The Other Tudors (23 page)
The constant sniping by some of the Irish officials and ill will by some of the Queen’s advisers came to a head in September 1585. The Council were bombarded with a list of the expenses of the Lord Deputy’s household; a ‘brief note … particularly discovering the small expenses and the strict and pinching parsimony of the Lord Deputy’s house, what great show of expense so ever he may advertise’ and a ‘Book of the objections that can be charged against Sir John Perrot, and the answer thereunto.’
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Despite this, Sir John stayed put. The Queen had complete faith both in his loyalty and in his abilities. Sir John, however, was feeling the strain.
He wrote to Burghley that he had received no reply to his letters. He wished Burghley and the Queen to know that he was not alone in his desire to turn St Patrick’s into a university. He added that, far from being miserly, he opened his house to anyone who might wish to partake of a good and hearty supper with him, even though Sir John himself had been unable to enjoy such good food for some 23 years due to his poor health. A second letter followed, in which he demanded to be sent a copy of Loftus’s accusations: the record of his expenses was quite accurate and any money he spent was necessary. In fact, although he had been promised £16,000, only £1,200 had arrived so far. He made the first of what was to be many requests that he should be relieved of his office.
January 1586 began with more orders from London and a note of explanation from Sir John. He wrote to the Privy Council explaining why he had been unable, as yet, to carry out the orders in recent letters from the Council on behalf of a number of petitioners; including Richard Sheeth (who had requested his freedom; Sir John had already freed him).
On a more positive note, of three Irish lords, Slane, Howth and Louth, who had previously written letters complaining about Sir John, the former two had now retracted them, and Sir John asked that Louth be obliged to prove his accusations and, when he failed, that he should be punished accordingly. Oliver Plunkett, Baron Louth, was made of sterner stuff, however. He wrote to Burghley telling of how the Lord Deputy had threatened him with disgrace to compel him to recant his previous complaint about Sir John’s financial irregularities. He also sent a lengthy report to Walsingham on the same subject, claiming that Perrot demanded recompense for his lavish life style, but in fact spent very little on his official status, pocketing the difference. Louth suggested that Perrot looked down on those he saw as lesser than himself, saying: ‘I confess my wealth is not so great as his, which maketh him in truth to despise all men without measure.’
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One of the major worries for the Council of Ireland was the threat of invasion from Spain. A Barbary merchant, Challis, had reported that Spain was amassing an invasion fleet, with 20,000 men, to sail against Ireland. Sir John was able to advise the Queen and Walsingham that he was keeping his ear to the ground.
All the while he kept up a steady stream of reports on the planned Spanish invasion and requests for men, money, food and clothing. He was active, however, in his attempts to protect Ireland. He had hired a spy, Davy Duke, although he had to share these services with Walsingham:
‘I have made a choice of one I take to be a very fit instrument for that purpose. He hath the Italian and Spanish tongue … and been at Rome accepted for one to the fraternity of the Jesuits, and goeth thence as it were, disgraced by me and recommended by a supposed Bishop of the Pope’s ... The man is of good carriage, born in this land, and his name is Davy Duke … I have concluded with him upon a figure and tripartite indented piece of parchment, whereof I send you one part herein closed. If he write unto you in that figure, and send unto you his counterpart of the indenture, you are to consider of it and I take it, to give credit to it, for I think he will deal both wisely and honestly.’
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Back at the English Court, Sir John’s enemies were busy. Walsingham told him that Elizabeth I was unhappy that there were so many complaints about him and that he should be careful how he behaved. She had been told that Sir John had taken greater care of his own affairs than he had of the Queen’s. However, both Walsingham and Burghley were still prepared to support Sir John against these rumours and calumnies. The Queen also wrote, in her own hand, but with less conciliation, reprimanding Sir John for producing yet another scare story about invasions.
