Family and Education

b. c.1572, illegit. s. of Sir John Perrot† (d.1592) and Sybil Jones of Rad.; half-bro. of Sir Thomas†. educ. Jesus, Oxf. 1586, aged 14; M. Temple 1591.1 m. by 1603, Mary (d. 9 May 1639), da. of Robert Ashfield of Chesham, Bucks., 2da. d.v.p.2 suc. half-bro. Sir Thomas 1594; kntd. ?June 1603.3 d. 4 Feb. 1637. sig. James Perrott.

Offices Held

J.p. Pemb. 1598-1615 (custos rot. 1601-at least 1608), 1623-d., Haverfordwest, Pemb. 1601-d.;4 steward, manors of Traean March and St. Clears, Traean Clinton and St. Clears, Traean Morgan and St. Clears, Pemb. and Carm. 1601, lordship of Cilgerran, Pemb. 1601, Carew, Fletherhill, Benton, Cosheston, Nolton, Walwyn’s Castle and Syke, Robeston and Honeyborough, Pemb. 1602; bailiff, manors of Traean March and St. Clears, Traean Morgan and St. Clears 1602;5 common cllr. Haverfordwest by 1605, mayor, 1605, 1623-4, 1633-4, alderman 1610-d.;6 commr. to examine debts of William Morgan, deceased, Pemb. 1605;7 dep. lt. Pemb. 1608-at least 1627,8 commr. admty. causes 1608,9 inquiry into lands belonging to his father 1610;10 dep. v.-adm. S. Wales for Pemb., Card., Carm. c.1611-d.,11 commr. levying mises, Pemb. 1612,12 subsidy, Haverfordwest 1622,13 piracy causes, S. Wales 1623,14 Irish wreck, Pemb. 1623,15 subsidy arrears, Haverfordwest 1626,16 Forced Loan, Pemb. 1627;17 ?col. militia ft. Pemb. c.1627;18 commr. knighthood fines, Pemb. 1630,19 wreck inquiry 1631,20 exacted fees, Pemb., Carm., Card. 1635.21

Capt. of ft. and ‘gov. of the Newry’ [I] 1608-10;22 commr. Irish plantations 1622-3.23

Gent. pens. 1608.24

Member, Virg. Co. by 1620, Mines Royal Co. by 1624.25

Biography

A pivotal figure in both Pembrokeshire and Westminster politics, Perrot has attracted admiration and revulsion in equal measure. His earliest biographer, the puritan Daniel Morrice, described him as ‘very zealous for the common interest of religion and the kingdom’, whereas the modern historian of early Stuart Wales considers him to have been a religious bigot, who showed ‘total unconcern for spiritual sensitivities other than his own’. Whichever view one takes, it is hard to disagree with G.D. Owen’s assessment that Perrot was as ‘an exceptional man’ who ‘deserves to be counted ... in the second rank’ of early seventeenth-century Commons’ Members.26

I. Early Life

Perrot’s family was settled in Pembrokeshire by the end of the thirteenth century, but falsely claimed to have been resident there much earlier.27 The family did not achieve prominence until the second half of the sixteenth century, when Sir John Perrot served as lord president of Munster (1570-3) and lord deputy of Ireland (1584-8). Posthumously alleged to have been a bastard son of Henry VIII,28 Sir John sat in Parliament on half a dozen occasions and acquired ‘a vast estate’ in South Wales.29 Twice married, he fathered a son by each of his wives. His mistress, Sybil Jones, gave him a third son, James, the subject of this biography. Probably born in Munster, James may have spent much of his boyhood at Westmead, near Pendine in Carmarthenshire, rather than at the family seat of Haroldston, in Pembrokeshire. However, on 29 May 1584 his father, who was then about to leave for Dublin, formally acknowledged him. Sir John instructed that his property should descend to those of his own blood and name, or at the least ‘to such of his name as he liketh and careth for’,30 and provision was made for James to inherit a valuable parcel of land outside Haverfordwest known as Prior’s Hill.31 Six years later, Sir John reaffirmed his intention to provide for his illegitimate son after learning that the conveyance of 1584 had failed to settle upon James the remainder to his estates. Accordingly, a fresh assurance was drawn up, to which lord treasurer Burghley (William Cecil†) and Sir Henry Cobham (Henry Cobham alias Brooke I†) were signatories.32

Perrot was admitted to Jesus College, Oxford in July 1586. His fellow students included Nicholas Adams† of Peterchurch, in Pembrokeshire, who was later to act as one of his trustees. Although Perrot did not graduate he received a thorough university education, for he later boasted in print an impressive grounding in the Classics and Greek philosophy.33 On leaving Oxford, Perrot reportedly travelled abroad for a few years, returning home ‘an accomplished gentleman’.34 In January 1591 he entered the Middle Temple, perhaps intending to embark upon a legal career, but his plans were undoubtedly disrupted by the imprisonment, attainder and death of his father. In the short term, the family’s fortunes were retrieved by the queen’s favourite, Robert Devereux, 2nd earl of Essex, whose sister had married Perrot’s surviving elder brother, Sir Thomas. Aided by Essex, who like the Perrots owned a considerable Pembrokeshire estate, Sir Thomas was restored in blood in March 1593. However, in February 1594 Sir Thomas died without male issue, leaving James as his father’s sole surviving son. Under normal circumstances, Perrot would now have inherited his family’s estates without difficulty, but his illegitimacy posed a significant impediment to his smooth succession. Three months after the death of Sir Thomas, the latter’s widow, Dorothy, obtained a grant from the queen of those lands she claimed as her jointure.35 Emboldened by this success, Dorothy and her new husband, Henry Percy, 9th earl of Northumberland, subsequently laid title to additional properties. Perrot’s difficulties were aggravated by Thomas Perrot of London, a descendant of a younger brother of Perrot’s paternal grandfather. Like Dorothy, Thomas claimed title to the Perrot estates, and although he sometimes acted in concert with Perrot against Dorothy his ambitions were ultimately incompatible with those of Perrot himself.36

In the midst of these disputes, Perrot turned to Essex, whose favour he had enjoyed since his father’s death.37 In 1596 he dedicated to the earl his first published work, entitled Discovery of Discontented Minds, a treatise aimed at discouraging soldiers and scholars from settling abroad where they might plot an invasion. Three years later, he reiterated his devotion to Essex by asking to be permitted to accompany the earl on campaign in Ireland.38 Essex may not have been entirely comfortable that Perrot turned to him for assistance, as it was his sister who was Perrot’s principal protagonist. Indeed, his loyalty to Dorothy induced him to help her rather than Perrot to several parsonages in Carmarthenshire and goods worth £5,000.39 However, in general he endeavoured to remain even-handed, and to broker a settlement that would satisfy all parties.40 He therefore persuaded Dorothy to surrender the lands she had been granted in return for an annuity payable by Perrot.41

As well as Essex, Perrot lobbied the queen’s first minister, Robert Cecil†, after whom he apparently named his first-born daughter.42 His persistence eventually paid dividends, for in July 1597 a 21-year lease of the house and lands at Haroldston was granted to Nicholas Adams on his behalf, while in September 1599 Perrot himself received a grant from the queen of lands which his father had previously conveyed to him, although this proved extremely expensive.43 On James I’s accession, the question of Perrot’s inheritance was reopened. The countess of Northumberland obtained an increase in her annuity and a lease of those Perrot lands that remained in the queen’s hands.44 This was a severe setback, but in August 1608 the issue was largely resolved, as Perrot was granted a royal licence to hold all those lands which had formerly belonged to his father. Nevertheless, Thomas Perrot continued to oppose Perrot’s title for at least another year,45 while as late as February 1619 Perrot complained to Chancery that 200 acres in Pembroke, once the property of his father, were being withheld from him by another man.46

Perrot’s South Wales estates eventually comprised more than 3,100 acres,47 a considerable landholding which entitled him to occupy a prominent position in local affairs. In 1597 he was elected to Parliament for Haverfordwest, and in the following year he was appointed to the Pembrokeshire bench. In 1601 he successfully petitioned to be appointed chairman of the bench, to the disgust of Sir John Wogan of Boulston, who had coveted the position himself, but he was not admitted to the ranks of the county’s deputy lieutenants until 1608 as Wogan threatened to resign from this office himself if the base-born Perrot was joined with him.48 In 1601 Perrot, assisted by Essex, acquired several stewardships of Crown lands in South Wales that had previously been held by his father.49 He is not known to have sought re-election for Haverfordwest that same year.

II. The First Jacobean Parliament

Perrot served as an esquire of the body at Queen Elizabeth’s funeral in April 1603,50 and shortly thereafter was knighted. Perhaps through the good offices of the mayor of Haverfordwest, his old friend Nicholas Adams, he was again returned to Parliament the following year. He played only a modest role in the opening session of the first Jacobean Parliament. His sole committee appointment was to consider three related bills, one of which was to restore in blood the young 3rd earl of Essex (2 Apr 1604.), a measure in which he clearly had a personal interest. On 14 Apr. he was also instructed to attend a conference with the Lords regarding the proposed Union. He received no further mention in the records until 5 May, when he entered into a ‘long and learned discourse touching matters of religion’. His speech, which was described by the clerk of the Commons as ‘very good’, concluded with a proposal for a further conference with the Lords.51

During the long interval between the first and second sessions, Perrot became restive. In the summer of 1605 he offered to serve the king in Ireland, where his brother-in-law, Sir Arthur Chichester, had recently been appointed lord deputy. Indeed, he suggested that the office of ‘cess-master’ be created especially for him.52 His offer was not taken up, possibly because he was now mayor of Haverfordwest and therefore needed locally. Perrot played no recorded part in proceedings when the Commons briefly reassembled in November 1605, perhaps for the same reason, but he had returned to Westminster by 23 Jan. 1606, when he was appointed to consider a bill to institute an annual thanksgiving for Parliament’s deliverance from the Gunpowder Plot.53 Thereafter Perrot featured regularly in the parliamentary records, a reflection no doubt of his growing confidence and stature. A passionate puritan, he was named on 15 Feb. to consider the bill for establishing a learned ministry, alongside the equally zealous Nicholas Fuller and Sir Anthony Cope. A short while earlier (3 Feb.) he was added to the committee to consider the treatment of recusants, a subject to which he was to return repeatedly throughout his parliamentary career.54 It is surprising that he was not named to this committee at the outset. Equally surprising is his omission from the committee established on 10 Apr. to confer with the Lords about grievances connected with the Church. He may have been present when it was established, as earlier that same day he had been appointed to help consider the free trade bill. He attended the committee anyway, for at one of its meetings he and several others were assigned to consider the problem of deprived ministers.55

