Welsh Journals

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for a word of support in the right quarter, the same sort of preliminary bargaining as that which preceded the grant of a favourable Crown lease, or of a manor or rectory. Often one man would be lucky or powerful enough to concentrate a number of offices into his own hands. In 1543 Sir Thomas Jones, for example, was surveyor and receiver of Narberth lordship, and governor of its castle and forests, constable of Tenby, and steward, receiver and surveyor of Coedrath manor, of which he was also keeper of the woods and leader of the manrede.' Posts of honour and distinction, they rarely involved the performance of arduous duties and were welcome to men who were straining every nerve to keep up appearances and increase their incomes. Throughout the whole of the Tudor period, the gradual taming of the endemic disorder which outlived the Wars of the Roses in Pembrokeshire was going on, a slow and unsteady business which only succeeded imperceptibly. Local conditions go far towards confirming the opinion expressed by Rowland Lee in a letter of March, 1536, to Thomas Cromwell, when he declared that the gentry from whom the new J.P.s were to be recruited were themselves harbouring thieves and maintaining criminals.2 Only too often the distribution of largesse, the hospitality, and the generous way of living praised by the bards, con- cealed the fact that many squires of note kept bands of retainers and dependants, usually their tenants, while the chronic insecurity of everyday life, heightened by family feuds, sometimes welled up into outbursts of disorder culminating in what can only be described as small-scale private warfare. This atmosphere of restlessness and disquiet long outlived the monarch who pushed forward the Acts of Union. Armed affrays, such as the bloody clash at Haverfordwest in 15693 between the retainers of Sir John Perrot and those of Francis Laugharne, sheriff of the town, occurred on a number of occasions during Elizabeth's reign. In almost every case her J.P.s were notable offenders.4 Another sensational action occurred in 1582.5 Griffith White of Henllan had raised crops on some land in Rhoscrowther which was disputed between him and Sir John Perrot, who seems to have been the villain of the piece. Perrot allowed the crops to grow, but at dawn on the 28th of August some twenty or so of his retainers, armed with pitch- forks and daggers, travelled with elevn carts to the land in dispute with the intention of carrying them away to the nearest Perrot farmhouse. They were spotted and soon encountered by Griffith White, who tried slashing the traces of the horses. He was overpowered and held to the ground at the point of a pitchfork, though the intervention of his sons Harry and George saved him from injury. White, a J.P., now ordered the constable of Rhoscrowther parish, one of his own men, to call on 1 Pembrokeshire records, part II, p. 105. = Cal. L. P. Henry VIII, vol p. 182. For a full description of this see P.C.C. Evans, Sir John Perrot. 4 See R. Flenley, A calendar of the register of the Council of Wales and the Marcehs of the Same 1535. 1569-1591, London, 1916, pp. 213 and 236, for a list of Pembrokeshire J.P.s in 1581. 5 Star Chamber Proceedings. Elizabeth, W69/30, fos. 1-6, and G4/19.