Life
?1527-1592; reputed to be the illegitimate son of Henry VIII by Mary Berkley; President of Munster, campaigned against Fitzmaurice; defeated by Hebridean Scots in Ulster and attempted to expel McDonnells from settlements on Antrim coast; died while charged with treason and disgraced, in the Tower of London. ODNB
Commentary
Edmund Spenser, View, 3410-21, ‘but surely his manner of government could not be sound or wholesome ... &c.’ [see further under Edmund Spenser - infra].
R. Gottfried, in his Commentary on Spenser’s “View of Ireland”, in Prose Works of Spenser, Var. Ed., vol. 10 (1949) writes: Perrot was the illegitimate child of Henry VIII and a half-brother of Elizabeth, whom he called on occasion ‘a base bastard pisskytching’ (Sir Robt. Naughton, Fragmenta Regalia, 1870); he was pardoned by Elizabeth only shortly before his death in the following year. He was Lord Deputy, 1584-88; admiration for him is expressed in John Hooker, and Camden (Holinshed, Vol. II; The Supplie of the Irish Chronicles; Annales). See also anon., History of Sir John Perrot; according to Bagwell, his departure was bewailed by the Irish; Dublin city presented him with a bowl inscribed Relinquo in pace.
John Bardon, History of Ulster (1992) gives further detail of Perrot’s career in Ireland.
University of Ulster (Morris Collection) holds The Chronicle of Ireland 1584-1608 (Dublin Stat. Office 1933) 199pp.
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