PERCIVALLE, Sir Philip (1603-47), of Burton and Liscarroll, Co. Cork.

The Percivalles had been settled at North Weston, Somerset, since the middle ages, with a cadet line at Sydenham, near Bridgwater. Sir Philip Percivalle’s father, Richard, who belonged to this junior branch, had family connections across the west country, and was related to a number of important families, including the Bampfyldes of Poltimore in Devon.18HMC Egmont, i. 487. Despite this, when faced with financial problems in the 1610s, he sold his Somerset estates and moved to Ireland, where he served as clerk and registrar to the commissioners of wards from 1616, and purchased an estate in co. Cork.19Anderson, Yvery, ii. 135.

At Richard’s death in 1620, his two surviving sons, Walter and Philip, petitioned to succeed him as clerk of the court of wards – a post which Philip held on his own after his brother’s death in 1624.20HMC Egmont, i. 61. By then, Percivalle was acting as feodary and escheator in co. Limerick, where he was accused of corruption by the local inhabitants.21CSP Ire. 1625-32, p. 506; HMC Egmont, i. 61. In the early 1630s, he was appointed clerk of the court of wards and feodary of the province of Munster.22HMC Egmont, i. p. x. Using tactics similar to those used by Richard Boyle, 1st earl of Cork (who had held similar offices earlier in the century), in the 1620s and 1630s Percivalle profited from his local position by leasing wards’ lands at bargain rates, and lending the proceeds to local families in return for mortgages. An early acquisition was the estate of the royal ward Florence McCarthy, whose lands were leased to Percivalle at preferential rates in the mid-1620s; and by 1639 Percivalle had private interests in eight similar wardship cases in Munster.23CSP Ire. 1625-32, pp. 101, 130; 1647-60, p. 167; HMC Egmont, i. 113. Such leases provided the funds for extensive money-lending. From the late 1620s Percivalle lent large sums to the Barry family, whose ancestral lands in northern co. Cork gradually came into his possession in the form of mortgages; other families to fall under Percivalle’s financial spell included the MacCarthys, O’Callaghans and Roches.24MacCarthy-Morrogh, Munster Plantation, 165-7. Between 1624 and 1633 Percivalle was a regular creditor under statutes staple, entering bonds worth over £7,000 – many to impoverished Old English families who presumably put up mortgages as collateral for the loans.25Irish Statute Staple Bks. 133-4. The profits to be made from these practices were considerable. In 1640 Percivalle owned property in Dublin as well as 21 manors in cos. Cork, Tipperary and Waterford, and his estimated income from the Cork lands alone exceeding £2,500 a year.26HMC Egmont, i. 114, 177.

Philip’s success was helped by two factors. The first was his marriage, in 1626, to Katherine, daughter of Arthur Ussher. This brought a number of important contacts within the Protestant community: his brothers-in-law included Sir William Ussher, Sir Paul Davies*, Sir Percy Smith and Sir Theophilus Jones*.27HMC Egmont, i. p. ix. In later years the godparents for his children included members of the Cave, Brereton, Parsons, Meredith, Davies, Newcomen and Tichborne families.28HMC Egmont, i. 123-5. In 1638 he joined Davies and Ussher as trustee for the estates of Arthur Hill* of Hillsborough.29NAI, Lodge’s MSS 1.A.53.55, f. 222. These connections added to the friendships which Percivalle had already established in Munster (including those with the earl of Cork and the lord president, Sir William St Leger), rooted him firmly into New English society. By the mid-1630s Percivalle’s prospects were further advanced by a second factor: his willingness to cooperate with the new lord deputy, Sir Thomas Wentworth†, Viscount Wentworth. Percivalle’s first allies within Wentworth’s administration were probably Sir Philip Mainwaring* and Sir George Radcliffe*, who were aiding Percivalle’s landed interests as early as April 1634.30HMC Egmont, i. 76. It is telling that in September 1637 he named his fifth son George, after Radcliffe.31HMC Egmont, i. 124. By this time, Percivalle had become a trusted supporter of Wentworth’s regime: in June 1636 he accompanied Wentworth on his visit to England, the lord deputy knighting him before their departure from Dublin.32HMC Egmont, i. 85, 86n. Other favours followed. In 1637-8 two of Percevalle’s most important estates, Burton and Liscarroll, were regranted to him as manors through Wentworth’s influence.33HMC Egmont, i. 94-5, 100. In 1638 Percivalle was appointed to the notorious commission which implemented the wholesale plantation of co. Galway in the teeth of strong opposition from the Old English landowners, led by Ulick Bourke, 5th earl of Clanricarde and 2nd earl of St Albans.34HMC Egmont, i. 105. In 1639 Percivalle was also involved in Wentworth’s attempts to disgrace the former lord chancellor, Adam, 1st Viscount Loftus of Ely.35CSP Ire. 1633-47, pp. 226-7. On 11 December 1639 Wentworth and Radcliffe drew up a patent to allow the Byrnes country in co. Wicklow to be held on their behalf by Percivalle and other friends of the regime.36Life and Corresp. of Sir George Radcliffe ed. T.D. Whitaker (1810), 192; CSP Ire. 1633-47, p. 238. Percivalle also held lands on trust for Wentworth and Radcliffe in co. Sligo.37CSP Ire. 1633-47, p. 312.