Questions of religion did not entirely dominate Perrot’s parliamentary agenda. On 11 Mar. he participated in the debate on purveyance and supply, in which he expressed sympathy for the Crown’s financial difficulties. Reminding the House that the king had inherited a debt of £400,000, and that the Crown’s annual expenses exceeded its income, he approved of the proposal to increase royal revenues by draining the fens, but considered that the king’s wants should be linked to the redress of grievances.56 It was ‘to consider and dispute’ those same grievances that, on 8 Apr., he was named to a 19-member strong committee. He remained a key figure in their discussion, for on the morning of 14 May he and several other Members were deputed to present the House’s grievances to James that afternoon.57 Grievances were a matter of national importance, as was religious reform, but topics of a more local nature also interested Perrot, particularly when they touched upon his native South Wales. Thus he was appointed to committees for the bills to repair Chepstow bridge (31 Mar.) and restore the lands of the 2nd earl of Essex’s steward, (Sir) Gelly Meyrick† to the latter’s son and heir (1 April).58

Following the end of the session, Perrot unsuccessfully renewed his efforts to secure an Irish posting.59 By the time Parliament reassembled, in November 1606, he was well known at Westminster. Indeed, his reputation for godliness was gently mocked in the irreverent ‘Parliament Fart’ poem of 1607, in which he was made to declare, ‘it grieves me to the heart to hear a private man swear for a public fart’.60 From the outset of the new session Perrot again placed questions of religion uppermost on his agenda. On 29 Nov. he was appointed to consider a bill for correcting the abuses of the ecclesiastical courts, while on 11 Dec. he was nominated to the committee for restraining ecclesiastical canons that had not been confirmed by Parliament.61 On 18 May he was appointed to help draft a petition to the king, in which James was to be asked to ensure that the recusancy laws were properly executed, to allow greater freedom of preaching, and to eliminate non-residence and pluralism. James subsequently indicated that he would not take kindly to being urged to implement the recusancy laws as he would always be careful to see that such laws were properly executed. This unpromising response prompted the House to establish a committee, of which Perrot was a member, to discover whether the king was entitled by precedent to comment upon a petition which was still being formulated. Two days later James again attempted to prevent the House from submitting its petition, when he informed Members that he had already dealt with their concerns about recusancy and silenced ministers. Thereupon the puritan Thomas Wentworth I remarked that, while it was true that James had dealt with the first and last points contained in their petition, ‘touching the middle point, namely non-residents, we have had no answer’.62 He was seconded by Perrot, who gave the House ‘divers reasons’ for continuing with the petition.63 On 26 June Perrot was appointed to the committee to consider the bill presented by Nicholas Fuller for curtailing the powers of the High Commission courts.64

Perrot took no recorded part in the Union debates of the third session. Indeed, he was mentioned in connection with the Union only once, on 24 Nov., when he was instructed to attend the joint conference with the Lords the following day.65 On 16 June he was added to the committee for privileges, and as one of the members of that committee he was subsequently instructed to peruse the clerk’s Journal.66 Among the various legislative committees to which Perrot was appointed was a bill to provide better grazing in and around the Herefordshire village of Marden (4 March). This apparently inconsequential measure, which may have been identical to a bill presented to the House in the second session, is likely to have been of particular interest to Perrot, as the lands covered by the bill were probably those farmed by his distant cousin, Robert Perrot, of nearby Moreton-on-Lugg.67

Following the prorogation of July 1607, Perrot returned to Pembrokeshire, whence he travelled to Ireland. In June 1608 he was instructed by his brother-in-law, lord deputy Chichester, to escort to London the Irish peer Robert, 4th Lord Delvin, who was suspected of treason. On the safe delivery of his captive he returned to Ireland, where he was rewarded for his conveyance of Delvin by being appointed to the command of a company of foot. He was also made a gentleman pensioner. 68 Assigned special responsibility for guarding the border town of Newry, he carried out his new duties with enthusiasm, apprehending and killing several rebels, for which actions he was commended to the English Privy Council.69 In January 1610 he and several others offered to arrange for escheated lands in Ulster to be ‘planted’ with Protestant settlers, but his stay in Ireland was subsequently cut short, as Parliament reconvened in the following month. After returning to Westminster - he was there by 15 Feb., when he was named to attend the conference with the Lords on supply70 - he sold his captaincy for £400.71

Perrot made little recorded impact on the fourth session, which was dominated by discussion of the proposed Great Contract. His chief preoccupation remained religion rather than the king’s finances, for five of the nine committees to which he was named, either in person or as a member of the privileges’ committee, were on religious matters.72 He made just two recorded speeches, one on a private bill (Davison), the other on silenced ministers, an issue which, unlike Humphrey May, Perrot thought should be regarded as a public grievance.73

III. The Addled Parliament

Perrot may not have troubled to return to Westminster for the final session of the Parliament; certainly there is no mention of him in the scanty records of its proceedings. Following the dissolution, he became deputy vice admiral for Pembrokeshire, Carmarthenshire and Cardiganshire to William Herbert, 3rd earl of Pembroke, a substantial landowner in South Wales and a leading privy councillor, whose Protestant commitment was as strong as Perrot’s. The office proved to be more trouble than it was worth. Years later Perrot would complain that the execution of several Admiralty commissions had caused him to spend £6 more than he had received, ‘which is all the gains that I have hitherto made by this office’. Were it not for his loyalty to Pembroke, he would willingly have surrendered his place ‘to those that court it more’.74 Early in 1612 Perrot, alarmed at an upsurge in recusancy in his locality and aided by lord treasurer Salisbury (Robert Cecil), endeavoured to infiltrate the recusant community of South Wales and the English border counties to discover the haunts and activities of Catholic priests.75 In the following year he headed the list of subsidymen in Haverfordwest who had failed to contribute to the aid for Princess Elizabeth, thereby suggesting that his enthusiasm for a Protestant match for the princess was outweighed by his hostility to extra-parliamentary taxation. 76

The summoning of a fresh Parliament early in 1614 saw Perrot returned once again to Westminster as Member for Haverfordwest. The 1614 Parliament owed its existence in no small measure to Perrot’s new patron, the earl of Pembroke who, along with Thomas Howard, 1st earl of Suffolk, had argued that only a Parliament could furnish the king with the supply he so badly needed. In order to achieve a harmonious Parliament, Pembroke and Suffolk persuaded the king to offer the Commons various grace bills, which had first been laid before the House in 1610.77 Before the Parliament met, Perrot seems to have been appraised of the crucial importance his patron attached to these measures, as before the Easter adjournment he demonstrated a closer interest in them than he had in 1610. After Secretary (Sir Ralph) Winwood outlined the government’s case for supply on 12 Apr., Perrot declared that the grace bills were ‘of good use for divers, most to landholders, some to particular places’. Eight days later, as the House was about to break for Easter, it was Perrot who proposed that Members should extend their sitting by two days as 11 of the grace bills had only received a first reading.78 Although Perrot’s suggestion was not taken up, Pembroke undoubtedly appreciated this gesture of support. He may also have been thankful that Perrot had so far taken no part in the Commons’ attack on impositions, which threatened to wreck James’s hope of supply.

After the Easter recess, however, Perrot found it increasingly difficult to stand aloof from the controversy surrounding impositions. On 25 May he moved to absolve his fellow puritan Thomas Wentworth I from the charge of having spoken ill of the king in the House four days earlier. On that occasion Wentworth had appeared to imply that James would meet the same violent end as Henri IV if he continued to impose. The House agreed that Wentworth was innocent of any wrongdoing, and immediately cleared him ‘by general acclamation’. Perrot then turned his attention to a speech which he regarded as far more offensive than anything uttered by Wentworth. Its author, Bishop Neile, represented an entirely different strand of belief within the Anglican Church from Perrot, and as such was probably already regarded by the latter with deep suspicion. Neile had reportedly told the Upper House that whosoever questioned the king’s right to impose was guilty of breaking the oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy, and that if the Lords conferred with the Commons on impositions they would hear nothing but sedition. Like many of his parliamentary colleagues, Perrot was angry that the Commons had been thus maligned. He initially favoured seeking redress from the Lords,79 but changed his mind on 1 June after the Upper House announced that the matter was closed as Neile had tearfully denied intending to cause offence. In disgust Perrot, who considered that any tears shed by Neile were ‘tears of fear and terror, not of repentance’, proposed that Members should now take up the matter directly with the king. He also suggested that it should be discovered whether, as was now alleged, Neile had incorrectly certified that Francis Lovett, a Catholic, had taken the oaths of supremacy and allegiance. Subsequently (3 June) the Speaker reported that the allegation was false: Lovett had sworn the oaths but had not received communion. A doubtless disappointed Perrot lamely replied that the king’s counsel should be asked whether Lovett could now be said to have conformed.80

Through his defence of Thomas Wentworth and his attack on Bishop Neile, Perrot had obliquely entered into the debate on impositions, but so far he had refrained from questioning either the king’s right to impose, presumably out of deference to Pembroke’s wishes. However, he dramatically broke his silence on 3 June, after the king threatened to dissolve Parliament unless the House immediately proceeded to treat of supply. Perrot was so incensed at this ultimatum that he launched into an astonishing attack on James’s management of the royal finances. After commenting that he would willingly help pay off the king’s debts provided that ‘the like not be [sic] shortly required again’, he declared that impositions were only needed because James squandered £70,000 each year on lavish Court pensions. Unless royal overspending was curbed it was pointless to vote subsidies. An investigation of the royal finances by a committee of the House was therefore an essential precondition for any future grant of supply.81 This forthright speech, which containing as it did more than a grain of truth, signalled the breakdown of Perrot’s co-operation with Pembroke in Parliament, although not of his relationship with Pembroke in general. Following the dissolution of 7 June, he was summoned before the Council. Shielded perhaps by his patron, he escaped confinement in the Tower, unlike some others who had spoken rashly, but was detained in London for nearly a week.82 Furthermore, in August 1615 he was struck off the Pembrokeshire bench.

