 150 n.61, 153, 155 MacDonnell, Sorley Boy 22–3, 41 Machell, John, juror 140 Machiavelli 59 Machyn, Henry 113 MacMahon, Hugh Roe 187 Madrid (Sp.) 136 Magrath, Miler, archbishop of Cashel 90, 153 n.71, 154, 156 n.79 Manners, Sir Roger 39, 85 Maplesden, John 91& n.8, 186 Martin, Sir Richard 140–1 n.30 Mary I 7, 8, 45–6, 48, 113 Mary, Queen of Scots 52 n.33, 75, 129, 163 n.96, 176 n.115 trial of 84, 120, Mathew, David 80 Matthew, Toby, bishop of Durham 101 Meagher, James 103–4 Meath (Ire.), bishop of 21 Megges, William, juror 140 Merbury, Captain John 127, 155 n.77, 187 Meredith, Richard, bishop of Leighlin 21, 93, 94, 103, 104 Middlesex, sheriffs of 140 n.29 Mildmay, Sir Walter 53, 56 Milford Haven 19, 163

Monaghan (Ire.), lordship of 187 Moore, Sir Edward 69, 93, 101, 104, 107 Morgan, Hiram 22, 66, 80, 94, 95, 98, 108, 112 Morgan, John 107 Morgan, Sir William 12–13 Morrice, Richard 153 n.70, 155 Munster (Ire.) 9, 10, 19, 20, 29, 34, 38, 94 Lord President of 12, 15, 16, 29, 47, 62, 70, 76, 79 men of 24 settlement of 19, 29, 41, 95 Myllett, George, juror 140 Narberth (Pembs.), castle of 9 Naunton, Sir Robert 4, 46, 47, 50, 60, 62, 69, 71, 72, 80, 81, 127, 129, 184, 185, 189 Netherlands 41, 139, 162 n.93 Neville, Henry, 6th Baron Bergavenny 5 Nine Years’ War 63, 187 Nolan, Thady 187 Nonsuch, palace of 57 Norfolk duke of 87, 119, 129 trial of 84, 118, 119 Norris, Sir John 19, 20, 21, 24, 31, 34, 41, 87 n.98 North, Sir Roger 46 Nowell, Alexander 8 Nowell, Laurence 8 Oakford (Devon) 7 Oatlands, palace of 57 O’Brien, Donough, earl of Thomond 22 O’Byrne, Feagh MacHugh 157–8 & n.82, 162 O’Donnell, Hugh Roe, lord of Tyrconnell 91 n.8

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Offley, Hugh, 140–1 n.30 O’Mollony, Malachy 106 O’Neill, Hugh, Baron Dungannon and earl of Tyrone 25 n.45 O’Neill, Turlough Luineach 23, 25 n.45 Ormond, earl of see Butler, Thomas O’Roughan, Dennis 70, 71, 75, 88, 89–99, 102, 103, 104–6, 119, 121, 125, 127, 136, 137, 151, 152 n.68, 157–8, 160, 185, 188–9 wife of, Margaret Leonard 157–8 O’Rourke, Sir Brian 54, 104, 108–9, 110–11, 112–13, 123, 129, 137 n.17, 156 n.79, 161 Owen, George 9 Oxford, earls of see Vere, Edward de; Vere, John de Page, John, juror 140 Pagenton, William, juror 140 Parliament (Eng.) 36, 37, 46, 55 Marian 7, 8 Parma, duke of see Farnese, Alexander Parr, William, 1st marquis of Northampton 6 Parry, Blanche 51 Parry, plot 75, 91 Paulet, Sir Amyas 54 Paulet, Sir William, Baron St John and 1st marquis of Winchester 5, 6, 45, 50 Pelham, Sir William 12 Pembroke, earl of see Herbert, Henry; Herbert, Phillip; Herbert, William (2)

