Peregrine Bertie, 13th Baron Willoughby de Eresby

Peregrine Bertie, 13th Baron Willoughby de Eresby (1555 - 1601) was the son of Richard Bertie and Katherine Willoughby, 12th Baroness Willoughby de Eresby. Richard was Katherine's second husband, the first being Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. His half-brothers, Henry and Charles Brandon, died as teenagers. His sister, Susan Bertie, countess of Kent married the Earl of Kent and then the nephew of Bess of Hardwick. Owing to religious politics, the parents had to move outside England and the boy was born at Wesel on the River Rhine.

Early life

Born on 12 October, 1555, he was baptized at the church of Saint Willibrord on 14th October. On Elizabeth's accession to the throne in 1558, his parents returned to England and applied for a patent of naturalization for him. He formally became English on 2 August 1559. In the later 1570s he married Mary de Vere, daughter of the Earl of Oxford. When his mother died in 1580, he applied to assume her title and he took his seat in the House of Lords on 16 January 1580.

Diplomat

In 1582 he was commissioned to escort the Duke of Anjou from Canterbury to Antwerp. The French royal duke had arrived as a suitor of the un-married Elizabeth. In the same year Peregrine was sent to Denmark to invest Frederick II with the Order of the Garter. Peregrine arrived at Elsinore on 22 July and left on 27 September 1582. His ulterior purpose was to obtain an understanding whereby English merchant ships would not be molested while in Danish waters. In 1585, he returned to Denmark on behalf of Elizabeth in support of Henry of Navarre and to obtain Danish help for England's efforts on behalf of the independent Netherlands.

These journeys were made at Peregrine's expense as his correspondence with Francis Walsingham made clear, he was becoming desperate to be paid or to escape from the diplomatic duties. After two and a half months of working on the Danish king, Peregrine got him to offer to try to persuade the Spanish king to retire from the Low Countries. Frederick also agreed to send 2,000 horse to back up the English force already in the Netherlands. On achieving this much, Peregrine set off for England by way of Hamburg, Emden and Amsterdam.

oldier

In the Netherlands, after the Battle of Zutphen, in 1586, he was made General of the English forces in the United Provinces. He made a name for himself in Flanders in the period before the Spanish Armada of 1588. Subsequently, he fought for the Huguenots under Henry of Navarre.

Landowner

It was on Peregrine's estate at Willoughby, Lincolnshire that the parents of John Smith of Jamestown rented a farm which was the site of John's birth.

Popular Song

The military career of Baron Willoughby is celebrated in the popular Ballad, Lord Willoughby's Welcome Home.