Involvement in such controversial projects laid Percivalle open to attack once Wentworth (now 1st earl of Strafford) was brought to trial in England in the spring of 1641. The impeachment proceedings were deeply embarrassing for Percivalle, whose part in Strafford’s illegal land deals was exposed.38Rushworth, Tryall, pp. 228-9, 233. Only the intervention of the earl of Cork and other concerned New Englishmen ‘satisfied the House’ over Percivalle’s activities on this occasion.39HMC Egmont, i. 128. Despite his own vulnerability, Percivalle remained sympathetic to Strafford personally, commenting that the prosecution reminded him of the death of George Villiers, 1st duke of Buckingham, ‘whom many men thought the only cause of all the evils, but those that were of that opinion did not find it so afterwards’.40HMC Egmont, i. 131. The execution of Strafford, in May 1641, did not absolve his former friends and dependents. Despite hopes in the following September that Percivalle was not to be included ‘among those whose actions are re-examined and reflected upon’, in November 1641 the Irish council had to intervene to protect him from being summoned to London to answer for his part in Strafford’s oppressions.41HMC Egmont, i. 142; CCSP i. 221.

After the fall of Strafford, Percivalle came under the protection of the old lord lieutenant’s protégé, James Butler, 12th earl of Ormond. Percivalle’s interaction with the Butlers went back to 1630, when he had worked with Sir William Parsons and the earl of Cork to secure royal title to the Ormond baronies of co. Tipperary, as a preliminary to systematic plantation. Unlike Parsons and Cork, Percivalle was not inherently hostile to the Butlers, and was happy to do business with the family over the next decade. In July 1631 he made an agreement with the 11th earl of Ormond and the young Viscount Thurles, for the lease of certain estates in return for paying off the incumbrances on them.42HMC Egmont, i. 68. In 1634 the newly succeeded 12th earl agreed to lease further lands to Percivalle, in return for help in getting him a better title to the estate; and in 1638 Percivalle advised Ormond on his brother’s lands in Connaught.43HMC Egmont, i. 77, 100-1. In March 1641 Percivalle agreed to stand surety for the earl in a bond of £2,000.44HMC Egmont, i. 130, 131. This was the latest of four bonds – totalling nearly £5,000 – which Percivalle guaranteed for the earl at this time.45HMC Egmont, i. 139-40. At the outbreak of the Irish rebellion, Ormond was appointed lieutenant-general of the king’s forces in Ireland, and his relationship with Percivalle deepened. In the days following the October rising, Percivalle was appointed as a captain in Ormond’s foot regiment.46HMC Ormonde, o.s. i. 137. In December 1641 he was chosen to represent the Dublin government’s position to Parliament, and during his attendance at London he was appointed commissary-general of the victuals, presumably at Ormond’s behest.47HMC Egmont, i. 156, 167-8; HMC Ormonde, n.s. ii. 99. During this period Percivalle defended Ormond against accusations of collusion with the Catholic rebels, urging his friends in London to support the earl, and instigating proceedings against his accusers in the Irish Parliament.48T. Carte, Hist. of the Life of James the first Duke of Ormond (6 vols. Oxford, 1851), ii. 180-2; HMC Egmont, i. 165.

