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.]
MORGAN, THOMAS (1543–1606?), catholic conspirator, born in 1543, was the son of a Welsh catholic. He claimed to belong to 'a right worshipful family of Monmouthshire,' doubtless that of Llantarnan. He mentions two brothers, Harry and Rowland (Cal. Hatfield MSS. iv. 7-9). One brother is said to have been educated at the catholic college at Rheims, and after returning to England to have accepted protestantism, but suffered so much remorse that he drowned himself (Foley, Records, vi. 14). When Thomas was eighteen he entered the household of William Allen [q. v.], bishop of Exeter, and afterwards became secretary to Thomas Young, archbishop of York, with whom he remained till the archbishop's death on 26 June 1568. Both prelates were Calvinists, but Morgan concealed his creed while in their service, and, though a layman, he received from them, according to his own account, church preferment worth four thousand crowns a year. His attachment to his own faith nevertheless grew firmer, and when Young died he resolved to devote himself to the service of Mary Queen of Scots. Ignorant of his designs, Lord Northumberland and the Earl of Pembroke recommended him in 1569 as secretary to Lord Shrewsbury, in whose house at Tutbury the Scottish queen was then imprisoned. Morgan was soon installed at Tutbury, and was able to be useful to the queen. He managed her correspondence, and read and communicated to her what passed between his master and the court. Whenever her rooms and boxes were to be searched, he had notice beforehand, and concealed her
