the gallant, "whensoever it shall please you to command, if it be for 10,000 crowns, you may boldly employ me, for I will as willingly disburse it to pleasure you, as I would give one point." He adds: "I am and ever will be ready (with God's grace) to obey you." In this promise, there was more of lax love than of sound wedlock. Then he thanks the fair creature for the "two dozen of points" (tags for tying up his vestments) she had sent him, which, coming from her hands, were more grateful to him than so many brilliants. In return, his magnificence, who knew the proverb, Mas ablanda davidas que palabras de caballerogifts soften more than a gentleman's palaver-presented her with "half a dozen of pyctures wrought upon taffyta." He was now in his glory's zenith. Of the fervour of his attachment to Mistress Julian we may judge by his declaration that the proud "estate" he enjoyed "is and ever shall be to honour and serve" her. He concludes: " Pray for me, as I will do you. I commend me most lovingly unto yourself, and us both unto God, who of his goodness send us a joyfull meeting." Such was his love to the mistress of his heart. His detestation was no less in the extreme for the great minister Burghley, whose correspondent wrote from Florence that this conspiratore Inglese "has discovered himself here to be a hateful enemy unto your lordship.' for Ireland, the vulnerable part of Elizabeth's dominions, was shortly afterwards revisited by the conspiring pirate, to sound the depth of rebellious feeling there. In the month of December he was on a visit to Gerald, Earl of Kildare, at Kilka (a fine old castle recently fitted up and inhabited by the present marquis), on parting whence the noble host presented the traveller with "a sorrel curtal," and gave him the guidance of a native named Phelim, who subsequently complained that the haughty Spanish Saxon had called him salvagio.* It was, of course, the enterpriser's object to return to the courts of the Escorial and Vatican with the most cheering assurances of the zealous support of the Irish chiefs. Pleasant would it have been to have witnessed the interview between our braggadocio and the great Geraldine earl, and have heard his palabros! Our hidalgo's original and Spanishbrown characteristics of haughtiness and vain-glory had, doubtless, received a higher tone in "tawny Spain." How carefully he sweetened his discourse with foreign expletives, and larded it with the commendablest phrases of the age's Euphuistic school! His attire, perhaps, resembled the medley of his speech in motleyness, made up of exotic braveries; having, maybe, like Portia's English suitor, "bought his doublet in Italy, his round hose in France, his bonnet in Germany, and his behaviour everywhere." Let us imagine the guise and figure of our conspirator, bonnet in hand, and not forgetting his Toledo rapier and poniard, with their hangings and garnish, while imparting the intrigues and state secrets of many courts, from Elizabeth's privy chamber to Gregory's closet, to the rustic Hibernian noble, with all the air and phraseology of Shakspeare's "illustrious wight," Don Armado, the refined and magnificent traveller from Spain, " a man of fire-new words, fashion's own knight;" and then, at the close of the conference, his spirit mounting to the opportunity, advising his caro amico (might he, in * State Paper-office. 1 VOL. XLIV. K sooth, so style sua excellenza el Conde de Kildare?) to dare all by putting all to la fortuna della guerra! Then, to have seen the caballero take leave, with dulcet expressions of profound consideration, mount his sorrel hack, wend his way through bogs and over mountains with the rude and awe-struck Phelim, and, when provoked by some want of savoir on the part of his guide, threaten to make a carbonado of him! We can well conceive that the scene between this adventurous Hispaniolan knight and his Irish companion was as comical as any the humorous pen of Cervantes has described between Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. Leaving our voyager on his road back to his employer, we find the Geraldine exile reported, in February following, at St. Malo, "keeping," writes Sydney, "a great port, himself and family well apparelled, and full of money; often visited by men of countenance, and often receiving intelligence from Rome and Spain. The man," continues the viceroy, "is subtle, malicious, and hardy; a papist in extremity, and well esteemed among the Irish people. If he come," the writer declares, "all the loose swordsmen will flock unto him. Yea, their lords, let them do their best, shall not be able to keep them from him. So if he come, like a man of war, as I know he will, and I be in the north, he may take and do what he will with Kinsale, Cork, Youghal, Kilmallock, and haply Limerick too, before I can come to the rescue." No such dashing attack was meditated for the present, for, at that time of writing, the foe was proceeding towards the Eternal City via Madrid, whence, being furnished with recommendatory letters from the king, he went on his way, to concert measures with his kinsman, the Pope's chamberlain, who had by this time thoroughly insinuated himself, by fair promises and ostentation, into his master's favour. Gregory received the Irishman with open arms and a confiding heart. The congenial pair of conspirators, equal in craft and indefatigability, soon persuaded his Holiness to forget his recent promise of conferring the British dominions on Philip, and to resume his paternal notion of making Giacomo Buoncompagno king of the Emerald Isle. He