married Ann, daughter and heiress of William ap Philip
of Stonehall, and Stonehall went to Sir John's younger
son, Morris. William Wogan, the descendant of Morris,
left two daughters, who married two brothers of a Devon-
shire family of the name of Ford. From the marriage of
Dorothy, the elder daughter, with William Ford, came the
Fords of Stonehall, one of whom was sheriff of the county
in 1764.
Besides these more important branches, we find mem-
bers of the family settled in various parts of the county.
Among them was the soldier-scholar William Wogan, the
son of Ethelred Wogan, rector of Gumfreston, who wrote
many works, chiefly theological, of much repute in his day.
He died in 1758." But now, as far as Pembrokeshire is
44
The IVogans.
concerned, the great, wide-spreading house of Wogan has
perished as though it had never been, although the name
still survives in a mutilated form."'
The arms of the Wogans were — Or, on a chief sahle,
three martlets of the field.
(niafefan^ of Upton.
The place was anciently called Ucceton, Ucton, Ockton,
and Octon ; it is frequently mentioned in the records.' Of
the original castle, part still remains, together with the
chapel, once used as a parish church, which has some
interesting monuments. It is said that the 13th century
effigy, the oldest in the county, which used to be at the
mother church of Nash and is now at Upton, is that of
the founder of the castle and the builder of Nash church.
Fenton, who commented upon the disgraceful neglect of
this monument, gives a tradition that this first lord of
Upton was a man of gigantic stature, that he died at sea,
and that his body was brought home and landed at Cosh-
eston Pill.^ He was probably a Malefant, but there is
nothing to show it. The first Malefant recorded was
Walter, who married Avice de la Eoche,^ and as Upton
was part of the great possessions of the de la Roches, it
may have come to the Malefants by this marriage. Walter
was a witness to the charter of Thomas, Bishop of St.
David's (1244-1256) to John de la Roche,* and according to
the Annales Cambrice'' he was killed fighting the Welsh at
Kilgerran in 1258,
This Walter was succeeded by a son and a grandson of
46
Malefant of Upton.
the same name, the son married Joan, daughter of Henry
Fitz Henry, and the grandson, Elizabeth, daughter of
John de Londres. The former was, about 1268, a witness
to the grant of Fishguard" by William de Cantinton to St.
Dogmael's Abbey, to Eoger Mortimer's charter to Thomas
de la Roche,'' and some ten years later, to Thomas de la
Eoche's charter to Pill Priory. The latter was in 1323 a
witness to the agreement between Earl Aymer de Valence
with the Commandery of Slebech, which is set out in
Fenton's Appendix,* in the next year to a charter by that
Earl to Tenby, and to the further charter to Tenby by
Earl Lawrence Hastings in 1342 ; in 1327 and 1331 he
was a juror at Pembroke, and in 1324' and 1348'° he held
half a knight's fee at Esse, or Nash, of the value of 10
marks.
This last Walter was succeeded by his son William,
who married Margaret, daughter and co-heiress of John
Fleming of St. George's in Glamorgan; he died in 1362
seised of the manors of Over Ash and Nether Ash, worth
60s., and one and a half carucates of land at Critchurch,
worth 30s., which, jointly with his wife, he held of the
Earl; of the manor of Llandethauk (Llandawke?) worth
50s., held by military service of John Wogan (of Picton)
and Isabel (de Londres) his wife ; of the manor of Milton,
worth £7 10s., by the like tenure, of John de Carew;" of a
rental of £4 at Cadygansford (in Whitchurch Dewisland)
by suit of court of the bishop, and of lands at Dennant,
worth 40s., of de la Roche ;" it is probable that it is his
efEgy and that of his wife which are at Upton Castle." This
William had a son also called William, who was born in
1347. A name is given to a man to distinguish him from
his fellows, and the custom (which is not yet extinct) of
giving the son the same name as his father, is the cause
47
Male/ant of Upton.
of endless confusion in tracing out records such as these.