During the 1614 Parliament Perrot, a member of the prestigious committee for privileges,83 showed that he had lost none of his religious zeal. Four days into the session he moved that a Members’ communion be held ‘to keep the Trojan horse out of the House’, while on 4 May he persuaded his colleagues to reschedule a debate on recusancy. Predictably, he declared his support for Nicholas Fuller’s bill to prevent non-residence, pluralism and the taking of farms by clergymen, declaring during the second reading debate on 12 May that it was the duty of the clergy ‘to be pastors of souls, not tillers of ground’. He was subsequently named to the bill committee. On 31 May he was appointed to consider another of Fuller’s bills, that for abolishing the ex officio oath, a measure designed to restrict the power of High Commission.84

IV. The Parliament of 1621 and Service in Ireland, 1622-3

In the years immediately following the dissolution of June 1614 Perrot turned his thoughts once more to Ireland. On learning that the king intended to reduce his expenses and increase his Irish revenue, Perrot wrote in November 1615 to Secretary Winwood suggesting the establishment of a commission to investigate by what right the ecclesiastical livings and dignities of Ireland were held, as he suspected that money which rightly belonged to the king was being detained in private hands.85 Perrot may have hoped that such a constructive proposal would result in his swift restoration to the Pembrokeshire bench, but if so he was sadly mistaken. His interest in Ireland nevertheless continued, and by 1619 he had become involved in a project to continue the official history of that kingdom beyond the year 1584, where it then ended. Through (Sir) Thomas Wilson*, the keeper of the records at Whitehall, he was afforded access to the relevant State Papers. He originally intended to embrace not merely his father’s government of Ireland but also the rule of his brother-in-law, Sir Arthur Chichester, but on discovering that another man was engaged in a similar project he chose to conclude his account in the year 1608. He never finished the resulting work to his own satisfaction and therefore it was not published in his own lifetime. Entitled ‘The Chronicle of Ireland’, it was dedicated to Pembroke, ‘my most honoured lord’, to whom Perrot expressed his gratitude for ‘manifold obligations’. In the preface he declared that the Chronicle’s aim was to explain

how it came to pass that Queen Elizabeth, a princess of so great fame, power and magnanimity, who contested with the greatest kings of Christendom, aided her neighbours and allies ... should yet be so long encumbered and so much infested with these, her rebellious subjects of Ireland, that all her other foreign enemies and home-bred conspirators were never able in all her reign half so much to annoy her State, destroy her subjects, or to consume her treasure as did these mean (and in comparison of other nations) contemptible rebellious subjects of Ireland.

By shedding light on this problem he hoped to demonstrate ‘how by other men’s precedents we may avoid their perils’.86

Perrot was re-elected to Parliament for Haverfordwest in December 1620. On 5 Feb. 1621, the first full day of Commons’ business, he was reappointed to the committee for privileges. Then, desiring ‘that this Parliament may have a religious beginning’ and to know ‘the faith of those in the House’, he proposed a Members’ communion. The House agreed to this request, and appointed Perrot and three others to assist at the forthcoming service. Subsequently (27 Feb.), he reported from this small committee the money raised at the collection, which he was ordered to distribute as he saw fit.87 The main business of the day, however, was the debate concerning freedom of speech. Many in the House recalled only too well that four of their number had been imprisoned in the Tower after the 1614 Parliament for having delivered intemperate speeches, and were anxious that the same should not happen again. Perrot, who had himself been confined to London for a week after the dissolution, echoed their demand, and pointed out that the House’s freedom of speech was apparently threatened by a recent royal Proclamation forbidding all discussion of matters of State. He proposed that the House should petition the king to ascertain which issues were to be regarded as ‘matters of State’, since it was far from clear whether they included topics such as the government’s attitude towards recusancy and the granting of monopolies. The Palatinate crisis certainly was included, and yet, as Perrot observed, ‘how shall we treat of provision for the Palatinate and not meddle with matters of State?’88 In the event, the House did not adopt Perrot’s suggestion but instead appointed a committee, to which Perrot was appointed, to decide whether to approach the king in writing or orally.89

Early in the Parliament Perrot gave vent to his virulently anti-Catholic feelings. On 7 Feb. he complained to the committee for religion that the recusancy laws were not being implemented; that recusants were allowed to resort to priests; that popish books continued to be printed ‘even in the High Commission prison where there is continual resort to mass’; that English children were being sent abroad only to return as Jesuits and seminary priests; and that the Catholic clergy in England were well organized, being headed by an arch-priest, four principals and 16 assistants. In addition, the lands of recusants were so under-valued that church absentees escaped with trifling fines. The Church itself was too weak to combat the threat of popery, as widespread pluralism and non-residence meant that many were not being taught the basic tenets of Protestantism. Through a combination of ‘permission in us’ and ‘practice in them’, the kingdom was gradually being overrun by popery.90

Many in the House undoubtedly shared Perrot’s belief that domestic Protestantism was under siege. Like him they were keen to uphold existing laws, such as those governing the observation of fasts,91 and to enact further measures to strengthen the Church, such as the bill for the better observation of the Sabbath, which had passed the Commons in 1614 but not the Lords. In earlier parliaments this bill had been steered through the House by Nicholas Fuller, but now that Fuller was dead responsibility for its oversight fell to leading puritans such as Perrot. On 15 Feb. Perrot was the first Member to be individually nominated to the bill committee. Although it was Sir Edward Montagu who reported the measure on 1 Mar., Perrot spoke in its defence on 19 Feb. after Thomas Sheppard observed that it contradicted the king’s wishes, as laid out in the Book of Sports. Perrot argued that it was possible to eliminate or amend the offending provisions while still preserving the general sense of the bill.92

Among the faults outlined by Perrot on 7 Feb. was the low yield of the recusancy fines. He returned to this theme ten days later, when he alleged that the king should be receiving £40,000 annually from this source rather than the £6,000 which he actually obtained. Under Elizabeth, when there had been four times fewer recusants than now, the fines had been worth £18,000 p.a. A select committee was therefore needed to establish the true value of recusants’ estates.93 By drawing attention to this problem, Perrot was reviving earlier parliamentary attacks on the clerk responsible for the collection of recusancy fines, (Sir) Henry Spiller, a secret Catholic sympathizer and Member for Arundel. On 24 Feb. Perrot repeated his observations in committee, whereupon Spiller retorted that under Elizabeth the annual value of the fines had never exceeded £9,000. As the debate became more heated, Perrot accused Spiller of monopolizing the prosecution of recusants and of pocketing the lion’s share of the fines himself. He further alleged that two men who had uncovered Spiller’s corruption had been gaoled by the Exchequer and not released until they had entered into bonds of £1,000 apiece promising never to inform against him. Under pressure, Spiller was obliged to explain in detail why the revenue from the fines had fallen so dramatically, but he was allowed time to prepare a defence against Perrot’s charges.94 In the interim, Perrot sought to gather further incriminating evidence against Spiller by authorizing a search of the Exchequer’s records. This was a serious tactical error, however, as he failed to consult the rest of the committee before doing so. When Spiller complained to the House (12 Mar.), it was ruled that Perrot should have obtained the signatures of his fellow committee members to his search warrants. Even Sir William Strode, who proved sympathetic to Perrot, was forced to concede that Perrot had erred. Perrot’s mistake proved decisive, for although it was ordered that his dispute with Spiller should be examined in five days time the intended hearing never took place. On 26 Mar. a by now frustrated Perrot asked when he might lay before the House the reasons for the decaying value of the fines. A hearing was promised on 11 May, but though the House debated the recusancy bill that day, no more was heard of the charges against Spiller until 29 Nov., when an investigative committee was established. In the event, Parliament broke up before the committee concluded its business.95

One reason why Perrot persisted in pursuing Spiller so vigorously was that he saw in the recusancy fines a means to halt the spread of popery. If some of the fines were used to educate the children of recusants, as a bill debated before the House on 4 May proposed, and if these same children were prevented from travelling abroad to be educated, the kingdom’s Catholic population would, he believed, shrink dramatically. Indeed, he claimed that a former pope had thanked God that Parliament had never enacted such legislation, for then ‘there had not been a papist left in England by this time’.96

During the Parliament, Perrot emerged as an energetic spokesman for his native Wales. It was he who proposed that the Welsh cloth bill be committed on 2 Mar., and when this measure received its third reading on 24 Apr. he defended it from Sir Richard Newport’s accusation that it ‘procureth forestalling’. On 7 Mar. Perrot seconded (Sir) Thomas Trevor’s request that Wales should not be charged with subsidies until it had finished paying those voted in 1610, and on 26 Mar. he defended the Welsh butter bill after the Bristol Member John Guy endeavoured to widen its provisions to include the whole of England. Perrot was naturally perfectly happy to support legislation that was restricted to Wales, but he was far from pleased when the boot was on the other foot, for on 19 Apr., when the bill to prevent the return of insufficient jurors in England was debated, he argued for the inclusion of Wales.97

If English interests were not always synonymous with those of Wales, Irish interests were often incompatible with both. Nowhere was this more starkly illustrated than in the Irish cattle bill, which aimed to prohibit the import of Irish beef. When this measure was reported on 18 May, Serjeant Davies objected that Ireland could not subsist if it was passed. Perrot, however, like many English and Welsh Members, was an enthusiastic supporter of the bill, and countered Davies by arguing that if Irish cattle imports continued, English and Welsh landowners would be compelled to lower their rents in order to compete. Although he denied wishing to inflict any harm on the Irish economy, he was unprepared to benefit Ireland at the expense of England and Wales. Besides, Ireland need not suffer from a ban, for if its farmers exported their beef to Spain instead, in barrels, it ‘would bring them £46,000 per annum, besides their pipestaves, tallow, hides and other commodities’.98 For Perrot, like many of his parliamentary colleagues, Ireland mattered only insofar as it benefited and did not threaten the rest of the king’s dominions. When on 26 Apr. Sir John Jephson informed the House that Ireland was misgoverned and that its population was mainly papist and on the brink of rebellion, he was supported by Perrot, who added the sale of sheriffwicks to the list of abuses allegedly perpetrated by the then lord deputy, Sir Oliver St. John*. Four days later, Sir Lionel Cranfield reported that the king had learned from the duke of Buckingham of the corruption in Irish government, whereupon Perrot anxiously asserted that James was in no way responsible for this himself.99

