Sir John Perrot was a goodly gentleman, and of the sword; and he was of a
very ancient descent, as an heir to many subtracts of gentry, especially
from Guy de Brain of Lawhorn; so was he of a very vast estate, and came
not to Court for want and to these advancements. He had the endowments
of carriage and height of spirit, had he alighted on the alloy and temper
of discretion; the defect whereof, with a native freedom and boldness of
speech, drew him on to a clouded sitting, and laid him open to the spleen
and advantage of his enemies, of whom Sir Christopher Hatton was
professed. He was yet a wise man and a brave courtier, but rough and
participating more of active than sedentary motions, as being in his
instillation destined for arms. There is a query of some denotations,
how he came to receive the foil, and that in the catastrophe? for he was
strengthened with honourable alliances and the prime friendship in Court
of my Lords of Leicester and Burleigh, both his contemporaries and
familiars; but that there might be (as the adage hath it) falsity in
friendship: and we may rest satisfied that there is no dispute against
fate, and they quit him for a person that loved to stand too much alone
on his legs, of too often regress and discontinuance from the Queen’s
presence, a fault which is incompatible with the ways of Court and
favour. He was sent Lord-Deputy into Ireland, as it was then
apprehended, for a kind of haughtiness and repugnancy in Council; or, as
others have thought, the fittest person then to bridle the insolences of
the Irish; and probable it is that both, considering the sway that he
would have at the Board, being head in the Queen’s favour, concurred, and
did alike conspire his remove and ruin. But into Ireland he went, where
he did the Queen very great and many services, if the surplusage of the
measure did not abate the value of the merit, as after-time found to be
no paradox to save the Queen’s purse, but both herself and my Lord
Treasurer Burleigh ever took for good service; he imposed on the Irish
the charge for bearing their own arms, which both gave them the
possession and taught them the use of weapons; which provided in the end
to a most fatal work, both in the profusion of blood and treasure.
But at his return, and upon some account sent home before, touching the
state of that kingdom, the Queen poured out assiduous testimonies of her
grace towards him, till, by his retreat to his Castle of Cary, which he
was then building, and out of a desire to be in command at home as he had
been abroad, together with the hatred and practice of Hatton, then in
high favour, whom he had, not long before, bitterly taunted for his
dancing, he was accused for high treason, and for high words, and a
forged letter, and condemned; though the Queen, on the news of his
condemnation, swore, by her wonted oath, that the jury were all knaves:
and they delivered it with assurance that, on his return to the town
after his trial, he said, with oaths and with fury, to the Lieutenant,
Sir Owen Hopton, “What! will the Queen suffer her brother to be offered
up as a sacrifice to the envy of my flattering adversaries?” Which being
made known to the Queen, and somewhat enforced, she refused to sign it,
and swore he should not die, for he was an honest and faithful man. And
surely, though not altogether to set our rest and faith upon tradition
and old reports, as that Sir Thomas Perrot, his father, was a gentleman
of the Privy Chamber, and in the Court married to a lady of great honour,
which are presumptions in some implications; but, if we go a little
further and compare his pictures, his qualities, gesture, and voice, with
that of the King, which memory retains yet amongst us, they will plead
strongly that he was a surreptitious child of the blood royal.
Certain it is that he lived not long in the Tower; and that after his
decease, Sir Thomas Perrot, his son, then of no mean esteem with the
Queen, having before married my Lord of Essex’s sister, since Countess of
Northumberland, had restitution of his land; though after his death also
(which immediately followed) the Crown resumed the estate, and took
advantage of the former attainder; and, to say the truth, the priest’s
forged letter was, at his arraignment, thought but as a fiction of envy,
and was soon after exploded by the priest’s own confession. But that
which most exasperated the Queen and gave advantage to his enemies was,
as Sir Walter Raleigh takes into observation, words of disdain, for the
Queen, by sharp and reprehensive letters, had nettled him; and thereupon,
sending others of approbation, commending his service, and intimating an
invasion from Spain; which was no sooner proposed but he said publicly,
in the great chamber at Dublin:—“Lo, now she is ready to * * herself for
fear of the Spaniards: I am again one of her white boys,” which are
subject to a various construction, and tended to some disreputation of
his Sovereign, and such as may serve for instruction to persons in place
of honour and command, to beware of the violences of Nature, and
especially the exorbitance of the tongue. And so I conclude him with
this double observation: the one, of the innocency of his intentions,
exempt and clear from the guilt of treason and disloyalty, therefore of
the greatness of his heart; for at his arraignment he was so little
dejected with what might be alleged, that rather he grew troubled with
choler, and, in a kind of exasperation, he despised his jury, though of
the Order of Knighthood, and of the especial gentry, claiming the
privilege of trial by the peers and baronage of the realm, so prevalent
was that of his native genius and haughtiness of spirit which accompanied
him to the last, and till, without any diminution of change therein, it
broke in pieces the cords of his magnanimity; for he died suddenly in the
Tower, and when it was thought the Queen did intend his enlargement, with
the restitution of his possessions, which were then very great, and
comparable to most of the nobility.