William the younger was one of a jury at Dale in 1375,
and at Pembroke in 1883. Apparently he died without
issue, and was succeeded by his brother Henry.
Henry was one of the three commissioners appointed
in 1405 to raise funds to buy a truce from Owen Glyndwr :"
Fenton gives the commission as including the rectory of
St. Giles at Picton," but in the original it is clearly Octon,
i.e., Upton ; and four years previously we have a grant of a
burgage in Tenby to Henry Malefant of Octon, Esq."
The successor of Henry was his son Sir Thomas, who
died on the 8th May 1438, and was buried in the Church
of St. Bartholomew the Less in Smithfield. In the epitaph
on this tomb, preserved by Stow,''' he is described as Lord of
Wenvoe and St. George's in the county of Glamorgan, and
of Ockeneton (Upton) and Pile (Pill) in the county of
Pembroke, but he seems to have been a Glamorganshire
magnate rather than a Pembrokeshire one.
Upon the death of Sir Thomas, Wenvoe and the Gla-
morgan estates passed to his son Edmond; upon the death
of whose grandson John Malefant, without issue, in the
reign of Henry VII, they were escheated to the Crown.
It was a second Edmond (the father of John) to whom
William Earl of Pembroke (beheaded in 1469) desired by
his will that his daughter Jane sliould be married," but
Edmond married elsewhere. In the same tomb as Sir
Thomas was afterwards buried his wife, Margaret Astley,
of whom a curious story, illustrative of the lawlessness of
the times, is told in the Rolls of Parliament." Margaret,
in her petition in 1439, sets forth that immediately after
her husband's death, of which she was then in ignorance,
Lewis Leyson, a Glamorgan man and trusted servant of
Sir Thomas, enticed her from Upton by forged letters
Malefant of Upton.
stating that Gruffydd ap Nicholas (lord of Dinefvvi- and a
mighty man in those parts) and other enemies were lying
in wait for her. Leyson conveyed her to Tythegston, near
Bridgend, and a:fter failing in his attempt to marry her in
the church, imprisoned her in the fortified manor house
there, whence she escaped to her mother in London;
Leyson appears to have fled from the country.'" From a
charter of 1441 it appears that Margaret held the Male-
fant Pembrokeshire estates (including, besides those above
mentioned, one fourth of the manors of Hodgeston and
Burton) for her life ;'' how they descended afterwards is
not clear.
Fenton states that Henry was the last of the Upton
Malefants, and that his daughter Alice married Owen, the
second son of GrufPydd above mentioned, who was slain in
146 L" Sir Thomas had a son Henry, who was buried with
him, and who seems to have died under age. But it is
more probable that Alice was the daughter of Stephen
Malefant (brother of Sir Thomas) and of his wife Alice
Perrot.
Upton remained for many generations in the descen-
dants of Owen and of Alice Malefant. Ehys ap Owen,
sheriff in 1564, took the name of Bowen. The Bowens
continued until the latter half of the 18th century, when
the line ended in co-heiresses, and the heritage of the Male-
fants was sold. Upton Castle was purchased by John
Tasker, and upon his death passed to his niece Maria, who
married as her second husband the Eev. William Evans.
A younger branch of the Upton Malefants settled at
Ludchurch. We hear of a David Malefant in 1298^' and
again in 1324;" he was a witness in 1300 to John de Barri's
charter to Richard Simond.^' John, the son of David, died
on the 5th August 1351, holding of the Earl thirty acres
Malefant of Upton.
of land at Londeschurch (Ludchurch), worth 2s. M., and
one-tenth of a fee at Coedrath, worth 13s. 4(Z. yearly ; he
left a son David under age, and of this branch we hear
nothing further.'" The Malefants also held lands at Kid-
welly, which in 1369 were in the possession of Philip, a
son of Walter Malefant of Upton, the second of that name
above mentioned."
The arms of the Malefants are variously given, the
earliest are — GnUs, a fret argent, on a chief or, a lion
passant sable.
