# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Morgan, Thomas (d.1595)

​MORGAN, Sir THOMAS (d. 1595), 'the warrior,' was the younger son of William Morgan of St. George's and Pencarn, Glamorganshire, and Anne, daughter of Robert Fortescue of Wood in the county of Devon. He was apparently about thirty years of age, and had probably seen active service in France or Scotland, when he was appointed in April 1572 captain of the first band of English volunteers that served in the Low Countries under William of Orange. He landed with his company, three hundred strong, at Flushing on 6 June, in time to take part in the defence of that town. His soldiers were chiefly raw recruits, and it was long before they learned to stand the enemy's fire ​Without flinching; but their decent and orderly behaviour, and the modesty of their commander, so favourably impressed the townsmen that they actually proposed to appoint him governor in the place of Jerome de t Zereerts. But 'to say troth,' says Roger Williams [q. v.], ' this captain had never any great ambition in him, although fortune presented faire unto him often beside this time.' He loyally supported de t Zereerts, and it was at his own suggestion that Sir Humphrey Gilbert [q. v.] superseded him for a time as colonel of the English forces in Holland. He took part in the abortive attempt made by de t Zereerts to besiege Tergoes; and when, owing to the refusal of the inhabitants of Flushing to readmit them into the town on account of their cowardly behaviour before Tergoes, he was exposed to a night attack by the governor of Middelburgh, he displayed great bravery, and was wounded in charging the enemy at the head of his men. But after a second and equally futile attempt against Tergoes, he returned to England with Sir H. Gilbert and the rest.
But failure had not dispirited him, and in February 1573 he returned to Holland with ten English companies, and took part in the attempt to relieve Haarlem and in the fight before Middelburgh ; but owing to a disagreement as to the payment of his regiment, he returned to England early in January 1574, and 'being mustered before her majesty near to St. James's, the colonel and some five hundred of his best men were sent into Ireland, which, in truth, were the first perfect harquebushiers that were of our nation, and the first troupes that taught our nation to like the musket' (R. Williams, The Actions of the Lowe Countries). He landed at Dundalk in March, and in July he was sent into Munster to keep an eye on the Earl of Desmond and his brother John. He was wounded at the attack on Derrinlaur Castle on 19 Aug., and, returning to England in January 1575, he was warmly commended for his bravery, both by Sir William Fitzwilliam and the Earl of Essex. He remained apparently for some time in Wales, but in 1578 he again volunteered for service in the Low Countries under Captain (afterwards Sir John) Norris [q. v.] He took part in the battle of Rijnemants on 1 Aug., and in the numerous small skirmishes that took place in Brabant and Holland in 1579 and 1580. He was present at the relief of Steenwyk in February 1581, and the battle of Northorne on 30 Sept. ; and at the battle with Parma's forces under the walls of Ghent on 27 Aug. 1582 he was conspicuous for his bravery. But difficulties were constantly arising between him and the States in regard to the payment of his troops, and apparently early in 1584 he was compelled to return to England. The Dutch community in London, however, recognising the important services he had rendered, subscribed nine thousand florins, and with the regiment which he was thus enabled to raise he returned to the Netherlands at the latter end of August, in time to take part in the defence of Antwerp. His troops were lodged in the suburbs of Burgerhout; but they became infected with the general spirit of insubordination, and he was compelled, in order to restore discipline, to execute Captains Lee and Powell. The post assigned to him was the defence of the Lillo fortress under La Noue, but it was in the attack on the Kowenstyn Dyke on 26 May 1585 that he most signally distinguished himself.
After the capitulation of Antwerp he was appointed for a time governor of Flushing, and it was here on 27 Dec., that he had that remarkable conversation with St. Aldegonde to which Motley (United Netherlands, i. 276-9) has drawn special attention. He was shortly afterwards placed in command of the important fortress of Rheinberg, where he was besieged by Parma, but almost immediately relieved by the counter attack of Leicester on Doesburg in July 1586. He was greatly annoyed by the attempt of Lord Willoughby (Peregrine Bertie [q. v.]), Leicester's successor, to oust him from the government of Bergen-op-Zoom, to which he claimed to have been appointed by the States-General. But, finding it impossible to obtain any redress of his grievances from Willoughby, he went to England in the spring of 1587, and was so successful in urging his claim that he was not merely knighted by Elizabeth for his services (but cf. Hist. MSS. Comm. 7th Rep. p. 519), but also obtained her letters to Willoughby expressly authorising his appointment as governor of Bergen-op-Zoom, and lieutenant-colonel of the English forces in the Netherlands. He landed at Flushing on 1 June, and having presented his letters to Willoughby at Middelburgh, he found him as obstinately opposed as ever to admit his claim, alleging a simple non possumus on the ground that he had had nothing to do with either appointment. The States-General also interfered in Morgan's behalf, but without immediate success. 'So as in lieu of my accustomed service,' he wrote bitterly to Elizabeth in July, 'done to your majesty and these countries, I must now spend my time in gazing after new.' He found temporary employment in conducting over to England part of the forces drawn from the Netherlands in anticipation of the Spanish ​ Armada. After the defeat of the Armada he re-embarked with his regiment, and arrived at Bergen-op-Zoom on 18 Sept. with a commission from the States to assume the government of that place, which Willoughby grudgingly surrendered to him. He took part in the defence of the city and continued governor of Bergen-op-Zoom till 1593, when he was rather ungraciously deprived of the post by the council of state in Holland on the ground that a governor was unnecessary, and that the charge might be entrusted to the senior captain in the garrison (but cf. Faure, Hist. de Bergen-op-Zoom, p. 333, where one is led to infer that he remained governor till his death). He returned to England, and died at New Fulham on 22 Dec. 1595.
