Thomas Stukley

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Thomas Stucley (c. 1525

Family

He was a younger son of Sir

It has been alleged that he was instead an illegitimate son of King Henry VIII.[6] Details of any wives or children he may have had are imprecise.^[7]

Career

Stucley's early mentors were

Stucley, who may well have been the originator of the plans adopted by the French, was imprisoned in the Tower of London for some months.^[8] Having run through his brother's inheritance, he was prosecuted for debt on his release in August 1553 and was compelled to become a soldier of fortune once more.^[9] This was not his only financial difficulty: once, claiming a legacy, he broke into the late testator's house and searched the coffers, in defiance of a court injunction. In another episode, he was imprisoned in the Tower at the suit of an Irishman he had robbed.

He returned to England in December 1554 in the train of

At about this time, on being presented to the queen he said he would prefer to be sovereign of a molehill than the subject of the greatest king in Christendom and that he had a presentiment he would be a prince before he died. She is said to have remarked, "I hope I shall hear from you when you are installed in your principality". He responded that she surely would, and she demanded, "In what language?" He answered: "In the style of princes, to our dearest sister."[10]

Stucley then devised a plan for a colony in

Ireland

The meeting with O'Neill led to an extended interest in Irish affairs on Stucley's part. He was recommended by the queen to the

Again, Stucley was acquitted, and the authorities released him in October 1569. He had been suspected of proposing an invasion of Ireland to King Philip II of Spain, and soon after his release he offered his services to Fénelon, the French ambassador in London. He returned to Ireland in 1570, where he fitted out a ship at Waterford and made a great show of his piety, proceeding through the streets of the city on his knees as he offered himself up to God. He then sailed from Waterford on 17 April, supposedly for London, but his real destination was Vimeiro, northwest of Lisbon. He had 28 men on board, but only the sole Italian knew their course, and the rest fell into despair when they arrived in Portugal after a five-day voyage.

Philip II invited him to Madrid, where he was loaded with honours, probably with a view to impressing upon Elizabeth the threat of an invasion of Ireland to detract from English support for the Dutch rebels in the Netherlands.^{[citation needed]} With the approbation of the Duke of Feria, Stucley was known at the Spanish court as the "Duke of Ireland", and was established with a handsome allowance in a villa near Madrid.^[9]

Speculation about Stucley's future role became intense. In 1570, it was claimed that he had sought to interfere in the

On 12 February 1571, the king was informed by the Spanish ambassador that news was had in London from France that the pope had ceded to the Spanish crown the kingdom created for Philip and Queen Mary I of England, which had fallen vacant upon the excommunication of Elizabeth by Pope Pius V, in his 1570 papal bull Regnans in Excelsis, and that it was rumoured that Stucley was to be sent to England with 14 to 15 companies of troops.

Amidst this international feinting and shaping, the Catholic

The archbishop's brief was to request the appointment of John of Austria, nicknamed Don John, as king of Ireland. On removing to Paris, Fitzgibbon informed the English ambassador there, Sir Francis Walsingham, of Stucley's plan. In 1570, Stucley sought to have an English spy, Oliver King, brought before the Spanish Inquisition. King had a history of attendance at Mass and of knocking his breast daily and so was merely stripped and banished, but then had to cross the Pyrenees in the snow while Stucley's men pursued him. Stucley obtained his passport to leave Spain after Elizabeth demanded his dismissal.

Stucley moved to Rome, where he found favour with Pope Pius V, who had excommunicated Elizabeth in 1571. He was given the command of three galleys at the

Stucley allied with Fitzmaurice and moved to Rome in 1575, where he is said to have walked about the streets and churches barefoot and bare-legged.^[citation needed] In June, Stucley had an interview at Naples with his Lepanto commander Don John, and passed on details of the plans for an October expedition. The intention was to deliver Mary, Queen of Scots, from prison and take possession of England. Don John, who was now in charge of the Spanish forces in Flanders, said the king would have to approve, and that 3,000 men were too few, but was cautiously optimistic that the expedition would help to contain the rebellion in the Netherlands.

In 1575, Friar Patrick O'Healy arrived at Rome bearing a letter from the king and announcing that he sought sanction for an unnamed Irish gentleman to revolt and to request assistance; he insisted Philip II had given his blessing. Pope Gregory stressed that the crown ought not to go to a French or Spanish claimant, but to a native Catholic, that is, Mary, Queen of Scots, lest the king gain too much power and territory; he was opposed to Don John being crowned in Ireland. The king disputed O'Healy's authority to enter discussion on the Irish matter and queried the Pope's opposition to the increase of Spanish authority.