€^t ^motB,
The name is Norman-French, and is spelt in various ways,
but the authentic spelling is as above given, which was
followed by Sir John Perrot, the Lord Deputy, in his signa-
ture to the marriage settlement of his daughter Lettice
with Eowland Laugharne, the duplicate of which is in the
writer's possession ; curiously enough in the body of the
deed the name is spelt Perrott. It is still found in Prance
and in disguised forms in many parts of England and
Wales. Most of the families of repute who bore it have
tried to fasten their pedigrees on to the Pembrokeshire line;
an interesting and impudent example of this is to be found
in the "Pedigree of the late Sir Richard Perrott, Bart.,"
which Penton published in his Appendix.' Even the great
William of Wykeham has been claimed for the Pembroke-
shire Perrots, apparently because his niece Alice Champ-
neys married one William Perrot, whose son took the name
of Wykeham.' Eobert Perrot, a famous musician and man
of affairs at Oxford, who died in 1550, is said, on his
monument in St. Peter's Church in that city, to have been
the son of George Perrot of Haverfordwest, and from him
came the Oxfordshire Perrots, who continued at North
Leigh until 1765. They set up a doubtful claim to be
The Perrots.
descended from the Perrots of Haroldston ; but from the
latter were probably derived the Perrots of Yorkshire, the
most distiuguished of whom was George Perrot, a baron of
the exchequer, who died in 1780.^
The three leading branches of the Pembrokeshire
house were those settled respectively at Eastington (after-
wards at Haroldston), Scotsborough and Caervoriog. The
founder of the house is said to have been Stephen Perrot,
who in the reign of Henry I acquired lands at Narberth,
and married the heiress of Jestynton (Eastington), but the
earlier descents in the pedigree cannot be adapted to the
dates, and furnish another proof that little reliance can be
placed on any Welsh pedigree before the 14th century.
According to Fenton,* Andrew, the son of Stephen,
founded the castle and church at Narberth (which latter he
dedicated to St. Andrew), and married Janet the daughter
of Ralph Mortimer, whom Fenton describes as Earl of
March. Ralph, who died in 1246, was the great-grand-
father of Roger the first Earl of March ; but this much is
certain, that Narberth Castle remained for many gener-
ations the heritage of the Mortimers. Andrew's son was
William, who married the daughter of Sir Walter Herford,'
and William's son was Peter, who married the daughter
of Harry Canaston of Canaston.
With Stephen, the son of Peter, we stand on surer
ground ; he married Mabel,* the heiress of Castleton (the
Perrots also knew an heiress when they saw her), in 1307"
he was a juror at Pembroke, in 1324 he held of the Earl
half a knight's fee at Popetovsm'' (Popton), and in 1327 was
indicted for a conspiracy against Richard de Barri, as has
been told in the Barri paper .^ He had, besides John, who
* See at the end of this article.
52
The Perrots.
succeeded him, a son Richard, to whom he granted nine-
teen acres of land in Graveliill' (Greenhill?), and a son
Thomas, who founded the Scotsborough line of Perrots,
probably by marriage with the heiress. John, the heir,
married Jane, the daughter (but not the heiress, as Lewys
Dwnn states) of John Jocef of Prendergast, and died on
the 13th January 1349; he held lands at Pennar, Wal-
waynston (Wallaston in Pwllcrochan), Osvameston (Yer-
beston in Monkton), and apparently at Coedrath."
Peter, the successor of John, kept up the family
tradition of well-dowered wives ; his wife was Alice,
daughter and heiress of Sir Richard Harold} of Haroldston
by Haverfordwest, and after the death of Sir Richard,
Haroldston became the chief residence of the Perrots of
Eastington. In 1373 Peter Perrot brought an instructive
lawsuit against William Beneger|| and Isolda his wife for
certain profits of a messuage and a carucate of land held
by socage tenui-e at Eastington, which Isolda, his father's
sister, as his nearest relative who could not inherit, held as
guardian during his minority. William and Isolda pleaded
that the land was held by military service, under wlrich the
guardian was not accountable for the rents and profits,
but a Pembroke jury came and said that the land was held
in socage and gave Peter 111 3s. M. damages." This is a
good instance of the advantages of the ancient tenure of
free and common socage, to which all tenures by knight
service were converted after the Restoration.
