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 from the Duke of Ormonde. He armed them at his own cost, but does not seem to have taken any active part in the fighting, during the course of which his property in Munster was utterly ruined.

Perceval was one of those who urged and assented to the ‘cessation’ of hostilities agreed on by the contending factions at Castle Martyn on 15 Sept. 1643. In 1644 conferences were opened at Oxford, with a view to a definitive treaty, between representatives of the Irish confederates and certain royal commissioners. Perceval was appointed one of the latter, at the suggestion of his friend Lord-deputy Ormonde. King Charles, who wished to use the Irish rebels against his English subjects, would have been willing to grant the former all their demands, including the toleration of catholicism. Perceval, however, shrank from so extreme a step, which would have jeopardised his own prospects, and the conferences came to nothing. As a consequence, Perceval incurred the bitterest hostility of the royalist faction. So strong was the feeling against him that he now resolved to go over to the English parliamentarian party. His overtures were favourably answered. He came to London in August 1644, was well received by the parliament, and obtained a seat in the English House of Commons as member for Newport in Cornwall.

From this time to his death Perceval remained in England. His Irish property had by now ceased to return any revenue; his losses by the war amounted on his own computation, probably an exaggeration, to the enormous sum of 248,004l. 9s. 1d.; and he found himself compelled to sell the family estate of Burton in Somerset. His position in the English parliament, moreover, was by no means easy. Perceval had thrown in his lot with the moderate presbyterians. 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. He managed to retain his place by a brilliant defence. He subsequently took a share in organising the defence of London against the independent army. But in September 1647 he found himself compelled to retire into the country. Threats of impeachment being made, he returned to meet them in London; but was taken ill soon after his arrival, and died on 10 Nov. 1647. He was buried, at the cost of the parliament, in the church of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields. His funeral sermon was preached by Primate Ussher.

Perceval was married, on 26 Oct. 1626, to Catharine, daughter of Arthur Usher. She died on 2 Jan. 1681, having borne her husband five sons and four daughters. The eldest son, John Perceval, regained most of the Irish estates, and was made a baronet on 12 Aug. 1661; Sir John's grandson was John Perceval, first earl of Egmont [q. v.]

[History of the House of Yvery; Lodge's Peerage of Ireland; Metcalfe's Book of Knights; Carte's Life and Letters of the Duke of Ormonde; Wills's Irish Nation: its History and Biography; Dr. Warner's History of Ireland; Cal. State Papers, Irish and Domestic; Gilbert's Contemporary Hist. of Affairs in Ireland, and Hist. of the Confederation; Prendergast's Report on the Carte Papers in Deputy-Keeper's Record Publications, No. xxxii. App. i. 215, and Hist. MSS. Comm. Report on Egmont Papers.]  PERCEVAL, RICHARD (1550–1620), colonist and politician, born in 1550, was eldest son of George Perceval or Percival (1561–1601), a large landed proprietor of Somerset, by his wife Elizabeth, daughter and coheiress of Sir Edward Bampfylde of Poltimore, Devonshire. He was educated at St. Paul's school. Becoming a student at Lincoln's Inn, he offended and alienated his father by his extravagance, and still more by a rash marriage with Joan, seventh daughter of Henry Young of Buckhorn Weston in Dorset, ‘with whom he had no fortune.’ Having ‘ruined himself by his riots, he was now left to recover himself by his wits.’ He went into Spain, and lived there four years till his wife's death; he then returned to England, and vainly sought a reconciliation with his father. Through his friend Roger Cave of Stamford, who had married Lord Burghley's sister, he was introduced to the lord treasurer, who employed him in secret affairs of state. In 1586 he was credited with deciphering packets containing the first sure intelligence of the project of the armada. The queen rewarded him with a pension, and later with a place in the duchy of Lancaster; and Burghley, when his son Robert Cecil became master of the court of wards, made him ‘secretary’ of that court. This success won back for him his father's favour, and he inherited from him real estate of considerable value (1,700l. a year, according to Lodge). At the end of the queen's reign he was sent into Ireland to see if the court of wards could be extended there with profit to the crown; but his report was unfavourable. In 1603–4 he sat in parliament for Richmond in Yorkshire, and took some part in ‘matters of trade and revenue,’ and in the business of the union with Scotland. 