It is difficult not to feel sorry for Sir John. He was in an impossible situation, obliged to protect the land, but reprimanded if he suggested an invasion might actually happen. He had to keep the Irish people happy, but continue to reward the English. He was in a permanent state of poverty and the orders kept coming from London. After receiving one such bundle of orders and requests, he wrote to Burghley that he felt worn down and disgraced: ‘For first there is such a kind of superintendence of this Council set over me, as I do not see how I may henceforth without fear enter into consultation much less action of any importance …’
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His feelings were presumably known as in May 1586 Loftus and Sir William Stanley started a rumour that Perrot was leaving Ireland and the Earl of Ormonde replacing him. By July, Wallop further demonstrated his opposition to Sir John by sending a document to Walsingham detailing financial irregularities in the Lord Deputy’s budget, including that he had claimed stable charges of £1,700 for horses, when the actual fee was £400. However, in that same month a list of the household wages, liveries and stable for the Lord Deputy was sent home. Unfortunately for Sir John, according to the figures and taking into account what the Queen had allowed him, he suffered a financial loss of £3,021 16s 6d.
Whilst Wallop was belittling Sir John, Sir Nicholas White, Master of the Rolls in Dublin, had a better report for Burghley, although he could not confess to like him:
‘The Lord Deputy Perrot hath been so many ways interrupted in his intended good purposes for settling of this realm, which (in his judgment) ought first to have been begun in the North … he stands to prove upon the forfeiture of so much of his own wealth, that his journeys into the North hath cost Her Highness little or nothing, and would have brought to pass that Her Highness should have a resident garrison of 400 men maintained there for ever without any charge to her crown; by which both the inland and outland Scots might have been always mastered. I must confess to your Lordship that the manners of the man are far contrary to my nature, and yet the success of his government makes me to follow it and not him.’
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Sir John’s gift for making enemies was not helped by foolish actions on behalf of the families of his officers. In November, Sir Nicholas White reported to Burghley of a disagreement between Sir John and the Marshall, Sir Nicholas Bagenall. Bagenall was furious about the arrest of his son, Dudley, for failing to appear on the Lord Deputy’s summons to answer a complaint, and for beating the party that delivered the summons.
Sir Nicholas Bagenall, still smarting from his son’s arrest, wrote a scathing letter in December, stating that everyone was dissatisfied with Sir John, that his supporters were villains and that he treated his own Crown officers badly, calling them ‘beggars, squibs, puppies’. He finished his letter by claiming that, should there be an invasion, the troops hated Sir John so much that they would refuse to fight under him.
Loftus, as ever, was there at Sir Nicholas’s side. He sent a supporting missive stating that Sir John still acted against him when he could, so much so that Loftus was in fear for his life. He claimed that the Council was being ignored and if a case was brought before them, ‘his Lordship’s common answer is this, with great fury, “What tellest thou me of the Council?” “What care I for the Council?”, “They are all of them, but a sort of beggars and squibs, puppies, dogs, dunghill churls – yea, even the proudest of them come hither with their hose patched on the heels”.’ A third letter, in the same vein, came from Sir Geoffrey Fenton, although rather primly he declined to repeat the names that the Lord Deputy had used towards his colleagues.
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Sir John was aware that his enemies were amassing against him. He wrote to the new secretary to the Council, William Davison:
‘I am most glad to learn that her Majesty hath chosen you to be one of her principal secretaries … There was never any Governor here, that held my place, but was subject to malicious tongues; I pray you therefore if any man say ought of me there … let him set it down in writing and set his hand to it, for wind hath more hurt me, delivered in corners, than matter.’
Sir John was able to enjoy a small revenge. On 7 December Roger Wilbraham, Solicitor General for Ireland, and Charles Calthorpe, Attorney General, submitted their statement of expected payment of first fruits (a fee payable to the Crown from anyone taking up a new Government or Church post). The first name on the list was that of ‘A Loftus, Archbishop of Dublin’; Sir John Perrot endorsed the document. Wallop commented: ‘I know your Lordship cannot but be advertised by sundry means of the continual jarring and mislike that is between the Lord Deputy and the Lord Chancellor, wherein I can commend neither of them … and here I see none that can appease it.’
