1806, 8vo. 11. ‘An Historical Letter to C. O'Conor, D.D., heretofore styling himself Columbanus, upon his five Addresses or Letters to his Countrymen,’ Dublin, 1812, 8vo. 12. ‘A Second Historical Letter to Sir J. C. Hippisley … upon his public conduct in the Catholic Cause … Occasioned by his Animadversions upon the Author in the House of Commons in 1814,’ Paris, 1815, 8vo. 13. ‘A Disquisition concerning the Law of Alienage and Naturalisation, according to the Statutes in force between the 10th of June 1818 and the 25th of March 1819 … illustrated in an elaborate opinion of counsel upon the claim of Prince Giustiani to the Earldom of Newburgh,’ Paris, 1818, 8vo. 14. ‘Human Subornation; being an elementary Disquisition concerning the civil and spiritual Power and Authority to which the Creator requires the submission of every human being. Illustrated by references to occurrences in the agitation of … Catholic Emancipation,’ London, 1824, 8vo.
He was not the compiler of a disreputable work attributed to him, entitled ‘Crim. Con. Biography,’ 2 vols., London, 1830, 12mo.
[Biogr. Dict. of Living Authors, 1816; Evans's Cat. of Engraved Portraits, n. 20387–9; Foley's Records, iv. 560, vii. 603; Gent. Mag. 1829, i. 374; Georgian Era, ii. 547; Martin's Privately Printed Books, 2nd edit. p. 200; Monthly Review, new ser. xiv. 261; Watt's Bibl. Brit.]
PLOWDEN, WALTER CHICHELE (1820–1860), consul in Abyssinia, youngest son of Trevor Chichele Plowden of the Bengal civil service, was born on 3 Aug. 1820, and educated at Dr. Evan's school, Hampstead. At the age of nineteen he entered the office of Messrs. Carr, Tagore, & Co., in Calcutta; but sedentary life was so uncongenial to him that he resigned in 1843, and embarked for England. At Suez he met Mr. J. T. Bell, and joined him in an expedition into Abyssinia to discover the sources of the White Nile. He remained in that country till 1847, and was shipwrecked in the Red Sea, on his way to England. In 1848 he was appointed consul in Abyssinia, with a mission to Ras Ali. He remained in the interior till February 1860, when he took leave of King Theodore. Near Gondar, on the Kaka river, he was attacked by a rebel chieftain, and was wounded and taken prisoner. He was ransomed by the authorities of Gondar on 4 March, and carried into the town, where he died of his injuries on 13 March 1860.
His manuscripts were forwarded to his brother, Trevor Chichele Plowden, by whom they were published as Travels in Abyssinia and the Galla Country, 8vo, London, 1868.
[Preface to the Travels, and information kindly supplied by Mr. Trevor C. Plowden.]
PLUGENET, ALAN de (d. 1299), baron, was son of Alan de Plugenet, by Alicia, sister of Robert Walerand (d. 1273); another account makes him son of Andrew de la Bere (G. E. C[okayne], Complete Peerage, vi. 254). His family was settled at Preston Pluchenet in Somerset. He fought on the king's side in the barons' war, and was rewarded in 1265 with the manor of Haselberg, Northamptonshire, from the lands of William Marshall (Blaauw, Barons' War, p. 300 n.; Deputy-Keeper Publ. Rec. 49th Rep. p. 137; Madox, Hist. Exchequer). In 1267 his uncle Robert Walerand, whose brother's sons, Robert and John Walerand, were both idiots, granted him the reversion of Kilpeck Castle, Hereford, with other lands in Somerset, Dorset, and Wiltshire, for a yearly payment of 140l. and a sparrow-hawk (Hoare, Hist. of Wiltshire, Cawden, p. 25). Walerand had also granted Plugenet his estate at Haselberg, Somerset, for the yearly rent of one rosebud (Feet of Fines, p. 55, Somerset Record Soc.) Plugenet and his son had custody of the Walerand estates till the death of John Walerand in 1309, when Plugenet's son Alan was found the true heir (Liber de Antiquis Legibus, pp. lxvi–ii, Camd. Soc.; Cal. Patent Rolls, Edward I, 1281–92, pp. 12, 117, 462). Plugenet was governor of Dunster Castle in 1271. In 1282 he served in the Welsh war. In June 1287 he was sent to Wales, and continued there two years (ib. p. 271). By his oppressive conduct as king's steward he is alleged to have provoked the rising under Rhys ap Meredith in 1287, when Droselan Castle was captured by Edmund, earl of Lancaster (Annales Monastici, iii. 338; cf. Flores Historiarum, iii. 66). Plugenet was, however, entrusted with the duty of repairing the castle, and on the completion of the work was made its constable (Cal. Pat. Rolls, Edw. I, 1281–92, pp. 289, 293, 301, 320). On 24 Jan. 1292 he was present with the king at Westminster, and on 18 Aug. of that year was employed on a commission of gaol delivery at Exeter (ib. pp. 469, 520). In 1294 he was summoned for the war of Gascony, and in 1297 was one of the council for the young Prince of Wales during the king's absence in Flanders (Rishanger, Chron. p. 179, Rolls Ser.) He died in 1299, having been summoned to parliament as a baron from 1292 to 1297. Rishanger (u.s.) describes him as a knight of tried discretion.