The Pope was willing to guarantee six months' pay for 200 men and their shipping expenses to go to England in his name, and wondered if a personal attempt might be made against Elizabeth. Later, it was suggested that 5,000 go to Liverpool and free Mary before possessing the country, or go to Ireland. Pope Gregory bargained for Philip II to defray the entire expense of the expedition, and suggested that if the Vatican were to pitch in then it should receive some benefit in Italy by way of material return. The Spanish thought the leader of the expedition should be married, so as to prevent papal approval of a match with Mary.

British spies had been sending home rumours of Stucley's plans since Archbishop Fitzgibbon's intervention in Spain. In 1572, Oliver King informed London of invasion plans; in March 1573 Elizabeth's spymaster Sir William Cecil, Lord Burghley, received intelligence that certain "decayed gentlemen" were to join Stucley in Spain for the invasion of Ireland. At their first encounter, Walsingham had not known what to make of Fitzgibbon, realising that an agent of Burghley's had sown dissension between the archbishop and Stucley, but in 1575 he did have intelligence of Stucley's alliance with Fitzmaurice, at a time when the nuncio at Madrid was urging an invasion of England. In 1578 Walsingham had similar intelligence, and having failed to induce Archbishop Fitzgibbon to give up his secrets in return for his passage back to Ireland, procured his arrest in Scotland.

Invasion expedition

On 1 October 1578, Don John died while on campaign in southern Belgium, of camp fever (typhus). His death disrupted plans for the invasion of England, but there was still stomach for supporting the Irish. In 1576 Fitzmaurice had been warmly received at Rome, where William Allen, later a cardinal, was also present, having presented to the Pope a plot for the invasion of England through Liverpool, with 5,000 musketeers under Stucley's command.

Now, in 1578, the Pope provided Stucley with infantry and he set out with 2,000 fighting men. The force had, it was claimed, been raised by enlisting Apennine highwaymen and robbers in return for pardons and 50-day indulgences, the latter to be gained by contemplation of crucifixes supplied to Stucley. They were commanded by professional officers under Hercules of Pisano, and also Giuseppi who went on to command the Smerwick garrison at the beginning of the Second Desmond Rebellion. In sum, Stucley's ranks rose to 4,000.

Stucley sailed for Ireland from

The Jesuit polemicist Nichola Sanders and Irish members of the expedition made their way back to Rome, and continued the now ill-fated invasion, deprived of most of its money and men by Stucley's desertion.

On landing in Morocco, Stucley objected to marching straight away against a vast force of Moors and scorned the Portuguese king's troops and tactics. ^{[citation needed]} He reportedly fought with courage on 4 August 1578 at the Battle of Alcácer Quibir, commanding the centre, but was killed early in the day when a cannonball cut off his legs—or perhaps, as tradition asserted, he was murdered by his Italian soldiers after the Portuguese had been defeated.^{[citation needed]} The historian Jerry Brotton writes of him, "He might not have 'given a fart' about Elizabeth, but it may have been one of her cannonballs that killed him".^[11]

Legacy

Stucley's career made a considerable impression on his contemporaries, and in death he attracted as much speculation and gossip as he had in life. A play generally assigned to George Peele, The Battell of Alcazar with the Death of Captain Stukely, printed in 1594, was probably acted in 1592. It deals with Stucley's arrival in Lisbon and his Moorish expedition; in a long speech before his death he recapitulates the events of his life.^[9]

A later piece, The Famous History of the Life and Death of Captain Thomas Stukeley, printed for Thomas Pavier (1605), which is possibly the Stewtle, played, according to Henslowe, on 11 December 1596, is a biographical piece dealing with successive episodes, and seems to be a patchwork of older plays on Dom António and on Stucley. His adventures also form the subject of various ballads.^[9]

There is a detailed biography of Stucley, based chiefly on the English, Venetian and Spanish state papers, in R Simpson's edition of the 1605 play (School of Shakespeare, 1878, vol. i.), where the Stucley ballads are also printed.^[12] References in contemporary poetry are quoted by Dyce in his introduction to The Battle of Alcazar in Peele's Works.^[9]

References