Percivalle returned to Dublin in April 1642, and began to reorganise the provisioning system of the royalist forces.49HMC Egmont, i. 175. This task was hampered by the onset of civil war in England, which diverted supplies from Ireland. In December, Percivalle warned Parliament that, without adequate supplies, ‘the most part of those garrisons are likely to be lost’.50Irish Rebellion ed. Hogan, 161-3, 166-8. It was this lack of support from England which inclined Percivalle to back Ormond in attempts to arrange a truce with the Confederate rebels – a scheme which came to fruition in the cessation of arms signed in September 1643.51Carte, Life of Ormond, iii. 15-21. In March 1644 Percivalle was appointed as one of the Irish council’s agents to negotiate a permanent peace with the Confederate delegation at Oxford. Leaving the commissariat and his foot company in the hands of his deputy at the court of wards, Valentine Savage, Percivalle left Ireland in mid-March, and arrived in Oxford on 17 April.52HMC Egmont, i. 204; Bodl. Carte 10, f. 513. At the royal court, he found to his dismay that the Catholic embassy, led by Donagh MacCarthy, 1st Viscount Muskerry, was not merely tolerated, but openly supported by some members of the English privy council. As Percivalle told Ormond on 2 May, although ‘[George] Lord Digby* is much esteemed and professes to be much your servant’, Prince Rupert proved ‘highly earnest for Muskerry’.53Bodl. Carte 10, f. 513v. Percivalle’s old associate, Sir George Radcliffe, told Ormond that the Irish councillors had made themselves deeply unpopular by resisting the Catholic demands, and that ‘Percivalle … had gone here for a roundhead if your excellency had not recommended him as he did’.54Bodl. Carte 11, f. 175; R. Armstrong, Protestant War: the ‘British’ of Ireland and the wars of the three kingdoms (Manchester, 2005), 120.

Disillusioned, Percivalle left Oxford in late June, but he did not return to Dublin, rather staying with his friend Edmund Smith in Hertfordshire; and in early August he went to London, where he joined the ‘gentlemen of Ireland’ who advised Parliament on its Irish policy.55HMC Egmont, i. p. xvi, 282; CSP Dom. 1644-5, p. 333; Bodl. Nalson XXI, f. 41. There were two main reasons for Percivalle’s defection to Parliament. The first was his experience at Oxford, where Charles seemed willing to give way to all the demands of the Catholic Irish, thus threatening the very existence of Protestant Ireland. The second was narrowly focused on Munster. The terms of the cessation had not been respected by the Irish forces in the province, who had continued to encroach on Protestant territory in general, and on Percivalle’s exposed estates in northern Cork in particular. Percivalle’s demands for redress in the winter of 1643-4 had been supported by Ormond, but to little effect.56HMC Egmont, i. 192, 197, 199. Similar pressures soon proved intolerable for the royalist commander in Munster, Murrough O’Brien, Lord Inchiquin, and there is little doubt that his defection to Parliament in late July 1644 provoked Percivalle’s move to London a few weeks later.

Percivalle’s relationship with Inchiquin is the key to understanding his actions later in the 1640s. Inchiquin, although a scion of a Gaelic family, had been brought up as a Protestant, and was the son-in-law of Percivalle’s old friend, Sir William St Leger. In the mid-1640s Percivalle kept in close contact with Inchiquin, and was given power of attorney to receive his pay and care for his eldest son in London.57HMC Egmont, i. 260. Inchiquin remained on reasonably good terms with Ormond, and was the single most important link between the lord lieutenant and those Westminster politicians who still hoped for an inclusive settlement in Ireland. This last group, associated with the Presbyterian party at Westminster, welcomed Percivalle with open arms. Among his closest allies at this time the most important were Sir Robert King*, who gave him lodgings in 1644-5, and Sir John Clotworthy and William Jephson, both of whom were Westminster MPs with strong links with the Presbyterians.58HMC Egmont, i. 245, 249-50, 252, 262-3. With his overlapping connections with Ormond, Inchiquin and the Irish Presbyterians, Percivalle soon attracted criticism from the supporters of the rival Independent faction, who reminded Parliament of his role in the 1643 cessation. In the autumn of 1645 his support of the truce was revealed by Sir John Temple, who also alleged that Percivalle had come to London ‘with the king’s leave, and acted for him here ever since’.59HMC Egmont, i. 279. In response, Percivalle argued that he had only supported the cessation through ‘necessity’, as Parliament had failed to uphold the Protestant cause there.60Carte, Life of Ormonde, iii. 19-21; HMC Egmont, i. 270-6. Temple’s attack was inconclusive, but pressure was maintained by Sir Arthur Loftus in April 1646.61HMC Egmont, i. 286. In the following October Adam Meredith (son of Sir Robert Meredith and an associate of Sir John Temple) published a tract attacking Ormond, which also took a side-swipe at Percivalle, claiming that he ‘was employed as clerk or secretary to write all the passages at the making of the cessation on the lord of Ormond’s part’.62[A. Meredith,] Ormonds Curtain Drawn (1646), 32 (E.513.14). Despite these attacks, Percivalle continued to act as intermediary between Dublin and Westminster. As early as September 1646 Ormond’s agent wrote to Percivalle with news that the lord lieutenant was prepared to restart talks with Parliament.63HMC Egmont, i. 319. During the initial negotiations in October, Percivalle corresponded with Lady Ormond, and reminded her husband of his continuing financial obligations towards him.64Bodl. Carte 19, f. 236; HMC Egmont, i. 325. In November, with the collapse of negotiations, Percivalle was warned by John Davies* not to be so open in his support of Ormond, and not ‘hereafter [to] give Ormond the title, in writing or discourse, of lord lieutenant’.65HMC Egmont, i. 339. This was sound advice. In January 1647 Percivalle was again challenged by the Independents, with Parliament’s lord lieutenant, Philip Sidney*, Viscount Lisle, accusing him of being ‘so engaged to Lord Ormond that he was not capable of public employment’.66HMC Egmont, i. 353-4.