Perrot took no visible part in the parliamentary attack on lord chancellor St. Alban (Sir Francis Bacon*). He nonetheless approved of the House’s investigation, for when on 19 Mar. the king notified the Commons that he would issue a commission to examine the witnesses against Bacon, Perrot not only described the royal message as ‘most cordial to us’, but requested that the Commons communicate its thanks to James, which was agreed.100 Perrot played a far greater role in the Commons’ assault on monopolists. He was present at the committee of grievances on 20 Feb. when (Sir) Giles Mompesson* presented for examination his patent for inns, for he asked a question, the meaning of which is now obscure. Six days later, he told the same committee that a second patent nominally held by Mompesson was in reality another man’s project, and had not even been procured by Mompesson.101 On 6 Mar., during a debate on the gold and silver thread patent, Perrot identified one Mr Bridges as a patentee.102 Three days later, Perrot seconded Sir Robert Phelips and William Mallory after they criticized Speaker Richardson for having omitted, at a recent conference with the Lords, to identify those government ministers who had furnished the king with references in favour of individual monopolies prior to their grant. However, Perrot also fixed part of the blame for this on Sir Edward Coke, whom he accused of advising the Commons that it had no power to name the referees. His charge drew a swift rebuttal from Sir Dudley Digges.103

The patents in which Perrot demonstrated the keenest interest were those concerned with lighthouses. This was not altogether surprising, as he remained a deputy vice admiral. In 1615 Sir Edward Howard I* had procured letters patent permitting him to erect a lighthouse at Dungeness and to exact a levy for doing so; a short while later, two other projectors, Sir John Meldrum and Sir William Erskine, had obtained similar authorization in respect of Winterton, on the Norfolk coast. Both patents infringed the monopoly on lighthouse construction which had been enjoyed since 1566 by the Trinity House of Deptford, and therefore a bill was laid before the Commons which aimed to restore the latter’s privileges.104 From the outset Perrot sided with the patentees, although it is not known why. Thus when the measure received its second reading on 26 Feb., he disparaged it as ‘but a private bill’ and moved that counsel for the patentees should be heard by the bill committee, to which he himself was named.105 He again spoke for the patentees on 26 Mar., after Robert Snelling proposed that they should be refunded the cost of purchasing their grants, an idea first mooted by Sir Edward Coke five days earlier. Rejecting this suggestion, Perrot moved instead that ‘the patentees may enjoy their patent till a bill passed’. Perrot and his allies proved equally obstructive in committee, where they identified so many defects in the bill that the rest of the committee drew up fresh legislation. This new bill, which was presented to the House on 25 Apr., was as unacceptable to Perrot as its predecessor. According to the Commons Journal, he flatly opposed the measure when it was debated on 7 May. Sir Thomas Barrington, on the other hand, recorded that Perrot expressed dissatisfaction with Trinity House for having failed to perform its previous trust but declared that he was ‘not against the body of the bill’. Barrington’s version of the speech makes the most sense, for by not opposing the bill outright Perrot may have been hoping to secure a place on the bill committee. If so he was to be disappointed, as it was obvious that he was opposed to the measure root and branch.106

As a zealous Protestant Perrot was naturally keen to aid the Palsgrave, even if he was unwilling that his native Wales should be burdened with subsidies before those granted in 1610 had been collected. On 27 Apr. he reminded the House that many counties, including his own, had still not paid in the money they had voluntarily raised for the Palatinate. His suggestion that a committee be appointed to investigate was not taken up as it was revealed that the Privy Council already had the matter in hand. Perrot remained dissatisfied, however, and on 2 June he seconded Sir Thomas Roe, who called upon the House to order that the Benevolence money be paid into the Exchequer.107 Perrot’s sympathy for the Palatine cause meant that he shared the widely felt anger in the House at the remarks made by the Catholic barrister Edward Floyd, although the punishments which he considered appropriate - imprisonment in the Tower in the first instance, followed by banishment - were lenient by comparison with some of the more bloodthirsty suggestions heard in the chamber on 1 May.108

It was on the final day of the sitting (4 June) that Perrot gave full expression to his views on the Palatinate, when he called upon the House to make a public declaration of its future intentions. He began by reminding his listeners that the king had set them an example, by promising to spend his own life and that of his son in the defence of the Palatinate. It was entirely appropriate that the House should follow his lead, he said, not least because ‘religion is shaked everywhere’, for ‘if it decrease not fearfully at home, ‘tis near to withering and ruin abroad’. For this reason, the House should declare that, if the elector had not been restored to his possessions by the time Parliament reconvened, its Members ‘would be ready to adventure the lives and estates of all that belong unto us, or wherein we have interest, for the maintenance of the cause of God, and of His Majesty’s royal issue’. Such a declaration would, he asserted, strengthen the bargaining position of the king’s special ambassador to the emperor, Sir John Digby*, and if set down in the clerk’s Journal it would have the effect of obliging the entire House ‘to the performance of this promise’. The effect of this speech on the assembled gathering was electric. Before Perrot spoke, many Members, including Perrot himself, had felt despondent that the forthcoming adjournment would leave them with insufficient time to complete the passage of various important bills, but now the atmosphere of gloom which had pervaded the Commons was lifted. A joyful Sir Edward Cecil remarked that ‘this declaration is come from Heaven’, and would do more good ‘than if we had 10,000 soldiers on the march’, while an equally pleased Sir Nathaniel Rich said that it would ‘show to the world that we are not insensible of the sufferance of those of our religion, nor of the wrong done to the count palatine’. Both men spoke for the entire gathering. Members cheered and waved their hats in ‘a visible testimony of their unanimous consent’, a gesture which, as Edward Nicholas recorded, ‘had scarce ever been seen in Parliament’. It was immediately resolved that a declaration along the lines suggested by Perrot should be drafted.109 The king was so delighted with the resulting document that he had it translated into several languages and sent abroad.110

Soon after Parliament reassembled in November, Perrot defended the bill to allow magistrates to punish scandalous ministers after it was opposed at second reading by Sir Dudley Digges. A servant of Archbishop Abbot, Digges denied that the measure was needed as inadequate clergy were already subject to the authority of the Court of High Commission. Perrot, however, was far from persuaded by this argument. ‘If the gentleman that spake last lived where I lived’, he observed (23 Nov.), ‘I think he would be of another mind’, for in Pembrokeshire there were many scandalous ministers who remained unpunished.111 Three days later, Perrot spoke during an important foreign policy debate. As the instigator of the ‘Declaration’, he was naturally among the first to address the Palatine question. He began by recalling England’s previous military accomplishments. She had ‘vanquished France, supported the Netherlands, supplanted Wales, affronted and assisted Spain, and done many other noble actions’. Given these achievements, it would be dishonourable if no action were taken either to defend the Palatinate or to recover those parts that were already lost. Although some regarded England as being too poor to wage war with Spain, Perrot did not share their view, for despite the severe economic crisis a glance at the capital proved that great wealth still existed. There a quarter of all the coin in the kingdom was to be found, and there too the East India Company possessed stocks worth £150,000. The City’s bankers, meanwhile, had at their disposal around £1,500,000. In Perrot’s eyes, the problem of how to pay for a war with Spain was not one of absolute wealth, for it was clear that England was rich enough. The real difficulty was in getting those who were assessed to pay subsidy the amount that they were rated. Those rated at £10, for instance, commonly paid much less than £10. Were this problem to be addressed, subsidy values would rise significantly, and a grateful king might then reward his subjects by rooting out all Jesuits, whom Perrot described as ‘the Pope’s Janissaries’. A further problem lay in the ending habits of the wealthy. The nobility and gentry were awash with money, but they flocked to London to fritter away their estates ‘on toys, jewels and clothes’. Tobacco, too, consumed the nation’s wealth - around £200,000 each year according to Perrot - but if that money could be diverted to military purposes there would be enough to maintain an army of 15,000 in the field for a year. To Perrot, then, the problem of financing a war with Spain was inseparably linked to the spending habits of the wealthy. Only if these were reformed would sufficient funds be found to fight the Spaniards. Parliament should thus enact a sumptuary law, gentlemen should send home their spendthrift wives, and the plate hoarded in the cupboards of country houses should be melted down.112 This viewpoint was closely informed by its author’s puritan leanings. Indeed, Perrot subsequently cautioned in print against ‘gorgeousness and curiousity of apparel, which draws us to overmuch delight of ourselves and to a desire to defile our bodies with adultery [and] fornication’.113

It is scarcely surprising that Perrot’s speech did not elicit same enthusiasm as his earlier address of 4 June. Few Members would have taken kindly to being told how they should spend their own money, while the prospect of a more realistic rating system horrified Sir George More, who condemned Perrot for suggesting it.114 Perrot was probably on safer ground during the following day’s subsidy debate, when he seconded Pym’s motion calling for an Oath of Association in imitation of that of 1584. On this occasion, he proved more diplomatic. He would not, he said, presume to tell Members how much they should give but leave them instead to the guidance of those Members who had military experience, whom he suggested should meet as a committee for that purpose. However, he did suggest that, before agreeing to give, they petition the king to maintain religion and execute the recusancy laws. James should also be asked to begin preparing ships, arms and munitions, and not to punish any Member for speaking freely, for as Perrot knew to his cost the king was sensitive about the royal finances, which were bound to require examination when the House eventually turned to consider voting subsidies. James should rest assured that any Member who spoke disloyally would be punished by his colleagues, who would not wish by their silence to be a party to his words. Perrot ended by suggesting that while the costs of war were considered in committee, the House should ‘go on with the bills of most moment, that we may carry home something of worth’.115

Over the next few days Perrot fanned the flames of anti-Catholicism, returning to the issues which he had first brought to the attention of the House nine months earlier. On the 28th he regaled the House with the story of how a youth committed to his charge by an anxious father had been secretly stolen from him by papists, ‘and in one month was made a papist, and so continueth’. Those who wished to prevent the seduction of Protestants by papists should seek to punish those who published popish books or sent youths abroad to be educated, and consequently he urged the House to petition the king for a Proclamation.116 On the following day, Perrot warned of the growing boldness of the papists, which he ascribed to the influence of some great men at Court. In London 300 people commonly trooped together to the house of a foreign ambassador to attend mass, which suggested collusion by some close to the king. Perrot did not name the courtiers concerned, nor the ambassador of whom he spoke, but the latter was almost certainly the Spanish envoy, Count Gondomar. The growing confidence of the Catholic community, he went on, could be witnessed at a local level as well as in London. In one Warwickshire town a crucifix had been set up in the market place by the brother of a Catholic who had been executed for treason, while in Monmouthshire a minister who had recently preached against the Gunpowder treason had been rewarded for his pains by a visit from two or three papists, who had beaten and stabbed him to within an inch of his life.117

