The Battle Abbey Roll. Vol. III.
by
The Duchess of Cleveland.
Prepared by Michael A. Linton
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Perciuale : Sir Richard, the fifth and youngest son of William Lupellus or Louvel (see Louvel) and the only one of his brothers who transmitted the original surname of De Percheval or Perceval to his posterity, "was portioned by his father with lands in Stawel in Somerset, and many other estates, which descended to his posterity, the successive lords of Weston-in-Gordano. This Sir Richard de Perceval attended King Richard I. in his expedition into Palestine, a.d. 1190, where, being a person of uncommon strength and valour, he distinguished himself in several fierce engagements. In one of them, it is said, that having lost his leg, he undauntedly continued on horseback till he also lost his arm, and that even then, with the horse's bridle in his teeth, he persisted to deal slaughter round him till he fell by loss of blood. Notwithstanding this tradition (one part of which seems to be confirmed by the family crest, which was a man armed on horseback, with one leg couped) it is certain that he lived to return home, and was buried in the church of Weston, under a superb monument which was destroyed in the civil wars of the seventeenth century."—Collinson's Somerset. His son, of the same name, went with him to the Holy Land, and was the father of Robert, Hugh, and John (sometimes styled, from one of his manors, de Walton). The first named, Robert, was one of the early adventurers to Ireland; and landing there in 1261 with Richard de Marlee, Stephen de Burgh, and about twenty men-at-arms, acquired by his good sword such great possessions that he elected to take up his abode there altogether. He was accordingly summoned to the parliament held at Dublin in 1285 as Baron Perceval, but died the same year: and the title was successively borne by his two sons, and a grandson with whom it ended in 1312.
The two younger brothers remained in Somersetshire, and it is believed that Robert resigned either the whole, or a great part, of his paternal estates to them. Nothing further is known of Hugh, but John was the ancestor of a long line of knights, who continued Lords of Eastbury and Weston-in-Gordano till the time of Charles II.[1]. One of them was slain at Bannockburn; another knighted by the King's own hand on the field of Cressy: and the last, Thomas Perceval, who died in 1691, was a zealous Royalist, and suffered cruel treatment in the Civil Wars. Not only had he to pay a heavy sum as "composition," but his estate was injured by the Parliament forces, who, in addition, "ransacked his house, destroyed the family writings, and defaced the monuments of his ancestors. After the Restoration he was twice visited at his manor-house of Weston by King Charles II., from whom he expected, but in vain, a gratuity for his services."—Ibid. His only child, a daughter, left no posterity, and sold all the family property.
The name, however, was still borne by a remote kinsman, representing a branch that had separated from the parent stock more than two hundred years before. Ralf Perceval, who died in 1477, had a younger brother of the same name, on whom he settled the estate of Tydenham, and who was the immediate ancestor of the present Earls of Egmont. In the time of Queen Elizabeth, one of his descendants, named Richard, was much employed by Lord Burghley (who had married his sister) and had the skill and good fortune to decypher a packet of despatches that a Spanish vessel from the Low Countries, chased by an English cruiser, had cast overboard; and which, having been picked up at sea and laid before the Privy Council, was found to give the earliest intimation of the coming Armada. For this the Queen gave him a pension of 800 marks. In the following reign he had an appointment in Ireland, and finding an advantageous opportunity of buying land there, sold almost all his English property, and purchased the great barony of Duhallow, co. Cork, which consisted of seventy-eight and a half knight's fees, and extended over more than one hundred thousand acres. From this time the family became resident in Ireland, where they filled various offices, and continually added to their possessions, till, in the Civil Wars of 1642, Sir Philip Perceval held no fewer than nine castles on his territory in Munster. He was at that time a Royalist, and lost all these strongholds, and half his principality, in the cause: but the next year he changed sides, and "privately leaving" Oxford (where he was in actual attendance on the King) went over to the Parliament. He sat for Bridport, and afterwards for the province of Ulster; but soon got involved in quarrels with the Independent party; and thus, on his death in 1647, his son John found himself, in the words of Sir Egerton Brydges, "obnoxious to the rebel party in Ireland, from his father's services against them: odious to the Royalists, from his father's having quitted that cause, and equally hateful to Cromwell and his adherents;" and last, though not least, with his estates sequestered both in England and Ireland. But the young man was equal to the occasion. Though only eighteen at that time, he proved a skilled diplomatist, for he obtained the restitution of his estates in 1653; his father's office of Clerk of the Crown in 1655: another employment under the Protector in 1656; and finally, in 1661, a baronetcy from Charles II., to whom he presented a schedule of his father's losses during the rebellion, estimated at £280,000. Here, however, his success experienced a check: for he certainly never received a farthing of this large sum of money, though he was afterwards appointed to several lucrative Irish offices. Third in descent from him was another Sir John, who, on the accession of the Hanoverian dynasty, received three successive peerages in Ireland. First, he was created Baron Perceval of Burton in 1714: then Viscount Perceval of Kanturk, in 17x2: and lastly, Earl of Egmont in 1733. His wife was Catharine, sister of Sir Philip Parker, the last representative (in the female line) of Henry Lovel (second son of the Lord Lovel and Holland who died in 1455), summoned to parliament by Edward IV. as Baron Morley: and when their son, the second Earl, received an English peerage in 1762, these ancient baronies were revived in his favour, and he was created Lord Lovel and Holland, of Enmore in the co. of Somerset.