was assured that the Green Islanders only wanted some foreign troops and treasure to break out in open rebellion; that there was not an English fortress that could hold out four days; and that five thousand men could overrun the entire island, and easily drive the heretici Inglesi into the sea. Our papal chamberlain, who had, of course, relinquished the errors of Protestantism, and embraced those of the Catholic faith (as an Irishman would say), was, no doubt, eloquent enough on the revival of popery in England and Ireland, which, indeed, dates from this period of the labours of the Jesuits Allen, Sanders, Campion, &c. By a proclamation dated 25th February, 1576, the pontiff, premising that with grief of heart he had lately learned from "that noble and excellent man, James Geraldine, lord of Kiericouthi,* and governor-general of Desmond in the absence of the Earl of Desmond," of the cruel persecutions of his countrymen by Elizabeth, "who" (continues the document), "hateful alike to God and man, domineers proudly and impiously in England and Ireland." His Holiness therefore granted to all in the latter country who would follow "the said general," joining his army for defence of the Catholic faith, as plenary an indulgence and remission of their sins as if The uncouth title which Fitzmaurice, as late owner of the barony now called Kerrycurriky, especially coveted. they were warring against the Turks for the recovery of the Holy Land. Stukely succeeded in obtaining from the pontiff a no less sum than 40,000 scudi to equip himself with vessels and men. In his generosity, he may have handed over part of this large sum to his confederate, or the latter may have received a separate benevolence. "Great and tawdry," writes a chronicler, anno 1577, "were the advertisements of an intention of Fitzmaurice to make invasion; he had been with the Pope at Rome, and there was princelie entertained, and returned from thence with a good mass of treasure." Stukely was soon rejoined by his confederate, who had been to visit his wife at St. Malo; and the preparations now progressed for the long-threatened expedition to an isle "where," as this Don Quixote may have said, "there are opportunities, Brother Sancho, of putting our hands into what are called adventures up to our elbows." Verily, the enterprise had a Quixotic air-"a spice of madness in it,” as Lord Bacon observed. Every particular of the attempt as it grew was regularly reported by Secretary Walsingham; for even the prime leader, Stukely, a mere desperado, without honour or conscience, had sold his services at the same time to the queen and the Pope, and alternately betrayed the secrets of each.* At length, in the spring of 1578, the Armada was complete, but comprised no more than a ship of war, a few galleys, three thousand stand of arms, and some eight hundred brigands and other convicts, culled from the gaols and galleys of the Ecclesiastical States. There were included a few men of rank to officer this banditti; and since it may be conjectured that their Geraldine general-though he might be, like his countryman, "Captain Macmorris," "a very valiant gentleman "-possessed, like his namesake, "no more directions in the discipline"-so Fluellen phrased it" of the pristine wars of the Romans than, look you, a puppy-dog," he may have been glad to obtain the services of Italian engineers, whose handiwork is still visible on the little promontory at Smerwick, on the coast of Kerry, fortified by their art. To the persuasions of Fitzmaurice with the pontiff, the writer already quoted, censor of the Portuguese Court of Inquisition, attributes his Holiness's appointment of our pirate-hero to command the transports; and the inquisitor adds that the Pope feared that the Irish lord was greatly deceived in reposing confidence in an Englishman upon such a critical occasion, but that, trusting in assurances of fidelity, he created him "Lord of Idrone," and appointed him vice-admiral of the invasive fleet, under Fitzmaurice, after which the latter, taking leave of the pontiff, started by land for Lisbon, delegating to his confederate to conduct the troops thither by sea. Our writer, however, as an attached adherent to the Geraldines, errs in ascribing the foremost part in the invasive expedition, which was always called "Stukely's Enterprise," to an actually subordinate conspirator; and, moreover, the superior enterpriser styles himself, in a document dated on board ship at Cadiz, 8th April, 1578, "General of the Most Holy Father." Fitzmaurice was now reported to Walsingham as again "on the seas;" having sailed from Lisbon in a tall ship, carrying a hundred soldiers, and much warlike munitions, pretending he was bound for Morlaix, to fetch Lingard. his wife, but supposed to be bent on a descent upon his native land, and expecting to be joined by Stukely, and reinforced by the Earl of Westmoreland and from Spain. The Spanish monarch, though averse to engage in war, being willing to give Elizabeth some distraction at home, had advanced some twenty thousand scudi towards the expedition. At this flood-tide of Spanish maritime wealth, the king would assuredly welcome bold foreigners who might be induced to show their seamanship in command of his galiasses and convoys. Since 1572, the time of Drake's private reprisals against the Spaniards, in revenge of maltreatments of himself and crew during a previous voyage in the Spanish main, the name of this celebrated naval hero was dreadful on 'Change throughout the ports of the Peninsula. An anecdote we have met with in an unedited letter of