Perrot never dared to blame James openly for the resurgence of English Catholicism, but in his persistent calls for the proper enforcement of the penal laws, and in his attitude to the Spanish marriage negotiations, this thought clearly lay at the back of his mind. The prospect of a Spanish bride for Prince Charles horrified Perrot, who declared on 3 Dec. that James should be petitioned to prevent it. When Sir Edward Sackville cautioned against making such a request on the grounds that ‘it is the privilege of princes to marry where they list’, Perrot remarked that the perils of mixed marriages were great ‘even in private families ... much more among princes’. Besides, James had promised to match his son ‘for the glory of God, his church and the realm’, and if he then proceeded to marry his son to a Catholic it was impossible to see how this promise could be kept.118 Most Members concurred with Perrot, and accordingly a clause was inserted into the subsequent petition calling for Prince Charles to be ‘timely and happily married to one of our own religion’. The king was incensed at this clear invasion of his prerogative, and reproached the Commons for its presumption by letter, which was read to the House on the 14th. On the following day Perrot announced that James had been misinformed before lamenting that ‘our religion is not so safe as we desire it to be’. Scenting that Parliament would soon be either adjourned or dissolved, he complained that much valuable work still remained to be done. For instance, while many patents had been condemned, many more ‘still stand on foot’. Nonetheless, Perrot understood that there was a limit to what could now be achieved, especially in the legislative sphere, for ‘all our best bills are either cast away or laid aside by the Lords’. Among those measures that remained was the bill for concealments, which Perrot complained had been ‘maimed, and goeth upon stilts’.119

Soon afterwards the Parliament broke up. Before the end of the year, Perrot’s name was included on a short-list drawn up by lord treasurer Cranfield of those most suitable to serve on a commission shortly to be established for inquiring into the ecclesiastical and temporal affairs of Ireland. This appointment was presumably intended as a punishment for Perrot’s forthright criticism of the Spanish Match, but Perrot may have actually welcomed the opportunity to serve on the Irish commission, a body whose brief appeared to offer him an opportunity to help reshape the affairs of a country for which he felt the deepest passion, and he may even have volunteered his services.120 Shortly before departing for Ireland, Perrot arranged for the disposal of his estates in the event of his death. Though he had fathered two daughters, both had died in childhood, and his wife was now almost certainly past childbearing age. He therefore decided to entail his Pembrokeshire estates upon his Herefordshire cousins, the Perrots of Moreton-on-Lugg,121 with whom he seems to have been in contact since at least 1607. In doing so, he cut off the entail which he had established in 1609 in favour of the offspring of his sister, Lady Lettice Chichester. On his arrival in Dublin in mid-April, Perrot was appointed to the quorum. He and his fellow commissioners set about their work with considerable enthusiasm, and in July he and Sir Francis Annesley* were detailed to examine the affairs of counties Cavan and Fermanagh.122 The Irish commissioners completed their task early in 1623, when they crossed over to England. After waiting upon the Privy Council, Perrot was discharged in February with a promise of payment, which he never received.123 He was nevertheless rewarded for his services by being restored to the Pembrokeshire bench.

V. The Parliament of 1624

After the Irish commission was wound up, Perrot returned to his estates at Haroldston. In September 1623 he again complained of the onerous nature of his duties as deputy vice admiral, having been forced to assume the functions of the local Admiralty Court judge, there being no-one else to supply the place.124 At around the same time he was re-elected mayor of Haverfordwest, in which capacity he ordered the town’s bells to be rung in late October on learning of the safe return from Spain of Prince Charles.125 Sometime during the course of 1624 Perrot published a collection of prayers written ‘in the time of my youth and adversities not long since’, entitled An Invitation unto Prayer. In one copy, dedicated to Elizabeth of Bohemia, Perrot appended a prayer in manuscript ‘for all princes and Christian states persecuted for maintenance of true religion’.126

On hearing that there was to be a fresh Parliament, Perrot sought election for Pembrokeshire rather than Haverfordwest, the borough which he had previously represented. The reason he decided to seek the county seat is unclear. He may have felt that it was high time that his parliamentary status more accurately reflected his standing within his native county, but it may also be that he was concerned that, as mayor of Haverfordwest, his right to represent that borough in Parliament would be questioned. Both in 1614 and 1621 he had witnessed the expulsion from the Commons of mayors who had returned themselves (Robert Berry and Richard Foxton). He may have concluded, correctly, that by sitting elsewhere he would avoid censure, as he could not then be accused of having returned himself. However, by transferring his attentions to the county seat Perrot encountered opposition from John Wogan of Wiston, who had represented Pembrokeshire in the previous two parliaments. Although he triumphed over Wogan, it seems likely that he only did so by suborning the sheriff, Sir John Stepneth, at whose house at Prendergast the election was held rather than at its customary location of Haverfordwest. Wogan subsequently complained to the Commons, but his petition was not submitted within the time allowed for such protests to be entered and it was therefore dismissed.127

Perrot had taken his seat by 23 Feb., when he commended to the House the veteran Sabbath bill, which was given a first reading.128 That same day Perrot also performed something of an unofficial duty: as in the previous two parliaments he proposed that Members should receive communion together so as to signify the ‘unity in mind and religion’ of Members. A Members’ communion would also serve as ‘a thanksgiving’, both for their meeting ‘and for the Prince his safe return’. Perrot’s colleagues acknowledged this to be ‘a good motion’, and appointed him to help make the necessary arrangements. In turn, the communion committee nominated him to report to the House on its behalf.129 Not all Members were able to be present at the general communion organized by Perrot and the communion committee, however, but Perrot was clear that those who were not should nonetheless receive communion before taking their seats. When, on 3 Mar., Sir Edwin Sandys proposed that Sir Robert Crane should take his seat despite having not yet taken communion, being ‘a man so well known to be free from any exceptions in religion’, Perrot objected that this would set a precedent for those ‘who might under colour of such liberty cover their not receiving’.130

Perrot’s commendation of the Sabbath bill, and his motion for a Members’ communion, set the tone for his involvement in the 1624 Parliament, for he took little interest in matters that had no bearing on religion. Like most other Members, Perrot regarded religion and foreign policy as inextricably intertwined, and thus the need to achieve security for religion at home and the need to make war on Spain were merely two sides of the same coin. He had made this perfectly clear in 1621, when he had argued that no consideration could be given to a Spanish war until the Protestant religion had been safely secured at home. In 1624 he reiterated that point, for when on 11 Mar. Rudyard proposed a preliminary vote of supply and the establishment of a committee of both Houses to act as a Council of War, Perrot replied that, before either of these things could be done, the Jesuits should be expelled and a committee appointed to consider the state of the king and kingdom.131 This outlook undoubtedly explains why Perrot evidently expended rather more effort in Parliament addressing the popish menace at home than the threat posed by Catholic Spain. On 1 Apr. he revived Sir Edwin Sandys’s motion for the disarming of all recusants.132 On the following day he reiterated this demand, while also renewing his own earlier call for the banishment of Jesuits and seminary priests, of whom he said there were around 900 in the country. At the same time he pleaded for the penal laws to be properly executed. In giving vent to his anti-Catholic feeling, Perrot indicated that he did not regard his views as in any way immoderate. On the contrary, he claimed to desire ‘no man’s destruction, especially those that hold the fundamental points of salvation, so long as they do not seduce others’.133 On 3 Apr. Perrot was appointed to a five-strong committee to examine a man who claimed that he could reveal to the House the dangerous plots and practices of the recusant community in which he lived.134 The House’s decision to petition the king to enforce the penal laws delighted Perrot, who naturally helped to draft this important document. On 6 Apr. he complained that some key words had been omitted regarding the naming of the ringleaders ‘of that sect’. The following day he spoke in favour of incorporating the petition’s contents into a royal Proclamation, as ‘the papists are still very confident’.135 For Perrot the completion of this petition could not come quickly enough, but its progress through both Houses was slow. On 14 Apr. he impatiently asked the House to return the petition to the Lords as quickly as possible, and asked when it would be ready for presentation to James.136 One week later, after the Upper House had finally received the revised petition, he moved to send to the Lords ‘to speed our petition concerning religion’.137

Perrot was just as keen to have popishly inclined officials removed from their posts as he was about petitioning to have the recusancy laws enforced. Indeed, on 27 Apr. he was named to help examine the certificates supplied by the knights of each shire that identified both recusant officeholders and those officeholders who were married to recusants. Moreover, on 12 May he singled out for special criticism Lord Scrope, lord president of the Council in the North, for having allegedly attended communion only once in the last five years. Nonetheless, for Perrot the issue of recusant officeholders was peculiarly sensitive, for on 27 Apr. he was forced to reveal to the House that his own wife was a recusant.138 This embarrassing revelation, which may have astounded many of his colleagues, provides an illuminating context for his earlier speech on the perils of mixed marriages and may temporarily have placed the House in something of a quandary. However, on 12 May it declared itself satisfied that, in Perrot’s case, marriage to a papist should not prevent him from continuing to hold office. It was therefore agreed that his name should be removed from the Pembrokeshire certificate.139

Shortly after he revealed that his wife was a papist, Perrot was, perhaps somewhat mischievously, named to the committee for the bill to levy more quickly the fines payable by recusant wives (1 May).140 Other religious legislation Perrot was asked to consider in committee concerned scandalous ministers (22 Mar.), the catechizing of children (10 Apr., a bill which he introduced) and the establishment of three lectureships in divinity (10 April). He was also named to help examine complaints against popish schoolmasters and university lecturers (28 Apr.), and was one of five Members who were required (13 May) to alert Archbishop Abbot to the contents of Richard Montagu’s recently published A New Gag for an Old Goose, which stressed the allegedly Catholic elements of Anglicanism.141

Although largely preoccupied with the state of religion at home, Perrot did not ignore the growing clamour for war with Spain. On 4 Mar. he proposed that when the House came to inform the Lords of its reasons for breaking off the Spanish marriage negotiations, it should in the first instance do so orally rather than in writing, as the Lords might well have considered arguments which the Commons had not. This motion was generally ‘well liked’, although (Sir) Heneage Finch persuaded the House to make an exception for Prince Charles, who was to receive written reasons ‘for his satisfaction’.142 Like many of his parliamentary colleagues, Perrot desired a war with Spain but had little understanding of its likely cost. Whereas in 1621 he had confidently declared that England could easily afford to take on the might of Spain, now he was not so sure. On 19 Mar. he expressed dismay that James was demanding an unprecedented grant of six subsidies and 12 fifteenths, describing the sums involved as ‘insupportable, unless moderated by the time of the levying’. At the same time he made it clear that he suspected that even this enormous grant might not be enough.143