Alongside these attacks on Percivalle, the Independents were also intent on discrediting Lord Inchiquin as president of Munster. In response, Inchiquin drew even closer to the Presbyterians at Westminster, using Percivalle as his agent. On 8 September 1646, for example, Inchiquin asked Percivalle to give his respects to Denzil Holles* and Sir Philip Stapilton*; and in October Percivalle was able to report back that he had established contact with the Theophilus Howard, 3rd earl of Suffolk and Henry Rich, 1st earl of Holland, and with Holles, Stapilton and Clotworthy, all of whom favoured Inchiquin.67HMC Egmont, i. 312, 324. In addition, Percivalle was a crucial link between Inchiquin and the British officers in Ulster. His main contacts with this last group were Sir William Stewart and Sir James Montgomery, who, in January 1647, chose Percivalle to work as their agent in London, liaising with Clotworthy and other sympathetic MPs.68HMC Egmont, i. 341-2, 355, 359. By February Percivalle was also aiding the president of Connaught, Sir Charles Coote*, who shared the Ulster officers’ hopes that a Presbyterian resurgence would remove Lisle and ‘prevent that torrent which carrieth all to Munster’.69HMC Egmont, i. 365-6, 379. This broad coalition of interests – with Percivalle at its heart – was strengthened by two developments in February 1647: the renewal of Parliament’s peace negotiations with Ormond and the departure of Lisle for Munster. The former allowed the Presbyterians to take control of Irish affairs at Westminster, while the latter brought tensions between Inchiquin and the Independents to a head. Percivalle kept in contact with Ormond throughout the Dublin negotiations in the spring and early summer, and throughout this period he was again acting as the lord president’s main agents in London, alongside William Jephson.70HMC Egmont, i. 369, 378, 383-4, 391-2, 396-7, 412. And it was at this point that the first moves were made to secure a seat in the House of Commons for Percivalle himself.