Peter Perrot died in 1378, and the wardship of his
infant son, Stephen, was granted to John Harold, clerk,
apparently the uncle." Of this Stephen we know little,
except that he married, as his first wife, Ellen the heiress
t I II See at the end of this article.
53
The Perrots.
of John Howel, of Woodstock (in Ambleston), who broug-ht
some North Pembrokeshire estates to the Perrots of
Haroldston. His son and successor was Thomas, who
married Alice, the daughter of John Picton, who in 1422
granted to him and his wife Alice (the daughter of the
grantor) lands at Bicton in Roose at a yearly rent of two
greyhounds. '^ There is also extant a grant by Thomas
Picton of Carew and his wife Margaret to Thomas Perrot
and Alice of six messuages, a water mill, and a carucate of
land at Glinbigh'* and Savilageston (Sageston) ; in a deed
of gift to her son in 1463, his widow was called loan — if
this is not an error she must have been a second wife.'' He
is probably the " Sir Thomas Perot de-Harfordwest " who
is mentioned by William of Worcester as fighting on the
Lancastrian side at the battle of Mortimer's Cross in 1461.'°
He was succeeded by another Thomas, his son ; the
marriages of his daughters shew the position to which the
Perrots had now attained ; Jane to Philip Elliot of Ear-
were, Ellen to Richard Wyriott of Orielton, Margaret to
GrufPyd ap Nicholas (grandfather of Rhys ap Thomas), and
Emma to Sir Richard Newton (of Newton Weare by
Lanstadwell), Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas."
We hear little of this Thomas ; in 1464 an award was given
in a dispute which had arisen between his father and the
Priory of Haverfordwest touching the services at the
church of Haroldston, which had been given to the Priory
by Sir Richard Harold," and in the next year he had a
successful suit for lands at Folcaston and High Hilton in
the Lordship of Haverford. His second wife was Isabella
Wogan, as appears by a grant, made to her by his son and
heir William in 1474, of certain lands in the episcopal lord-
ship of Pebidiauk for her life.
William Perrot in 1487 appointed John Perrot of
54
The Perrots.
Haverford to be his attorney to take seisin for Iiini of the
Lordship of Laugharne;" in 1496 he was appointed by
Henry, Duke of York, Earl of Pembroke, and Lord of
Haverford (afterwards Henry VTII), to be slierifP within
the Lordship of Haverford'" (then an office for life), and in
1502 there was an award made by arbitrators in a dispute
between him and John Waryn of Llawhaden as to the
lands of Henry Perrot of Caervoriog, to ^hich his younger
son Jenkyn succeeded." He also married a Wogan,
Johanna, and the wills of himself and his wife are extant
and were proved in 1503 and 1504 respectively. They
were both buried in the Priory Chui-ch of St. Thomas the
Martyr at Haverford.
Sir William Perrot was succeeded by his son, Sir Owen,
who did not survive long. There are several deeds by him,
the latest I have found is dated 1522. In 1516, the King,
as Lord of Haverford, granted to him and his wife Catherine
a lease for 21 years, at a rental of £15, of the King's Mills
at Haverford, with the weir and fishery." He must have
been dead in 1524, as in that year the custody of his son
Eobert, during his minority, was granted by the King to
two knights." This Eobert would seem to be the Eobert
Perrot who was afterwards reader in Greek to Edward VI ;^'
his elder brother, who succeeded to Haroldston, was another
Sir Thomas, who married Mary Berkeley, the daughter of
a gentleman of the bed-chamber to Henry VIII and grand-
daughter of Lord Berkeley.