His enthusiasm for a Spanish war probably explains Perrot’s involvement in the parliamentary attack on lord keeper Williams who, as a strongly Calvinist bishop, might otherwise have merited Perrot’s support. In declaring that he was opposed to a war, Williams had laid himself open to criticism in the Commons for alleged corruption. The case which attracted Perrot’s attention concerned Lady Grace Darcy, who had been denied the right of presentation to a church in Surrey of which she was the patron by Williams. On complaining to Chancery, Lady Darcy had been prevented from pursuing her case by a cursitor, who informed her that he was acting under instructions from Williams. During a debate held in grand committee on 21 Apr., Perrot expressed outrage at Williams’ behaviour, describing it as ‘an obstruction of the law and a denying of the right of the subject’. Three weeks later, on 7 May, he not only argued that Williams had wrongly stayed justice in his own cause, but claimed that the case was not an isolated incident as two other petitions had been received by the committee against the lord keeper. These, he suggested, should be considered alongside Lady Darcy’s complaint. Shortly afterwards a bill to install Lady Darcy’s candidate was given two readings. Perrot was not only named to the committee but attended both of its meetings.144 Thereafter Perrot continued to pursue Williams, on 27 May explaining to the House the background to one of the further allegations that had been made against the lord keeper.145

Perrot’s campaign against Williams contrasts sharply with his attitude towards lord treasurer Middlesex (Sir Lionel Cranfield) who, like Williams was opposed to a Spanish war. Astonishingly, Perrot played no part in Middlesex’s impeachment other than to suggest, on 5 Apr., that the lord treasurer should be permitted to have a copy of a note of his alleged misdemeanours. The most likely explanation for Perrot’s silence probably lies in the fact that one of his relatives, Richard Perrot, was one of Middlesex’s employees. The brother of Robert Perrot of Moreton-on-Lugg,146 upon whose young son, Herbert*, Sir James had earlier settled his estates, Richard would have been vulnerable to the wrath of his employer had Perrot not held his tongue.

VI. The Parliaments of 1625 and 1626

Perrot hoped and expected to be returned to the first Caroline Parliament. Having defeated John Wogan for the county seat in 1624, he naturally supposed that he might do so again in 1625, but he had not counted on the ruthlessness of his rival, who was determined to avenge his earlier humiliation. During the election campaign, rumours were spread that Perrot had died, and those who knew this to be untrue were threatened with impressment by Wogan who, like Perrot was a Pembrokeshire deputy lieutenant. Some who tried to make their way to the hustings anyway to vote for Perrot were hindered from doing so, while others were beaten up. As a result of this concerted campaign of intimidation, Wogan got himself returned, leaving Perrot without a seat. Perrot was so despondent at this setback that at the end of May he obtained a licence to travel abroad for three years.147 However, he decided to protest at Wogan’s behaviour instead. Three days into the Parliament, Perrot’s petition was presented to the committee for privileges by the Member for Lyme Regis, John Drake, who shared Perrot’s rabidly anti-Catholic views. The committee was dismayed that Perrot had not found a seat, and therefore agreed to accord priority to his petition and that of Sir John Savile’s.148 When the committee reported to the House on 7 July, however, there were some in the chamber who called for Perrot’s appeal to be dismissed for lack of proof. In the event it was decided to assign a new day for hearing the matter to allow the sheriff who had presided over the election sufficient time in which to make his defence. However, it seems unlikely that the House really wished to take the case any further. This is because Perrot chose to argue that the authority of the sheriff who had made the return had ended on the death of James I. A Proclamation continuing all officeholders in post had been issued immediately after James’s death, but some Members, worried that it did not extend to sheriffs, feared that ‘this exception might extend to very many elections’.149 If this proved to be the case the consequences were too dreadful to contemplate, and it is scarcely surprising that the matter remained unresolved at the August dissolution.

By the time that a fresh Parliament was summoned Perrot had resolved to revive his former parliamentary interest at Haverfordwest. However, the borough seat was now no longer his for the taking, for in 1625 it had been occupied by his local rival and arch-enemy, the crypto-Catholic Sir Thomas Canon. The enmity between the two men stretched back almost 30 years: during the later 1590s Canon had sided with the countess of Northumberland in her attempts to acquire the lands of her late husband, Sir Thomas Perrot, while in 1605 Perrot had tried unsuccessfully to implicate Canon in the Gunpowder Plot.150 Canon naturally had no intention of meekly standing aside to allow Perrot to resume his former position as Member for Haverfordwest, and like Wogan in 1625 he resorted to underhand tactics to defeat his rival. In mid-January 1626 Perrot reported Canon to secretary of state Sir Edward Conway I* for having unduly obtained possession of the writ of election, and of having concealed it from the sheriff at a recent county day. He requested that Canon be sent for ‘to answer this offence’,151 and journeyed to London, fully confident that he would emerge triumphant. By 13 Feb., however, the rumour had reached him that he had been outwitted. In a second letter to Conway, he complained that ‘I came hither to be of service to His Majesty, if I could have a place in Parliament, and to move moderation in case of interruptions. But I fear I shall lose the place for which I often served’.152 In fact, almost two weeks earlier, Canon had been elected without his knowledge.

For a second time Perrot found himself without a seat. This was a bitter pill to swallow, and Perrot initially contemplated seeking reappointment as governor of Newry, the position he had held 16 years earlier. However, as the result of a sudden turn of events Perrot once again found himself with a seat in the Commons. On 24 Mar. a burgess-ship at the Cornish borough of Camelford fell vacant after it was ruled that the previously chosen Member, Sir Thomas Monck, was incapable of sitting. It seems likely that it was Perrot who filled the place - certainly he was a Member of the Commons by 17 Apr. - and that he was nominated by his old patron the earl of Pembroke, who may have hoped that he would join the parliamentary attack on the king’s favourite, the duke of Buckingham. Perrot, however, showed no inclination to criticize Buckingham.153 Instead he returned to his customary course, ploughing a furrow for the godly cause. He quickly reasserted his concern at the writings of Richard Montagu, suggesting, on 17 Apr., that the examination of Montagu’s books should be referred to some learned divines rather than to a conference with the Lords.154 He also renewed his earlier attempts to secure legislation for establishing a preaching ministry (25 May) and abolishing subscription (6 May). He may have chaired the subscription bill committee himself, as on 9 June he reported its deliberations.155 In addition, he secured nomination to bill committees concerned with excommunication (2 May) and the limited number of days available for the conduct of marriage ceremonies (6 May). Perrot’s godly leanings created a natural affinity between himself and another Member, John Drake, who had presented his petition to the Commons in the previous year. The two men seem occasionally to have acted in concert, for they were twice named to the same committees (9 and 11 May),156 and on 4 May Perrot seconded Drake’s call for a select committee to investigate the royal finances. This proposal closely mirrored Perrot’s demand in 1614 that royal spending on pensions be drastically reduced. For both men, reform of the Crown’s finances was a precondition of supply, and given their religious convictions both felt that money might be found if the government troubled to collect the arrears of recusancy fines, which Perrot estimated at £80,000.157 Only when the Parliament was threatened with imminent dissolution was Perrot prepared to soften this line, declaring on 12 June that he saw ‘no danger to read the [subsidy] bill’.158

VII. The Parliament of 1628-9

Sometime during 1626 Perrot published The Government of Ireland under Sir John Perrot, 1584-8, which he himself had written.159 At the beginning of March 1627 he was again anxious to return to Ireland, for now that England was at war with Spain he feared that Ireland would prove to be England’s achilles heel, as it had under Elizabeth. He accordingly obtained a licence to travel, which was entered in the Council register. However, it subsequently occurred to him that such a public record would alert the Irish to his coming. He therefore had his pass revoked, requesting in its stead a licence signed by the king alone. Such a document would allow him to travel in secret and thereby increase his chances of being able to uncover plots against the state.160 There is no evidence that Perrot ever received this second pass. On the contrary, in the summer of 1627 he was kept busy helping to collect the Forced Loan in Pembrokeshire.161

At the general election of 1628, Perrot was returned for Haverfordwest, but it is not known whether he contested the seat with Sir Thomas Canon, who found a place at Haslemere instead. Perrot’s long parliamentary service was acknowledged soon after the Commons assembled by his appointment to the committee for privileges (20 Mar.), of which he had last been a member in 1624.162 However, his complete absence from the House in 1625, and his initial absence in 1626, may have affected his standing, for it was not he who proposed a Members’ communion but Sir William Strode. Perrot naturally seconded the motion (20 Mar.) and was named to the communion committee, but having clearly been eclipsed he subsequently obtained permission to be discharged from the committee (3 April).163

As in every previous Parliament of which he had been a member since 1604, religious issues dominated Perrot’s agenda. Inevitably, he found himself revisiting themes he had raised in the chamber many times before, such as the failure to prosecute recusants; the need to permit magistrates to punish scandalous ministers and prevent children from being educated abroad as Catholics; a bill to amend the Sabbath Act of 1625; and the undesirability of clerical subscription.164 Once again he railed at the continuing presence of the Jesuits (27 Mar. and 2 Apr.), whom he described as ‘vipers in our bosoms’ and ‘worse than our enemies abroad’. He was mortified, though perhaps not surprised, that several Jesuits captured at Clerkenwell had not yet received exemplary punishment (6 June).165 His obsession with the enemy within led him to draw attention to two Irish regiments that had been raised for the relief of La Rochelle. On 6 June he expressed incredulity that these soldiers had been billeted in strategically important towns and forts on the south coast, for ‘they are not to be trusted’. Nor were they the only popish troops under the king’s command, for earlier that same day Pym revealed that several companies in Ireland were led by Catholics. When this claim was disputed by Annesley, Perrot brought to bear his formidable Irish expertise in Pym’s defence: ‘There are some captains of horses of popish religion in Dublin; three of Cork. They have public masses and they flock together more than ever’. The precise nature of this rebuttal clearly impressed the House, as Perrot was one of just five Members who were subsequently appointed to attend Ireland’s lord chancellor ‘to take informations’ concerning the state of Irish affairs.166