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The year 1587 began with a rumour that Sir John was to be recalled to England. Both Sir Geoffrey Fenton and Sir Richard Byngham signalled their approval. The Auditor, Mr Jenyson, wrote to Burghley that the nobles of Ireland were delighted that they would now be governed by someone of noble rank and not someone who, no matter how experienced or well meaning, was a mere knight.
Sir John then made a tactical error. In January 1587 he authorised the arrest of Sir Geoffrey Fenton for the debt of the trifling sum of £70. Fenton, a noted author and also the son-in-law of Dr Robert Weston, former Lord Chancellor of Ireland, immediately sent a note to Burghley. In remarkably quick time a reply came back to Sir John from Elizabeth I herself (to whom one of Fenton’s books had been dedicated). Since Fenton had been arrested for such a small sum and he had, of course, meant to repay it in good time: ‘… we cannot but advise you not only to enlarge the said Fenton that he may attend upon his ordinary calling there for our service … but also to forbear those hard kind of proceedings in like cases hereafter. And considering how inconvenient it is at all times … to have you and the rest of our Council there divided, as we hear you are by factions and partialities …’
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However, it appears that Sir John did not learn from this lesson. He apparently challenged Sir Richard Byngham, another competent officer with royal support, to a duel. Sir Richard could not believe that Sir John was behaving like a bully and begged Burghley either to recall him or the Lord Deputy.
The battle lines were well and truly drawn. Geoffrey Fenton supported Justice Gardiner in his request to be recalled to England, on the grounds that he was unable to work under the continued harassment and lack of support of the Lord Deputy. He reported that the Attorney General supported the Lord Deputy, and was prone to take the part of the Irish against the English. Fenton went on the offensive in March, suggesting to Burghley that the Council was too cumbersome and too much under the control of the Lord Deputy, so that even those who were not his supporters were afraid to stand up to him. Fenton suggested that a Council of three or four men would make decisions much faster. The Councillors presently numbered 18, of who 3 usually failed to appear. Fenton was himself secretary.
In May, it looked as if Sir John had been given permission to return to England, at least temporarily. He wrote to Burghley, ‘… yet seeing Her Highness hath appointed me to come over at Michaelmas, I would gladly leave the country quiet in all respects, to him that shall come after me …’ He hoped to receive some small sum of money before he left, to sort out a couple of persistent rebels and troublemakers, and he was hopeful that the Spanish would take no action that summer.
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Before he could get too complacent, another serious problem arose following an argument between Sir John and Sir Nicholas Bagenall. In May 1587, Patrick Cullen, a servant of Turlough O’Neil, had been arrested and Sir John decided that he should not carry out the interrogation, since O’Neil had already complained about him and Cullen had carried his letters. Presumably before he could let his Council know, Bagenall approached Sir John and ordered him not to carry out the questioning. Sir John lost his temper and words were exchanged. According to one account:
‘… with that he [Sir John] rose and went toward the Marshal [Bagenall], and with his flat hand touched his cheek, once or twice, staying his other hand on his right shoulder, saying, Well, well, Marshall (not striking him as he could have done) if you defied a man in my place, in any other country, he would hang you. Wherewithal the Marshall, having a staff in his hand, did threateningly raise up the same, as though he would have stroken the Deputy; wherewith the Justice, Sir Nicholas White and Mr. Fenton went between them.’
Sir Nicholas gave his version of events. The accusations against Cullen had involved his son, Sir Henry Bagenall, and Sir Nicholas, believing Sir John had an vendetta against him and his family, was keen that the Lord Deputy should have nothing to do with the matter. In his version, he had courteously asked Sir John to step down, but had been told by the Lord Deputy that he would do what he liked, when he liked.
Of course Gardiner and Fenton supported Sir Nicholas Bagenall. They added that Sir Nicholas White had approached them to retract their support and when they refused, he had asked to see their written statements; when he was given them, he promptly tore the papers up. White, in his account, agreed largely with Sir John.
