Philip Perceval

He opposed Charles I's intention of granting the demands of the Irish Confederates in order to employ them in England: joined the parliamentary party in 1644, obtaining a seat in the House of Commons of England as member for Newport, Cornwall, where he threw in his lot with the moderate presbyterians; compelled to retire into the country owing to his opposition to the independents, September 1647.

[1][2] Philip was the younger of the two sons of Richard Perceval of Tickenham, Somerset, by his second wife Alice, daughter of John Sherman of Ottery St. Mary, Devon.

Philip's elder brother Walter and himself had been appointed by their father joint successors in his office of registrar of the Irish court of wards.

[3] Perceval now definitely settled in Ireland, and by means of his interest at court gradually obtained a large number of additional offices.

In 1638 he, with Sir James Ware, obtained the monopoly of granting licenses for the sale of ale and brandy, and was also made a member of the privy council.

[7] Perceval's energy was chiefly shown in the part he played in the prevailing jobbery connected with Irish landed estate.

[3] By 1641 he is described as being possessed of the enormous amount of seventy-eight knights' fees and a half, containing 62,502 Irish acres, (about 101,000 acres (41,000 ha)), in the finest parts of the country, above £4,000 a year of the best rents, and a stock in woods, houses, &c., worth above £60,000, with employments for life of the value of above £2,000 a year, besides other employments of equal profit, which he held by an uncertain tenure.

[7] For example, some of the more rich and powerful families from whom he had obtained land, and who thought of him as a corrupt "New English" official who had taken undue advantage of his position,[9] where the Barrys, MacCarthys, O'Callaghans, and the Roches.

[6] On the outbreak of the Rebellion in October, Perceval remained in Dublin, where, as clerk to the king's bench, he took a prominent part in drawing up the notorious list of three thousand indictments for high treason against the rebellious gentlemen.

James Butler, 12th Earl of Ormonde was an old acquaintance of Perceval's with mutual business associations that stretched back over the previous decade.

Ormonde commissioned Perceval first as captain of firelocks in his own regiment and then in March 1642, commissary-general of victuals for the king's army in Ireland.

In the meantime, Perceval visited England during the winter months and defended Ormond, against accusations in Parliament that he was colluding with the Catholic rebels.

All his castles were taken, though Annagh and Liscarrol offered a stubborn resistance, the former holding out for eleven days against an attacking force of 7,500 men (20 August until 2 September 1642).

This party was at enmity with the independents; and in July 1647, after many minor attacks, a proposal was brought forward for Perceval's expulsion from the house, on the ground of his having supported the cessation of arms in 1643.