Although religion clearly dominated his thinking in 1628, Perrot was not oblivious to other important matters. Speaking during the subsidy debate of 4 Apr., he agreed that Parliament should ‘give speedily’, but suggested that satisfaction should be sought concerning the king’s message of the previous day, in which Charles had requested a vote of supply ‘without any condition’. Perrot was unhappy that the Commons was being asked to vote money without specifying its purpose, for ‘suppose there be alliance made with the Turk?’ His listeners were reminded that in 1624 Charles’s father had accepted a Subsidy Act hedged about with limitations. It was therefore not unreasonable to require that money now voted should be spent exclusively on aiding the Danes and the king and queen of Bohemia.167 Perrot subsequently played a modest role in the debates concerning the liberties of the subject, which culminated in the Petition of Right. On 5 May, when it was still envisaged that the House would proceed by bill, Perrot expressed dismay that Charles was only willing to countenance a confirmation of Magna Carta and the six statutes rather than legislation which added to these Acts in any way. ‘If we can have no more than a confirmation’, he expostulated, Members might just as well go home, for ‘what benefit can we have of this declaration?’ However, he himself could see that even by this limited offer the subject might gain some advantage, for by drawing together Magna Carta and the other statutes into one body their contents would become ‘more known to every man’. He therefore concluded that they should take from the king whatever he was prepared to give, and so moved for a committee.168 Perrot took no recorded part in the formulation of the Petition of Right, but hoped that the king would accord it the force of law. He also shared the widely felt dissatisfaction at its initial reception by Charles, proposing on 6 June that the House should approach the king for ‘a clear and short answer’. He was not among those who blamed Charles’s equivocation on Buckingham, nor did he share the view, expressed in a resolution of 11 June, that the duke’s excessive powers, and abuse of those powers, were the principal cause of the kingdom’s ills. Although he admitted that ‘it would be a great safety to the kingdom’ if Buckingham voluntarily divested himself of all his offices, he declared that if the duke ‘did ... but resign or leave part, I should be glad’. Unlike many of his colleagues, his object was to seek Buckingham’s ‘reformation [rather] than his ruin’. Such moderation may reflect the fact that, since July 1626, Buckingham had been on cordial terms with Perrot’s patron, Pembroke.169

Perrot exercised no such restraint in his criticism of bishops Richard Montagu and William Laud during the 1629 session. Speaking at the committee for religion on 4 Feb., he brushed aside May’s claim that neither man held Arminian opinions: ‘it is said that these two bishops were before the Council on their knees, and with tears in their eyes did disclaim the [Arminian] opinions, but we see their facts’. Indeed, on the basis of information furnished by a Pembrokeshire neighbour, Robert Rudd, he was prepared to swear on oath that Laud’s former chaplain, Richard Baylie, ‘did openly hold and defend the opinions of Arminius’.170 (After the dissolution, Rudd was required by Laud to explain his part in Perrot’s ‘excess in the Parliament house’. Rudd admitted having spoken to Perrot but claimed that he had merely said that Baylie was ‘the best deponent in these late controversies that ever I came near’. He added that ‘whether this bare assertion may conclude Mr. Baylie an Arminian or trench any way on your lord[ship], let the world judge’).171 Perrot also complained that Baylie’s successor as Laud’s chaplain had recently refused to reprint the Articles of Ireland, or to licence a book which claimed that the Church of Rome was not a true church. Laud himself, he alleged, had commented that the author of another book directed against the Arminians ‘should well advise of the king’s Proclamation [forbidding the universities from discussing ‘those curious points in which the present differences lie’] before he print it’.172 Perrot was now clearly convinced that there existed a high-level conspiracy to subvert the fundamental doctrines of the Church of England and that those involved were anxious to avoid parliamentary criticism. Thus he warned the House during a debate on the confiscation of John Rolle’s* goods on 23 Feb. that ‘the enemies of our religion are in agitation to break this Parliament’.173 It was to be his final speech in the Commons.

VIII. Final Years

Following the dissolution, Perrot retired to Pembrokeshire, where he quickly became embroiled in a dispute with his local rival, Sir Thomas Canon. The latter obtained a commission to investigate Perrot’s activities as deputy vice admiral while at the same time questioning the earl of Pembroke’s right to appoint deputies. However, after a delay caused by Pembroke’s death, Perrot received firm backing from the 4th earl (Sir Philip Herbert*), who succeeded his brother as vice admiral, and nothing more was heard of the matter.174

Perrot published a second volume of prayers in 1630. Entitled Meditation and Prayers on the Lords’ Prayer and Ten Commandments, the volume had been circulated in manuscript form for at least two years prior to its publication. A model of puritan piety, it reveals that Perrot regarded himself as one of the Elect, and is striking for its condemnation of Catholic practice.175 Perrot was also the author of two unpublished works, ‘A Discourse of Lawes’, a 58-page treatise dedicated to Charles I, and a life of (Sir) Philip Sidney†.176 Perrot seems to have been a borrower of manuscripts as well as someone who circulated his own written work, for he was the owner of a manuscript copy of William Hakewill’s treatise on the passing of bills in Parliament.177

Perrot served as mayor of Haverfordwest for a third and final time in 1633-4. He drafted his will on 26 Jan. 1637, in which he bequeathed all his properties in Haverfordwest to Herbert Perrot of Moreton-on-Lugg, his anointed heir. Out of the rents arising from these properties Herbert was instructed to pay £3 each year to John Jessop, preacher of the town of Pembroke, who was also appointed an executor and a residual beneficiary of his estate. Twenty pounds was set aside to buy bread for the poor, and an equivalent sum was assigned to Haverfordwest’s corporation to act as a stock for putting the poor to work. Perrot died at Haroldston on 4 Feb. 1637 and was subsequently buried in the chancel of the local church of St. Mary’s in accordance with his wishes. A tomb was apparently erected to his memory, but no trace of it now remains.178 Following the death of Perrot’s widow in 1639, the validity of the entail created in 1622 was challenged in the Exchequer by John Laugharne of St. Bride’s, Pembrokeshire, the son of Lady Lettice Chichester by her first marriage. Laugharne pointed out that Perrot had previously entailed his estates to Lady Lettice and her offspring, but it emerged during the court case that neither Lady Lettice nor her second husband, Sir Arthur Chichester, had ever paid Perrot the financial consideration required to validate the entail of 1609.179 Possession of the Haroldston estate was therefore retained by Herbert Perrot, who represented Weobley in the Parliaments of 1659 and 1660, and Haverfordwest in 1677.

