According to the tradition recorded in manuscript A of the 'Venedotian Code' (Ancient Laws of Wales, 1841 edition, i. 104), he was contemporary with the other two, viz., Rhydderch Hael (fl. 580) (see Nennius and Adamnan's Life of St. Columba) and Nudd Hael, and joined them in the expedition undertaken by the northern princes in the time of Rhun ap Maelgwn Gwynedd (fl. 560) to avenge upon Arfon (the southern coast of the Menai) the death of Elidyr Mwynfawr. His father's name (Serguan, in mediæval Welsh Serfan) appears in the Nennian genealogies (Cymmrodor, ix. 175), but not in such a connection as to enable the date of Mordaf to be fixed with any certainty. Mordaf ap Serfan appears in two of the lists of saints printed in the Iolo MSS. (Liverpool edition, pp. 106, 138).
[Authorities cited.]
MORDAUNT, CHARLES, third Earl of Peterborough (1658–1735), admiral, general, and diplomatist, was the eldest son of John Mordaunt, viscount Mordaunt (1627–1675) [q. v.], nephew of Henry Mordaunt, second earl of Peterborough [q. v.], and, through his grandmother Elizabeth, first countess of Peterborough, directly descended from Charles Howard, earl of Nottingham [q. v.] His mother, Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Carey, was granddaughter of Robert Carey, first earl of Monmouth [q. v.], and niece of Henry Carey, second earl of Monmouth [q. v.] It is supposed that he received his early education at Eton. He matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford, on 11 April 1674, then 'aged 16' (Foster, Alumni Oxon.) His university career was short. In the following November he entered as a volunteer on board the Cambridge, commanded by his mother's stepbrother, Arthur Herbert, afterwards Earl of Torrington [q. v.], and went out to the Mediterranean in the squadron under Sir John Narbrough [q. v.] The Cambridge went home in the following year, but Mordaunt, moving into the Henrietta with Narbrough, did not return till 1677. By the death of his father on 5 June 1675 he had become Viscount Mordaunt, and now, when barely twenty, he married Carey, or Carry, daughter of Sir Alexander Fraser of Durris in Kincardineshire. In October 1678, however, he again sailed for the Mediterranean as a volunteer in the Bristol, when he was shipmate with the diarist Henry Teonge [q. v.], who amusingly recounts how, on 3 Nov., on the occasion of his not being very well, Mordaunt obtained the captain's leave to preach, and how he, Teonge, took measures to prevent him. Three weeks later, on the arrival of the squadron at Cadiz, Mordaunt moved into the Rupert, then carrying the flag of his uncle Herbert as vice-admiral and afterwards as commander-in-chief on the Barbary coast. He returned to England in the autumn of 1679, but again went out in June 1680, as a volunteer for service on shore at Tangier, then besieged by the Moors. It was only for a few months, and on his return he settled down at Fulham, in a house which, like most of his property, he had inherited from his mother; the bulk of his father's estate reverted to his uncle, the Earl of Peterborough. He at once busied himself in politics, took his seat in the House of Lords, and attached himself to Shaftesbury. He was one of the sixteen peers who, in January 1680-1, signed the petition against the meeting of the parliament at Oxford, and one of the twenty who, in March, protested against the refusal of the lords to proceed with the impeachment of Fitzharris [see Cooper, Anthony Ashley, first Earl of Shaftesbury]. In November 1681 he declined the offer of an appointment as captain of a ship of war, which was possibly made with the idea of getting rid of him. In 1682 he was intimately associated with Essex, Russell, and Sidney, and in 1683 he was believed by many to be implicated in their alleged plot. On the accession of James II he delivered a speech, full of 'eloquence, sprightliness, and audacity,' against the increase of the standing army and the appointment of catholic officers (Macaulay, ii. 287). When the parliament was prorogued, believing that further opposition at home was useless, and not improbably dangerous, he went to Holland. He is said to have been the first to press the Prince of Orange `to undertake the business of England' (Burnet, Hist. of his own Time, iii. 262).
During the next three years he was active in intriguing against King James, and made several journeys between Holland and England, towards the end of 1687 he had command of a small Dutch squadron in the West Indies. The object of this commission has not been explained, though it has been suggested that it was 'to try the temper of the English colonies and their attachment to the reigning sovereign.' It is probable also that Mordaunt was instructed to sound Narbrough, who was in command of an English squadron, at that time engaged in an attempt to recover treasure from a Spanish wreck. The actual pretext was an intention also to 'fish' for the treasure; but 'they were wholly unprovided to work the wreck,' and after a few days, during which the two commanders met on friendly
