Member of Parliament

Ughtred was elected as a member of parliament for the seat of Marlborough in 1584 and to the seat of Great Bedwyn in 1589. He undoubtedly owed his parliamentary seats to Seymour influence. His first cousin, Edward Seymour, 1st Earl of Hertford was lord of Marlborough, and at this period also dominated elections at Great Bedwyn, where Ughtred's co-Member in 1589 was another cousin, John Seymour.^[4]

On 15 February 1585, Ughtred served on a conference with the Lords concerned ostensibly with fraudulent conveyances but in reality was concerned with relations between the House of Lords and the House of Commons of England. He was named on 5 March to a Commons committee concerned with the poor law, and on 11 March he was appointed, with his half-brother Thomas Cromwell and Sir William More, to examine a currier accused of making defamatory statements about the House's treatment of a bill concerning tanners. He spoke in the debate on the bill against rogues and vagabonds in this Parliament, maintaining that large sums were being laid out to little purpose on houses of correction. He opposed the return of vagabonds to their own parish, where they had to be supported by the inhabitants of "poor villages and hamlets" who had "already more of their own than they have work for".^[4]

In the Parliament of 1589 Ughtred served on the subsidy committee on 11 February, and he spoke on the bill about captains and soldiers as well as serving on the committee on 26 February. The next day he was named to a conference with the Lords on the same lines as that of 15 February 1585. This time the subject was the Queen's dislike of the purveyors bill.^[4]

Shipowner and shipbuilder

As a shipowner, Ughtred knew that sailors who had been paid off after a voyage ran a risk of becoming unemployed and classed as vagabonds. Southampton, where he lived for several years, had experienced this problem in the early 1580s. Ughtred was well aware that ships were sometimes left to rot in the harbour because the owners could not pay the cost of repairs. In August 1582, Henry Knollys informed Sir Francis Walsingham that a Breton ship he had brought into Hampton had remained there for four years without being claimed. Knollys had then given her to Ughtred, who had no sooner had her repaired than the former owners demanded her back.^[4]

The embargo on sending ships to sea, following Philip II's acquisition of Portugal, would have involved Ughtred in serious loss had he not been allowed, "in consideration of his great charges sustained in building of sundry ships and furnishing of them to the seas", to send out the Galleon (500 tons), the Elizabeth (140 tons) and the Joan (80 tons). A licence he had received to export 500 quarters of wheat to Portugal was cancelled owing to the political situation, however he was permitted to send the same amount to Ireland.^[4]

In 1582 one of his vessels, the Ughtred or Bear, valued at £6,035, acted as flagship to Edward Fenton's unsuccessful voyage, and was renamed the Leicester, presumably in honour of Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, the principal shareholder in the adventure.^[17] The Leicester sailed with Sir Sir Francis Drake in 1585-6, and was one of his west-country squadron against the Spanish Armada, later possibly taking part in Thomas Cavendish's last voyage.^[18] Some of Ughtred's other ships were engaged in voyages to the west. In 1582 he petitioned the Privy Council claiming compensation for losses he had sustained in Spain and the West Indies.^[4]

Ughtred was involved in a number of lawsuits as a result of his trading ventures. In November 1582 the Spanish ambassador informed Lord Burghley that "a ship or two", owned by Mr. Ughtred of Southampton, had robbed off Newfoundland more than 20 ships belonging to the King of Spain, and that the Admiralty court had awarded one of these, "laden with fish and grease", to Ughtred, his ships having brought her into Bristol.^[19] Over a year later Francisco Hernandez of Viana, was still attempting to get compensation for this or another attack on Portuguese ships off Newfoundland.^[18]

Landowner in Ireland

Sir Henry Ughtred was one of the many men who were to profit from the Plantations of Ireland, the confiscation of land from rebellious Irish landowners by the English crown, and the colonisation of this land with settlers from England and Wales.^[20] Ughtred's investments in Irish lands would also prove to be a further source of litigation.

In 1586 he was granted a licence, with his step-son Sir William Courtenay and others, to "undertake the counties of Connoll and Kerry in one consort".^[21] The company was headed by Courtenay, but Ughtred had a considerable stake in it. Unfortunately for the "undertakers", some of the lands in Munster which they were allotted were claimed by Irishmen who were not in rebellion, and the consequent lawsuits were a constant drain on any profits made by the enterprise. In 1591 Ughtred gained a Privy Council decision in his favour over some of the property assigned to him, but two years later it was rescinded, and in 1597 the matter remained unresolved.^[4]

The Munster Plantation of the 1580s was the first mass plantation in Ireland. It was instituted as punishment for the Desmond Rebellions, when the Earl of Desmond had rebelled against English interference in Munster. The Desmond dynasty was annihilated in the aftermath of the Second Desmond Rebellion (1579–83) and their estates were confiscated. This gave the English authorities the opportunity to settle the province with colonists from England and Wales, who, it was hoped, would be a bulwark against further rebellions. In 1584, the Surveyor General of Ireland, Sir Valentine Browne and a commission surveyed Munster, to allocate confiscated lands to English Undertakers, wealthy colonists who undertook to import tenants from England to work their new lands. The English undertakers were also supposed to build new towns and provide for the defence of planted districts from attack. In reality the undertakers did not provide the required number of men necessary to defend themselves and their settlers and this would have disastrous consequences during the Irish rebellion of 1598.^[22][23]

During the Munster Plantation (from 1586 onwards), the English settlers were scattered across the province, wherever land had been confiscated. Initially the English undertakers were given detachments of English soldiers to protect them, but these were abolished in the 1590s. As a result, when the Nine Years' War, an Irish rebellion against English rule, came to Munster in 1598, most of the settlers were chased off their lands without any resistance. "The wealthier sort, leaving their castles and dwelling houses" either took refuge in the province's walled towns or fled back to England, and "the meaner sort (the rebellion having overtaken them), were slain, man, woman and child."^[22][24][25]