The return of Percivalle for the Cornish constituency of Newport was something of a coup for the Presbyterian interest. The intention to put him forward for a recruiter seat had already become known by the end of March 1647, when the Independents, led by Temple, made moves to prevent it.71HMC Egmont, i. 376. Percivalle’s closeness to Holles, Stapilton, Clotworthy and Jephson during April again suggests that he was a Presbyterian candidate, and in early May he was passing information to Inchiquin derived from ‘two or three of the house’.72HMC Egmont, i. 384, 391-2, 397. In the end, he probably owed his election, on 19 May, to the local influence of another Presbyterian, Thomas Gewen*, who, as a local landowner and recorder of neighbouring Launceston, enjoyed great influence in Newport.73Cornw. RO, B/LAUS/350, p. 26. Percivalle’s presence in the Commons was extremely controversial. Taking his seat on 25 May, he was in time to vote twice in favour of disbanding the New Model army.74HMC Egmont, i. 430. As a result, on 2 June he was ‘charged for being a commissioner sent to Oxford from the lord marquess of Ormond to treat with the king, and that he subscribed the cessation of arms in Ireland’ – the accusations being levelled by Viscount Lisle, his brother Algernon Sydney* and Percivalle’s old adversary, Sir John Temple.75Add. 31116, pp. 621-2; HMC Egmont, i. 430-1. In the debate which followed, Percivalle was accused of being a ‘special confidant of the Lord of Ormond’, but, assisted by Clotworthy, he was able to rebuff the charges, and the matter was referred to a committee, which refused to meet.76Harington’s Diary, 54; HMC Egmont, i. 411, 431. This created an impasse over the next few weeks, which allowed Percivalle to take the Covenant, and (on 14 June) he was named to a committee to prepare a declaration to justify Parliament’s actions in trying to secure the ‘peace of the kingdom’.77CJ v. 203b, 210a. Yet Percivalle remained apprehensive, telling Inchiquin that he was ‘like to be of little use if [Parliament] go on’ as he was still ‘aimed at’.78HMC Egmont, i. 416. The expected attack came on 5 July, when a vote was passed barring anyone who had supported the king from sitting in the Commons, including those who had agreed to the Irish cessation. Stapilton challenged this last clause, and forced the Commons to drop it.79HMC Egmont, i. 423. Percivalle replied in person on 14 July, appealing to the ‘testimonies’ of his fellow Irish MPs, and condemning those ‘that have taken causeless jealousies or offence against me’.80HMC Egmont, i. 426-7. On 15 July the matter was referred to a committee chaired by John Corbett*, which consisted mainly of Independent MPs.81CJ v. 245a. Yet before this committee could report its findings, on 26 July Parliament was besieged by an angry mob, and the Independents were forced to withdraw to the safety of the army headquarters.

Despite initial plans to retire into the country, Percivalle stayed in Westminster throughout the ‘forcing of the Houses’.82HMC Egmont, i. 437. On 1 August he was appointed, with Sir William Lewis and Michael Oldisworth, to prepare letters inviting the king to meet Parliament, and warning the New Model not to come within 30 miles of London.83CJ v. 263b. The next day he was added to the Presbyterian-dominated ‘committee of safety’ for mobilising London against the army, and named to a committee to consider the appointment of a new Speaker.84CJ v. 265a. On 3 August he was named to the committee to prepare instructions for Parliament’s agents sent to meet the army, and on the same day reported their proposals back to the Commons, presenting to the House a letter asking Major-general Richard Browne II* to come to London to help in its defence.85CJ v. 266a, 267b. Percivalle’s support for the Presbyterian cause was hardly surprising, as resistance to the Independents and the New Model seemed the only hope for a settlement in Ireland which would gain the support of the parliamentarians in Munster and Ulster, and the Protestant royalists under Ormond.

The march of the New Model on London in early August, and the collapse of resistance in capital which followed, marked the end of such plans, and brought Percivalle once again under the power of his enemies in the Commons. As yet, Percivalle did not withdraw from the House, and his part in voting down a motion to annul proceedings undertaken since the 26 July brought the censure of Sir Arthur Hesilrige*, who demanded that he and his friends should be disabled.86HMC Egmont, i. 442-3. On 19 August Percivalle defended himself once again, this time against accusations that he had orchestrated the July disturbances, and had supported the return of the king to London as the prelude to a new civil war. Faced with the threat of expulsion, by the end of the month Percivalle had withdrawn.87HMC Egmont, i. 455, 461. In September he was the guest of the earl of Suffolk at Audley End, making brief visits to William Jephson and Colonel Richard Norton* in Hampshire, and to his eldest son at Cambridge.88HMC Egmont, i. 462, 466. The survival of a draft speech, probably from October 1647, suggests that Percivalle was at this time planning to return to Parliament to refute Temple’s allegations once again, but soon afterwards he fell ill.89HMC Egmont, i. 481.

Percivalle died on 10 November, and was buried at St Martin-in-the-Fields, with a funeral oration by his wife’s kinsman, James Ussher, archbishop of Armagh.90HMC Egmont, i. 482-3. The impact of Percivalle’s death is difficult to assess from the surviving evidence, but there were few people who could match his position at the centre of the ‘British’ dimension of the Presbyterian interest, and it is probable that his absence was a factor in two events in the spring of 1648, which would have a dramatic effect on Ireland: the departure of the marquess of Ormond from England to the royal court on the continent, and the defection of Inchiquin and the Munster garrisons to the royalist camp. Percivalle was succeeded by his eldest son, John Percivalle, who was created a baronet in 1661 and was the ancestor of the earls of Egmont, but did not sit at Westminster.91CP.