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 much addicted to brawling, and it was to a fracas between him and two of the yeomen of the guard, in which he was slightly wounded, that he owed his personal introduction to Henry VIII. The king, whether he was acquainted with the secret of his birth or whether he merely admired his courage and audacity, made him a promise of preferment, but died before he could fulfil it. Perrot, however, found a patron in Edward VI, and was by him, at his coronation, created a knight of the Bath. His skill in knightly exercises secured him a place in the train of the Marquis of Northampton on the occasion of the latter's visit to France in June 1551 to negotiate a marriage between Edward VI and Elizabeth, the infant daughter of Henry II. He fully maintained the reputation for gallantry he had acquired at home, and by his bravery in the chase so fascinated the French king that he offered him considerable inducements to enter his service.

Returning to England, he found himself involved in considerable pecuniary difficulties, from which he was relieved by the generosity of Edward. The fact of his being a protestant did not at first militate against him with Queen Mary; but, being accused by one Gadern or Cathern, a countryman of his, of sheltering heretics in his house in Wales, and, among others his uncle, Robert Perrot, reader in Greek to Edward VI and Alexander Nowell [q. v.] (afterwards dean of Lichfield), he was committed to the Fleet. His detention was of short duration, and, being released, he served under the Earl of Pembroke in France, and was present at the capture of St. Quentin in 1557. His refusal, however, to assist Pembroke in hunting down heretics in south Wales caused a breach in their friendly relations, though it did not prevent the earl from generously using his influence to bring to a successful issue a suit of Perrot's for the castle and lordship of Carew. At the coronation of Elizabeth, Perrot was one of the four gentlemen chosen to carry the canopy of state, and being apparently shortly afterwards appointed vice-admiral of the seas about south Wales and keeper of the gaol at Haverfordwest, he for some years divided his time between the court and his estate in Pembrokeshire.

Since the outbreak of the rebellion in Ireland of James Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald [q. v.] in 1568, it had been the settled determination of Elizabeth and her ministers to establish a presidential government in Munster similar to that in Connaught. In November 1570 the post was offered to Perrot, and was somewhat reluctantly accepted by him. He sailed from Milford Haven and arrived at Waterford on 27 Feb. 1571. A day or two afterwards Fitzmaurice burned the town of Kilmallock, and Perrot, recognising the importance of reaching the seat of his government without loss of time, hastened to Dublin, and, having taken the oath before Sir Henry Sidney [q. v.], proceeded immediately to Cork. From Cork he marched directly to Kilmallock, where he took up his quarters in a half-burned house, and issued a proclamation to the fugitive townsmen to return and repair the walls and buildings of the town. While thus engaged, information reached him one night that the rebels had attacked Lord Roche; whereupon, taking with him his own troop of horse, he pursued them as far as Knocklong. But finding they were likely to make good their escape among the neighbouring bogs, he caused his men to dismount and to follow them in their own fashion, and had the satisfaction of killing fifty of them, whose heads he fixed on the market-cross of Kilmallock. Having placed the town in a posture of defence, Perrot pursued his journey to Limerick, capturing a castle belonging to Tibbot Burke on the way. From Limerick, where the Earl of Thomond, O'Shaughnessy, and Sir Thomas of Desmond came to him, he proceeded to Cashel, where he hanged several ‘grasy merchants, being such as bring bread and aquavita or other provisions unto the rebels,’ and so by way of Fethard, Clonmel, Carrick-on-Suir, and Lismore, near where he captured Mocollop Castle, back to Cork, which he reached on the last day of May.

Fixing his headquarters at Cork, he made excursions into the territories of the ‘White Knight’ and the McSwineys, and ‘slew many of the rebels and hanged as many as he might take.’ Though greatly harassed by his incessant warfare, Fitzmaurice had managed to enlist a large body of redshanks, and with these he scoured the country from Aharlow to Castlemaine, and from Glenflesk to Baltimore. Perrot, who spared neither himself nor his men in his efforts to catch him, in vain tempted him to risk a battle in the open, but, meeting him on the edge of a wood, he attacked and routed him, and forced his allies across the Shannon. On 21 June he sat down before Castlemaine, but after five weeks was compelled, by lack of provisions, to raise the siege. His eagerness to terminate the rebellion led him to countenance a proposal for the restoration of Sir John of Desmond as a counterpoise to Fitzmaurice [see, (1528–1612)], and even induced him to listen to a proposal of Fitzmaurice to settle the question by single combat. Fitzmaurice, as the event proved,