Talk:John Perrot

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Interesting source[edit]

I obtained the following stuff from the website http://welshjournals.llgc.org.uk and using 'Haverfordwest' as a search term. First search result linked to
The Pembrokeshire historian : journal of the Pembrokeshire Local History Society > No. 1 - 1959 > The Elizabethan squirearchy of Pembrokeshire, which is presented as image scans in pdf form

Some of the things he got up to whilst resident in Pembrokeshire

Exported grain to Gloucestershire. page 26 (some measure of how much land he farmed).
Military service with Walter Devereaux in Ireland and The Low Countries page 27
Had armed retainers and indulged in - sometimes bloody (Haverfordwest, 1569) - small-scale local warfare against (similarly armed) rival squires of the county.page 28
Page 28 also says "...the opinion expressed by Rowland Lee in a letter of March 1536, to Thomas Cromwell, when he declared that the gentry from whom the new J.P.s were to be recruited were themselves harbouring thieves and maintaining criminals." No names are specified in that excerpt but this (Wiki) article currently contains a line saying something similar about him. I wonder if historians have later interpreted this primary source as applying to John Perrot, in particular?
Page 28 again - the attempted armed theft of a crop on land whose ownership was a matter of dispute between him and a neighbour who was, ironically, a J.P. (Justice of the Peace), having the authority to request that Perrot's retainers stand down, in the name of the Queen. When that ploy failed, only the ability to call on his neighbours with arquebuses, or bow-and-arrows caused Perrot's men (bill-hooks and pitchforks) to flee.
Appointed vice-admiral of South Wales in 1562 (possible involvement in piracy, instead of policing it) page 29
(as an interesting aside, this page also makes reference to two Spanish Armada vessels coming ashore in Wales. One, at "a creek called Galtop" was looted by John Wogan and his men. Another one, at Caldey, managed to escape "through the disorderly behaviour of others.")
In 1570, when about to depart for Ireland as president of Munster, he was authorized, in his capacity as mayor of Haverfordwest, to press into service not only his own servants and tenants but also as many of his enemies' servants as he desired. Only those answering to his question that they were now and had never been against him were released, on pain of remaining in that state.page 30
Used the royal courts to conduct "vexatious litigation" against his opponents Page 29 ff.

"Thomas Catharne of Prendergast was hated by Perrot for his attempts to condemn the latter's Protestantism during Mary's reign, is said to have been prosecuted to death, after paying out £700 on lawsuits. (referenced to P.C.C. Evans, 'Sir John Perrot, ' p. 269.)"
"Catharne's son-in-law, Alban Stepney, inherited the feud and proved one of Perrot's most recalcitrant opponents."
P.C.C. Evans' work has a list of eight landowners persecuted and prosecuted by Perrot, up to 1581, with amounts ranging from £100 to £700 and one of "2000 marks" - immense sums for the time - and also mentions a burgess of Haverfordwest reduced to pauperism.

So, all in all, accusations of tyranny (by his servants, tenants and local gentry) seem to have been well-founded. I've posted this material to the talk page because it needs to be re-drafted in such a way that it's no longer a direct 'lift' from the website I've given links to and I don't have time to do this myself, at the moment. With those links, you only really need to select one of them, then use the Prev. Page, Next page buttons until you've read as much as you want. EatYerGreens (talk) 09:09, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

His principal modern biographers (Evans & Turvey) regard Sir John as a 'great Elizabethan' despite the contemporary accusations of misconduct from his enemies which you cite.

I'm pretty sure these contemporary authorities are well aware of them and many others. Nevertheless a case for their assessment of him as a heroic & often falsely maligned figure is made in his ODNB entry and in several books together with academic articles such as the one linked below.

https://archive.org/details/sirjohnperrotafourthcentenaryretrospectivereviewthetreasonandtrialofsirjohnbyrogerturvey/page/n1/mode/2up Horatius At The Bridge (talk) 20:46, 1 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Unused source[edit]

One of the sources has some good stuff on his life in Wales that's not in the article:

http://wbo.llgc.org.uk/en/s-PERR-HAR-1530.html --Shtove (talk) 22:04, 25 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Plus his biog at Historyofparliamentonline.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Shtove (talk • contribs) 13:27, 4 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Henry VIII's son.[edit]

This website here, Geneastar [1]https://en.geneastar.org/geneaology/perrotj/john-perrot, shows John Perrot as a son of Henry VIII, but I can't find any other site that says that John was Henry VIII son. 70.50.199.125 (talk) 06:54, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]