Morgan married in 1589 Anna, fourth child of Jan, baron van Merode, by whom he had two sons, Edward, who died young, and Maurice, and two daughters, Anne and Catherine. He was a brave soldier and a modest man; ‘a very sufficient gallant gentleman,’ said Willoughby, who had no great love for him, but ‘unfurnished of language.’ By his will, dated 18 Dec. 1595, he left his best rapier and dagger to Robert, earl of Essex; his best petronel, key and flask and touch-box to Lord Herbert; his grey hobbie to Henry, lord Hunsdon, and his gilt armour to his nephew, Sir Matthew Morgan. In October 1596 his widow presented a petition for payment of two warrants given by the Earl of Leicester and Lord Willoughby to her late husband for 1,200l. and 3,000l., sums due to him for his company of two hundred men from 12 Oct. 1586 till his death in December 1595. Lady Morgan subsequently married Justinus van Nassau, natural son of William, prince of Orange, and died on 1 Oct. 1634, aged 72.
[G. T. Clark's Limbus Patrum Morganiæ et Glamorganiæ, p. 327; Lord Clermont's Hist. of the Family of Fortescue, p. 44*; Roger Williams's The Actions of the Lowe Countries, and A Brief Discourse of Warre; A True Discourse Historicall of the succeeding Governours in the Netherlands, &c., translated and collected by T. C[hurchyard] and Ric. Ro[binson], out of the Rev. E. Meteren, his Fifteene Books, Historiæ Belgicæ, and other collections added, London, 1602; W. Blandy's The Castle, or Picture of Policy; Wright's Queen Elizabeth and her Times, ii. 213, 388, 389, 391; Cal. of State Papers, Dom. Eliz. 1581–90 pp. 474, 526, 528, 538, 1591–4 pp. 242, 315, 332, 339, 398, 570, 1595–7 p. 300; Cal. of State Papers, Foreign, Eliz. 1572–4 pp. 130, 181, 406, 417, 432, 437; Collins's Sidney Papers, Introd. p. 53, i. 138, 315, 356, 384, 385, Leycester Corresp. (Camden Soc.), pp. 302, 353, State Papers, Ireland, Eliz. xliv. 9, 50, xlvii. 8; xlviii. 58, xlix. 7, 8, 9, 44. In this connection it is to be noted that the Index to the Cal. of Irish State Papers, ed. Hamilton, vol. ii., confounds Sir Thomas Morgan with his kinsman, Sir William Morgan (d. 1584) [q. v.], of Pencoyd, as indeed do most of the histories of the time; Lady Georgina Bertie's Five Generations of a Loyal House; C. R. Markham's The Fighting Veres; Grimeston's Historie of the Netherlands, London, 1608, p. 861; Camden's Annals passim; Meteren's Historia Belgica, pp. 311–12; Egerton MSS. Brit. Mus. 1694 f. 51 1943, ff. 47, 49, 53, 55, 57, 65, 69, 73 (corresp. with Lord Willoughby); Cotton MSS. Nero B. vi. f. 361 Galba C. vii. f. 135, viii. f. 57, xi. ff. 258, 272, Galba D. iii. ff. 201, 204, viii. f. 94, Titus B. vii. f. 38; Harleian MS. 287, f. 211; Cal. Hatfield MSS. ii. 55, iii. 100, 134; Hist. MSS. Comm. 7th Rep. p. 519 10th Rep. App. ii. p. 30; Jean Faure's Histoire Abrégée de la Ville de Bergen-op-Zoom, p. 333; A. J. Van der Aa's Biographisch Woordenboek, xii. 662, 1055, xiii. 77; A. Ferwerda's Adelyken Aanzienelyk Wappenboek van de Zeven Provincien, vol. i. pt. ii. art. Merode 13 Generatie.]
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