Ref Volumes: 1604-1629

Author: Andrew Thrush

Notes

• 1. E.L. Barnwell, ‘Notes on Perrott Fam.’, Arch. Camb. (ser. 3), xi. 128; Al. Ox.; M. Temple Admiss.
• 2. Vis. Bucks. (Harl. Soc. lviii), 4; E112/277/45, f. 1. For his daughters, see B.G. Charles, ‘Recs. of Bor. of Newport in Pemb.’, NLW Jnl. vii. 39; E134/16Chas.I/Mich.10, f. 4 of depositions made on behalf of Herbert Perrot.
• 3. Shaw, Knights of Eng. ii. 112.
• 4. JPs in Wales and Monm. ed. Phillips, 209, 212, 214, 217, 233, 240.
• 5. E315/309, ff. 137, 145.
• 6. Cal. Recs. of Bor. of Haverfordwest, 1539-1660 ed. B.G. Charles (Univ. Wales, Bd. of Celtic Studs. Hist. and Law Ser. xxiv), 43-4, 67-9; Pemb. RO, Haverfordwest bor. recs. ms 31/2 (ref. from Lloyd Bowen); LR1/237, f. 200.
• 7. E178/3484.
• 8. SP14/33, f. 4v; SP16/75/37.
• 9. HCA 14/39/217.
• 10. E178/205.
• 11. CSP Dom. 1629-31, p. 93; 1637, p. 33.
• 12. C181/2, f. 167.
• 13. C212/22/21.
• 14. C181/3, f. 97v. HP Commons, 1558-1603, iii. 205, states that he was a piracy commr. for Pemb. in 1634, but the order to draw up a commission was cancelled: CSP Dom. 1634-5, pp. 169-70.
• 15. HCA14/43, pt. 2, ff. 201, 203.
• 16. E179/224/598.
• 17. SP16/73/6.
• 18. SP16/88/50.
• 19. E178/7174, f. 140c.
• 20. SP16/182/82.
• 21. C181/5, f. 31.
• 22. CSP Ire. 1608-10, pp. 33, 510.
• 23. Ibid. 1615-25, p. 346; APC, 1621-3, p. 422.
• 24. Lincs. AO, Worsley ms 1/30.
• 25. Recs. Virg. Co. ed. S.M. Kingsbury, iii. 331; CSP Dom. 1623-5, p. 264.
• 26. DWL, Morrice ms 31.J, 1636(2); G. Dyfnallt Owen, Wales in Reign of Jas. I (RHS, liii), 81; H.A. Lloyd, Gentry of SW Wales 1540-1640, p. 107.
• 27. We are grateful to R.K. Turvey for a valuable correspondence on this matter. For the family’s claim that its ancestry was traceable to the twelfth century, see Turvey, ‘Sir John Perrot, Henry VIII’s Bastard?’, Trans. of Hon. Soc. of Cymmrodorion, 1992, p. 89; E134/16Chas.I/Mich.10, f. 3 of depositions made on behalf of Herbert Perrot.
• 28. Turvey, 88.
• 29. [W. Scott], Mems. of Robert Cary and Fragmenta Regalia, 240.
• 30. Barnwell, Arch. Camb. (ser. 3), xii. 478-9. The claim that this conveyance was drawn up in 1575 is false: HP Commons 1558-1603, iii. 205.
• 31. E112/62/19.
• 32. E133/8/1132.
• 33. As is evident from his The First Part of Consideration of Humane Condition (Oxf. 1600), passim.
• 34. Ath. Ox. ii. 605.
• 35. CSP Dom. 1591-4, p. 515.
• 36. For this man, see R.K. Turvey, ‘NLW Roll 135: A Seventeenth-Cent. Ped. Roll from Herefs.’, NLW Jnl. xxx. 399.
• 37. HMC Hatfield, ix. 54.
• 38. J. Perrot, Discovery of Discontented Minds (Oxf. 1596); HMC Hatfield, ix. 54.
• 39. HMC Hatfield, xix. 391.
• 40. Ibid. iv. 262, mis-calendared ‘? 1592’, but 1594 or later.
• 41. M. Nicholls, Investigating Gunpowder Plot, 92; HMC Hatfield, xix. 451.
• 42. She was named ‘Cicil’. HMC Hatfield, vii. 233-4; Charles, 39.
• 43. CSP Dom. 1595-7, p. 427; 1598-1601, p. 504; E112/62/19; 112/277/48B; C66/1504.
• 44. HMC Hatfield, xv. 384; CSP Dom. 1603-10, p. 201; Cent. Kent. Stud., U269/1/OE1694.
• 45. C66/1778/18; HEHL, EL 6229.
• 46. C2/Jas.I/P23/30.
• 47. E112/277/45, [f. 1].
• 48. HMC Hatfield, xi. 164. He was not listed as a dep. lt. in Sept. 1607: SP14/28/48.
• 49. HMC Hatfield, x. 329.
• 50. LC2/4/4, f. 69.
• 51. CJ, i. 162a, 172a, 199b, 965a.
• 52. HMC Hatfield, xvii. 257, 296-7.
• 53. CJ, i. 258b.
• 54. Ibid. 263a, 268b.
• 55. Ibid. 296a-b; Cott. Cleopatra F.II, f. 239.
• 56. CJ, i. 282a-b.
• 57. Ibid. 295a, 309a.
• 58. Ibid. 291a-b.
• 59. HMC Hatfield, xviii. 431.
• 60. Add. 34218, f. 21v.
• 61. CJ, i. 326b, 329b.
• 62. Ibid. 375a, 384b.
• 63. Bowyer, 342.
• 64. CJ, i. 387b.
• 65. Ibid. 324b.
• 66. Ibid. 384b, 386a; Bowyer, 363-4.
• 67. CJ, i. 287b, 347b.
• 68. CSP Ire. 1606-8, pp. 547, 558, 564, 568, 576.
• 69. Ibid. 1608-10, pp. 150, 219.
• 70. Ibid. 366; CJ, i. 393b.
• 71. E134/16Chas.I/Mich.10, f. 7 of depositions made on behalf of John Laugharne.
• 72. Pluralism, non-residence, subscription, recusancy and alehousekeepers (a perennial concern of the godly): CJ, i. 396b, 410a, 417a, 420b, 426a.
• 73. Ibid. 415a, 420b.
• 74. HCA 14/43, pt. 3, ff. 402, 404.
• 75. CSP Dom. 1611-18, p. 123; Owen, 82.
• 76. E179/224/510.
• 77. Cott. Titus F.IV, ff. 340-1.
• 78. Procs. 1614 (Commons), 62, 109, 115.
• 79. Ibid. 340, 349, 358, 384.
• 80. Ibid. 403, 410, 419.
• 81. Ibid. 416, 421-2.
• 82. APC, 1613-15, pp. 460, 466; T. Birch, Ct. and Times of Jas. I, i. 324.
• 83. Procs. 1614 (Commons), 33.
• 84. Ibid. 37, 132, 135, 215, 217-18, 393.
• 85. CSP Ire. 1615-25, pp. 97-8.
• 86. J. Perrot, The Chronicle of Ire. 1584-1608 ed. H. Wood (Irish Mss Comm. 1933), v-vii, 1, 3, 6-7.
• 87. CJ, i. 507b, 508a, 529a; CD 1621, iv. 11; ii. 144; vi. 356.
• 88. CJ, i. 509b; CD 1621, iv. 15. For the Proclamation, see Stuart Royal Procs. ed. J.F. Larkin and P.L. Hughes, i. 495-6.
• 89. CJ, i. 518a.
• 90. Nicholas, Procs. 1621, i. 25; CD 1621, ii. 38; iv. 28.
• 91. Nicholas, i. 80.
• 92. CJ, i. 523a; Nicholas, i. 60; CD 1621, ii. 104.
• 93. CJ, i. 525a; Nicholas, i. 55; CD 1621, v. 469; v. 507. One diarist records that Perrot stated that the king received only £4,000 from this source: CD 1621, ii. 97.
• 94. Nicholas, i. 91, 93; CD 1621, iv. 100-3; v. 256; vi. 9.
• 95. Nicholas, i. 144; CJ, i. 550b, 572b, 617a, 652a; CD 1621, ii. 208-9; vi. 55; M.C. Questier, ‘Sir Henry Spiller, Recusancy and the Efficiency of the Exchequer’, HR, lxvi. 253-6.
• 96. CD 1621, iii. 162; ii. 344-5.
• 97. CJ, i. 534b, 549a, 575b, 582b, 589a; CD 1621, iii. 66; v. 80.
• 98. CJ, i. 625a; CD 1621, iii. 290; ii. 382; iv. 363; v. 381; V. Treadwell, Buckingham and Ire. 1616-28, pp. 162-3.
• 99. CJ, i. 593a, 597b; CD 1621, iii. 90; Nicholas, i. 327.
• 100. CJ, i. 563a.
• 101. CD 1621, vi. 13, 255, 269.
• 102. CJ, i. 540b.
• 103. Ibid. 546b; CD 1621, ii. 200; v. 284.
• 104. Trin. House of Deptford Trans. ed. G.G. Harris (London Rec. Soc. xix), pp. x-xi.
• 105. CJ, i. 529b.
• 106. Ibid. 573b, 590a, 611a; CD 1621, iii. 185; ii. 351.
• 107. CJ, i. 594a, 637a; CD 1621, ii. 326; iv. 265.
• 108. CJ, i. 601; CD 1621, iii. 124; v. 360.
• 109. CJ, i. 639a; Nicholas, ii. 168-70; CD 1621, iii. 347; v. 200; iv. 415-16.
• 110. Birch, ii. 257.
• 111. CJ, i. 643a; Nicholas, ii. 195; CD 1621, ii. 439.
• 112. CJ, i. 645b; Nicholas, ii. 209-10; CD 1621, iii. 448; ii. 446-7; vi. 196, 317. The figs. given in each of these accts. inevitably vary.
• 113. Add. 10397, f. 18v.
• 114. CD 1621, vi. 198.
• 115. CJ, i. 648a; Nicholas, ii. 219; CD 1621, iii. 462; v. 216-17; vi. 200-1.
• 116. Nicholas, ii. 228; CD 1621, ii. 461; iv. 447.
• 117. CD 1621, ii. 475-6, 544.
• 118. CJ, i. 655b; Nicholas, ii. 269-70; CD 1621, ii. 488-9.
• 119. CJ, i. 664b; Nicholas, ii. 332; CD 1621, vi. 238.
• 120. Historical Collections ed. J. Rushworth, i. 55; Treadwell, 172, 186, 355. For the view that Perrot went to Ireland unwillingly, see DWL, Morrice ms 31.J, 1636(2).
• 121. E134/16Chas.I/Mich.10.
• 122. Treadwell, 195; Cent. Kent. Stud. U269/1/Hi212.
• 123. APC, 1621-3, p. 422; Treadwell, 214.
• 124. HCA14/43, pt. 2, f. 203.
• 125. Haverfordwest Corporation ms 31/2, unfol., 31 Oct. 1623 (ref. from Lloyd Bowen).
• 126. This copy is in the NLW: ref. from Lloyd Bowen.
• 127. C219/38/377; CJ, i. 714b, 798a.
• 128. Ferrar 1624, p. 20. His name was incorrectly rendered as ‘Berrat’ by the diarist.
• 129. CJ, i. 671a-b, 793a.
• 130. CJ, i. 725b; ‘Spring 1624’, p. 72.
• 131. CJ, i. 732b; ‘Spring 1624’, p. 102.
• 132. CJ, i. 751b; ‘Pym 1624’, i. f. 44.
• 133. Holles 1624, f. 117v; ‘Spring 1624’, p. 169; ‘Lowther 1624’, f. 48.
• 134. CJ, i. 754a.
• 135. Ibid. 756b; Holles 1624, f. 121.
• 136. CJ, i. 766a; ‘Spring 1624’, p. 217; ‘Earle 1624’, f. 138v.
• 137. CJ, i. 688b; ‘Earle 1624’, f. 153.
• 138. ‘Nicholas 1624’, f. 203; CJ, i. 692a, 776b.
• 139. CJ, i. 703a.
• 140. Ibid. 696a.
• 141. Ibid. 692b, 704a, 746a, 761a, 762a.
• 142. Ibid. 728a; ‘Holland 1624’, i. f. 22v; Ferrar 1624, p. 53.
• 143. CJ, i. 741a.
• 144. ‘Nicholas 1624’, f. 167; CJ, i. 785a-b; C.R. Kyle ‘Attendance Lists’, PPE 1604-40 ed. Kyle, 123.
• 145. CJ, i. 713b.
• 146. Turvey, ‘NLW Roll 135’, pp. 380-1.
• 147. APC, 1625-6, p. 81.
• 148. Procs. 1625, pp. 206, 210.
• 149. Ibid. 335-6, 340-1.
• 150. E112/62/19; CSP Dom. 1603-10, p. 201; HMC Hatfield, xvii. 555.
• 151. SP16/18/63.
• 152. CSP Ire. 1625-32, p. 91.
• 153. Cf. C. Russell, PEP, 16-17.
• 154. Procs. 1626, iii. 10.
• 155. Ibid. 120, 180, 329, 404.
• 156. Ibid. 199, 199. The cttees. were concerned with pvte. land bills.
• 157. Ibid. 156-7, 159, 163.
• 158. Ibid. 429.
• 159. Treadwell, 352, n. 33.
• 160. CSP Dom. 1627-8, pp. 81, 229; CSP Ire. 1625-32, p. 238.
• 161. SP16/73/6; 16/75/37.
• 162. CD 1628, ii. 29; CJ, i. 671b.
• 163. CD 1628, ii. 30, 32, 275.
• 164. Ibid. 41, 157, 227; iii. 61, 440, 513, 517, 593.
• 165. Ibid. ii. 246; iv. 144, 157.
• 166. Ibid. iv. 145, 147, 157, 167.
• 167. Ibid. ii. 298, 304.
• 168. Ibid. iii. 255-6, 264.
• 169. Ibid. iv. 140, 154, 162, 248, 266; Russell, 384.
• 170. CD 1629, pp. 35, 122.
• 171. LPL, Misc. ms 943, p. 139 (ref. from Lloyd Bowen).
• 172. CD 1629, pp. 39, 125.
• 173. Ibid. 236.
• 174. CSP Dom. 1631-3, pp. 66-7, 573, 582; Addenda 1625-9, pp. 451-2.
• 175. Add. 10397.
• 176. HMC 3rd Rep. 205; Ath. Ox. ii. 606.
• 177. Bodl. ms Perrot 4, ff. 90-106.
• 178. Barnwell, 488-93; E134/16Chas.I/Mich.10, f. 3v of depositions made on behalf of Herbert Perrot; F.J. Warren, Hist. and Antiqs. of St. Mary’s, Haverfordwest, 41.
• 179. E134/16Chas.I/Mich.10, f. 3v of depositions made on behalf of Herbert Perrot.