205

Pembrokeshire 10, 43 Perrot estates in 6 sheriff in 6 Pencoed (Glam.) 13 Perrot, Ann 7 Perrot, Elizabeth 7, 71 Perrot, Sir James 3, 6, 7, 11, 16–17, 30, 42, 45, 51, 61, 62, 63–4, 67, 72, 75, 92, 94, 184, 185, 186, 189 Perrot, John 7 Perrot, Sir John 3, 11, 14 character of 3–4, 21, 50, 72, 113–14, 184 death of 185 description of 3–4 daughters of see Perrot, Ann; Perrot, Elizabeth; Perrot, Lettice early life 4–6 education 5 ill-health 40–1 in France 6 indictment of 123, 135–40 in Ireland 9–11, 13, 19–42 Irish Parliament 34, 35–9 judgement on 128–31, 164–5, 166–78 knighting of 6 letter to 32, 37–8, 69 letters of 10, 11, 24, 26, 27, 29, 30, 32, 36, 38, 39–40, 64, 67–8, 73, 77, 100, 110, 111, 147 n.54 Lord Deputy of Ireland 19–42; appointment of 13, 15–19 Lord President of Munster 9–11, 15, 16, 47, 76, 79 mayor of Haverfordwest 9, 11 petition of 178–81 ‘Plat for Ireland’ 15 Privy Councillor 43–60, 65, 69, 75, 78, 83–4, 99

206

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quarrel with Queen 57–8 St Patrick’s, dispute over 26–8, 29–30, 32, 145–6 sheriff of Pembs. 6 sons of see Perrot, Sir James; Perrot, John; Perrot, Sir Thomas; Perrot, William trial of 125–8, 141–64 wives of, (1) Ann, daughter of Sir Thomas Cheyney 7; (2) Jane, daughter of Hugh Prust, widow of Lewis Pollard 7, 181 n.119, 185, 186 Perrot, John of Scotsborough 6 Perrot, Lettice 7 Perrot, Mary (nee Berkeley) 4 Perrot, Sir Owen 4 Perrot, Penelope 72, 180 n.117, 186 Perrot, Rice or Rhys 6, 8 Perrot, Robert 4 Perrot, Thomas 4 Perrot, Sir Thomas 7, 10, 48 n.18, 51, 56 n.50, 86, 103, 113, 128, 142 n.37, 180, 181, 185, 186 knighting of 12 son of, Robert 181 n.120, 186 wife of, Dorothy (nee Devereux) 86, 186 Perrot, William 7, 39, 181 n.119 Peryam, William 134, 166 n.103 Peter and Paul, Portuguese merchantman 10, 70, 79 Petty, Sir William, earl of Shelburne 132 Philip II, king of Spain 89, 92, 103, 106, 109, 123, 137 n.15, 157, 161 piracy 12–13 Pollard, Lewis 7

Popham, Sir John 95, 96, 112, 117, 126, 148 n.55, 150, 151–4, 156, 160, 165, 186, 188 Powell, John, juror 140 Power, William 153 n.72, 157 Powle, Thomas 147 n.51 Prendergast (Pembs.) 8 prisons Fleet 7, 8 Marshalsea 8, 99 Privy Council 10, 11, 12, 15, 16, 23, 26, 33, 34, 36, 39–40, 41, 43–60, 64, 65, 69, 83, 92, 99, 105, 111, 186 Prust, Hugh 7 Puckering, Sir John 70, 71, 120, 134, 125, 140 n.28, 142–3, 145, 146, 149, 164, 165, 186 Queney, Bartholomew, juror 140 Radcliffe, Thomas, earl of Sussex 9, 56 Ralegh, Sir Walter 73, 86, 130 Reed, Christopher, juror 140 Reynolds, John 109 Rhys ap Hugh 103 Richmond, palace of 57 Roe, Henry, juror 140 Rokeby, Ralph 134, 166, 167, 174 n.110 Rosslare (Ire.) 161 Russell, Charles 48, 77 Russell, Thomas, juror 140 Rutland, earl of 85 Sackville, Thomas, Lord Buckhurst 53, 54, 57, 102, 120, 130, 134, 141 n.35, 144, 149, 150, 157, 159, 166, 172, 174