This fair lady had a share in making local history, for
it is doubtless to her influence with the King that the
unique privileges were granted to Haverfordwest (which in
the dark age of the 18th century were — and have been
since — confused with those of the ordinary town and
county), and that after she married her second husband.
The Perrots.
the three lordships were, to George Owen's indignation, cut
off from Pembrokeshire to increase the area of Carmar-
thenshire." That husband was Sir Thomas Johns, of Aber-
marlais, co. Carmarthen, who occupied Haroldston in
right of his wife, and was (in 1641) the first of the annual
sheriffs of Pembrokeshire. He was also knight of that
shire, and the lord of Kemes does not hesitate to roundly
call him a traitor. Mary Berkeley was the mother of the
most distinguished man of the name of Perrot, but he had
little right to bear the name, for he was the son of King
Henry VIII, whom he much resembled in person and
character."
This was Sir John Perrot. There is an excellent
sketch of him in the Dictionary of National Biography.
His Life, by Richard Eawlinson, was published in 1728 ;
and there is in the writer's possession a somewhat rare
work entitled The Government of Ireland under the memor-
able, just, and wise Governour, Sir John Perrot, published in
1626. Of his public life it is sufficient to say that he was
made a Knight of the Bath at the coronation of Edward VI,
that he was President of Munster from 1570 to 1573, and
Lord Deputy of Ireland from 1685 to 1588, that in 1579
he was appointed Admiral of a fleet I'aised for the defence
of Ireland, that he was condemned for treason in 1592,
and died in the Tower of London in that year. For his
Pembrokeshire life : he was born at Haroldston, and lived
there until his 18th year, when, in accordance with the
custom of the time, he was sent to the household of the
Marquis of Winchester, then Lord High Treasurer. Dame
Mary, his mother, had dower rights at Haroldston, but
Perrot lived there when in the county, until Queen Mary
granted him Carew in 1554." He then made Carew his
principal residence, and much embellished it ; he also lived
56
The Perrots.
occasionally at Laughame Castle, which was granted him
by Queen Elizabeth. He has left his mark at Laugharne
in "Sir John's Hill", and there is a tablet to him in Eglwys
Cummin Church.
Perrot is described as of Haroldston when sheriff of
Pembrokeshii'e in 1552 (he was M.P. for the county in
1563, and made a vice-admiral thereof in the previous
year)," and it was at Haroldston that he harboured the
Protestants at the beginning of Mary's reign, for which
he was denounced by Catharne of Pi-endergast. He was
committed to the Fleet, but soon released ; and we find him
serving abi'oad under his kinsman, the Earl of Pembroke.
He has left a splendid memorial of his love for the home
of his boyhood in his benefaction, in 1580, for the im-
provement of Haverfordwest, of which town he was mayor
in 1570, 1575, and 1576. Sir John Perrot received his
early education at St. David's, as he himself states in a
letter, written in 1585 while he was Lord Deputy, to
Walsingham, and at the same time he wrote to Burghley
protesting against a proposed Act of Parliament for the
removal of the Cathedral Church of the See to Brecon.""
But notwithstanding these traits in his character, Perrot
was the terror of Pembrokeshire from his haughty de-
meanour, his delight in litigation, and the crowd of retainers
he kept about him. There is among the Lansdowne
MSS. at the British Museiim a list of the Pembrokeshire
gentry harassed and damnified by Perrot, apparently
drawn up by George Owen, who hated him cordially ;'°
among them is Richard Davies, Bishop of St. David's
from 1561 to 1581 ; Thomas Wyrriot (through his
mother Elena Perrot connected with Sir John), who after
long litigation was cast in damages which he refused to
pay, and was left in the prison at Haverfordwest, of
S7
The Perrots.
which Perrot was governor ; and Griffith White, another
connection, whose charge against Perrot before the Privy
Council failed, and who was committed for slander. The
list includes most of the well-known county names of that
date.