news from Cadiz, written subsequently to his attack in the bay there, when some eighty of the enemy's sail were either taken or destroyed, curiously and amusingly discloses the apprehensive feelings caused by his deeds of daring. A court party of pleasure had recently been held near the metropolis, with the special purpose, it seems, of diverting a favourite beauty. It was proposed that the whole bevy should go on the water, but la bella donna being, unhappily, boudente at the moment, she observed, with much méchanceté, that there were cavaliers present whose valour would be best exhibited on the salt seas against Francisco Drake. After this sally of patriotism, from lips so sweet and spirited, the king was observed to sit silent and musing for a considerable time. Stout Stukely had, no doubt, once been a promising antagonist to Drake, and might have boasted, in good nautical phrase, and with the swelling port of a lord high admiral, of his ability to take command of an invincible armada. The name of his confederate was feared at sea as that of a pirate; and the same calling had been still more practised by a notorious Tom Fleming, who was known as the Geraldine's "admiral." With the aid of these desperadoes, Philip may have hoped to send out a squadron that would crush the corsairs of Africa, and drive Drake back to his island home, or sink him and his shallops altogether. 66 Stukely, with his forces, arrived in the Tagus, just as Sebastian, King of Portugal, was preparing to sail in an expedition into Africa, to dethrone the Emperor of Morocco. He almost succeeded in persuading this young and rash king to grant him aid, but suddenly matters took an opposite turn, as narrated by a correspondent with England, 14th of June, 1578: Hereupon Stewkly hath sent a post to the holy father, returnable in twenty daies, to declare of this alteration. The king was moved at the first to ayde this enterprize against Irelande, and because the galyes that Stewkly came in did fayle, therefore he was desired by the sayde Stewkly to ayde him with shipps, and other thinges necessarie for the warres in Ireland, but the kinge answered that he was in amytie with Englande, and therfore wold not deale that waye, but contrarywyse, seeing hym to have good store of corselets and other munitions, with shippes and men, hath seized upon hym and his company to serve in Africa. And which the quene's majestie understanding, I do feare the shippes wil be stayed, although I do thinke it most necessarie they should go to sea, to create a terror to James Fitzmaurice and pyrates that are upon the coast." * Wright's Elizabeth. Fitzmaurice, flitting from one port to another for many a month, sometimes seen off one shore, and then off another, was, in this troubled time, regarded as the stormy petrel of some coming invasion, a forerunner of armadas and naval battles. Hearing of the relinquishment of his confederate's purpose to join him, he postponed his descent for a year, when, having obtained a reinforcement of some six hundred Spaniards and Italians, he landed in Smerwick Bay, and threw up fortifications, which were quickly assaulted and taken by Arthur, Lord Grey, and Sir Walter Raleigh, the "Arthegal" and "Talus" of "The Faerie Queene." Lord Grey, in a memoir addressed to Elizabeth, comments thus on the moral effect of his victory over the invaders: "Marched to the fort, which, after three days' envyroning, by God's good favour we took, and did put most of the enemy to the sword; the issue of this service being the spectacle that the eyes of all that land's" (Ireland's) "rebels, and hollow hearts of this your realm too" (England) bent upon. 66 were Stukely was compelled by the Portuguese monarch, as we have seen, to accompany his African expedition, the martial pomp of which is described in the Spanish ballad on "The Departure of King Sebastian:” Gorgeous and gay, in Lisbon's Bay, with streamers flaunting wide, His valorous armada (was never nobler sight!) Hath young Sebastian marshalled against the Moorish wight. On landing in Africa, our hero is said to have shown both wisdom and bravery. He counselled Sebastian to repose and refresh his soldiers before they advanced: but the king was precipitate, and in the great battle of Alcazar the Portuguese army was destroyed, and the youthful leader, with two Moorish kings, his companions, slain. Stukely also fell, gloriously enough, fighting desperately. The old ballad of his adventures represents him as struck down by his own men, who became furious when they found that he had taken them from their hopes of conquest in Ireland, to die by the hands of infidels. Thus perished, amid the clang of a grand and chivalrous battle, our gallant adventurer. His history, that of no preux chevalier, is somewhat repulsive. Though possessing some of Raleigh's characteristics, an enterprising spirit, courage at sea and on land, and a talent for courts, he was not gifted with our English Admirable Crichton's genius and higher accomplishments-philosophy, poetry, and patriotism being unindebted to him. Besides that he had the equivocal honour of being rendered famous by a ballad of his own," his fate was introduced in a tragedy called "The Battle of Alcazar," from which play Dryden is alleged to have taken the idea of " Don Sebastian :" but if so, as has been observed by the biographer of "Glorious John," and master of English romance writing, "it is surprising he omitted a character so congenial to King Charles the Second's time as the witty, brave, and profligate Thomas Stukely." 66 *MS., State Paper-office. |