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Sadler, Sir Ralph 56 St David’s, school at 5 St Patrick’s (Ire.) cathedral of 26–8, 29–30, 32, 74, 79, 145–6 ‘plat’ for 26 St Paul’s, dean of 107 St Quentin (Fra.) 8 Salmon, Thomas 132 Sandwich (Kent) 7 Sandys, Edwin 56 n.50 Sandys, Miles 56 n.50, 138 n.20, 141, 168, 169, 174 Scotsborough (Pembs.) 6 Scudamore, Mary 51 n.28 Seager, Stephen 69, 91 n.8, 103, 119, 127, 151–2 & n.67, 174, 175, 186 Seymour, Edward, Protector Somerset 6 Sheffield, Captain Henry 20 letter to Burghley 20 Shrewsbury, earl of see Talbot, George Shurland (Kent) 7 Sidney, Sir Henry 9, 10, 15, 16, 17, 25, 29, 65, 78, 88 wife of, Lady Sidney 23 Sidney, Sir Phillip 16, 180 n.117 Smith, A. G. R. 53, 101 Smith, Sir Thomas 164 n.100 Snagge, Thomas 168 n.105 Somerset, William, 3rd earl of Worcester 7 Spain 41, 55, 136, 139, 153, 157, 158 Armada 55, 91, 147 n.54 Stafford, Lady Dorothy 51 n.28 Stanley, Sir William 31, 74, 75, 123, 139 n.25, 161–3 Star Chamber, court of 30, 55 State Trials 131–3 State Worthies 72

207

Stepney, Alban 9 Stone, John, juror 140 Strand, the 56, 102 Strype, John 132 Sussex, earl of see Radcliffe, Thomas Swale, Dr Richard 81–2 Swift, Jonathan 3 Talbot, George, 6th earl of Shrewsbury 56 tanistry 41 Taylor, Robert 140 n.29 Tenby, castle of 9 Tenison, E. M. 69, 75, 80, 102 Thames, river 12 Thomas, Rhys 127, 151 n.66 Thomas, Richard 158 n.84 Thornbury (Gloucs.) 4 Thornery (Devon) 7 Throckmorton, Sir Nicholas 122 Throckmorton, plot 91 Tipperary (Ire.) 29 Treadwell, Victor 26 Trevor, Charles (Cairbre O’Treabhair) 104, 109, 129 Tyrone, rebellion 94 Ulster 20, 21–5 & n.45, 41 Scots in 22–3 Ussher, Henry 27 Vaughan, Sir Richard 13 Vavausor, John, juror 140 Vere, Edward de, 17th earl of Oxford 49, 73 Vere, John de, 16th earl of Oxford 5 Wallop, Sir Henry 18, 20, 21, 24, 27, 28, 30, 31, 34, 41, 62, 63, 66, 70, 92 n.13

208

INDEX

Walshe, Edward 93 Walsingham, Sir Francis 9, 14, 16, 17–18, 19, 21, 23, 31, 32, 43, 49, 50, 52, 55, 56, 57, 68, 83, 84, 89, 93, 97, 98, 100, 104, 108, 114, 150, 168 n.105 letters to 10, 24, 26, 27, 28, 31, 32, 33, 35, 39, 66, 67 n.24, 147 n.54 wife of, Lady Walsingham 23 Warwick, earl of see Dudley, Ambrose Waterford (Ire.) 10, 12, 103 Waterhouse, Sir Edward 21, 33, 89, 93, 101 Weeks, Richard, juror 140 Wentworth, Sir William 114 West, James 132 West Breifne (Ire.) 96, 104, 108 Westminster, palace of 102, 165 Westminster Hall 46, 114, 123, 166, 182, 184 Wexford (Ire.) 161 n. 91 White, Francis 161 n.91 White, Sir Nicholas 21, 29, 37, 66, 67 n.24, 69, 92, 93, 94, 103, 104, 107, 161 n.91, 168 n.105

White Knight see Fitzgibbon, Edmund Fitzjohn Whitehall, palace of 57 Whitland (Carms.) 13 Widebank, Thomas 57–8 Wilbraham, Sir Roger 21, 64, 81–2 Wild, Humphrey, juror 140 Williams, Phillip 28, 70, 91, 100, 121, 125, 127, 146–8, 152 n.68, 174, 187 Williams, Sir Thomas 107, 146, 162 n.94 Wilton (Wilts.) 85 Winchester, marquis of see Paulet, Sir William, Wolley, John 120, 134, 166 Woodhouse, Captain Thomas 127, 155 n.76, 156, 187 Worsley, John 94, 99 Wyrriot, Thomas 71, 140 n.28 York, archbishop of 56 York House 56 n.50, 102, 103, 111 Yorke, Edmund 103 Young, Patrick 154 n.74