Perrot's income is said to have been over £20,000 a
year, an immense sum in those days. The extent of his
possessions all over the county may be gathered from his
deeds of settlement which are still extant, and his hiquisitio
Post Mortem ; there are also the inventories of his personal
property at Carew and Laugharne." Perrot was twice
married. His first wife, Ann Cheyney, came from Kent ;
the only issue was a son, afterwards Sir Thomas Perrot.
The second wife, Jane Pollard, came from Devonshire ; her
mother was a Prust (a well-known name in Haverfordwest)
and her younger sister married Sir John Wogan of Boul-
ston. The issue of this marriage was : (1) William, who
died without issue in Dublin in 1597 ; (2) Lettice, who
married Rowland Laugharne of St. Bride's, which she
brought to her other husbands, Walter Vaughan, of
Golden Grove, and Arthur Chichester, another Lord
Deputy of Ireland ; and (8) Ann, who married Sir John
PhilUps, the first baronet, of Picton. Of his illegitimate
children there need only be mentioned here, Sir James
Perrot (mentioned below), by Sibyl Jones, and a daughter
Elizabeth (who married Hugh Butler of Johnston), by
Elizabeth Hatton, daughter of Sir Christopher, who
afterwards became Perrot's implacable enemy.
Perrot's son, Sir Thomas, married in 1583, under
curious circumstances, Dorothy, daughter of Walter
Devereux, Earl of Essex,^^ who held Lamphey in this
county, and through the influence of his brother-in-law,
the Queen's favourite, had the estates, which had been
The Perrots.
forfeited on his father's condemnation, restored to him.
Sir Thomas lived at Haroklston in liis father's life-time,
and, George Owen tell us, introduced pheasants to the
county, which he got from Ireland." He seems to have
taken interest in county matters; he was M.P. for the
county in 1593, and mayor of Haverfordwest in 1586 ; and
he and George Owen were the two deputy lieutenants for
the county. He did not long sui'vive his father, for his
widow in 1594 married Henry, Earl of Northumberland.
There were two children of the marriage, a son who died
young, and a daughter, Penelope, who married as her
second husband the famous Sir Eobert Naunton, but left
no issue.
Soon after the death of Sir Thomas Perrot, we find Sir
James" (above mentioned) at Haroldston, but by what title
is not certain ; he never acquired the vast Perrot estates,
which were resumed by the Crown on the death of Sir
Thomas. He was born in 1571, and died at Haroldston
without issue in 1636, and was buried in St. Mary's
Church. He sat in five Parliaments for Haverfordwest
and in one for the county, and was a distinguished Parlia-
mentary orator, and was also an author of no mean repute ;
he was custos rotulorum of the county in 1603, and mayor
of Haverfordwest in 1605, his name stands first in the roll
of common council in King James' charter to the town."
By his will, dated 26th January 1636, he observed the
ancient custom of a bequest to the Cathedral Church of
St. David's, he left several legacies for the poor of the
town, and devised Haroldston to Herbert, son and heir of
Eobert Perrot of Moreton, co. Hereford, charged with an
annuity of £3 to John Jessop, "preacher of the word of
God" at Pembroke.
These Perrots had been settled at Moreton for about a
59
The Perrots.
century ; there is nothing to show that they were descended
from the Pembrokeshire family, and when Herbert and
his father assumed the Haroldston arms, proceedings were
taken against them in the Herald's Court by Thomas
Perrot, a London merchaiat, who claimed direct descent."
Sir Herbert (he was knighted at the Restoration) lived
partly at Haroldston, he was sheriff of the county in 1666,
and M.P. for and mayor of Haverfordwest in 1677. He
had three wives: (1) Sibyl, daughter of David Lloyd of
Kilkiffeth, and grand-daughter of the founder of the
Haverfordwest Grammar School. By her he had a son
Herbert, who was stabbed in a tavern brawl in Fleet Street,
and was buried " in the Middle Temple Chui-ch in the