Devonshire Characters and Strange Events

by S. Baring-Gould

It is this Stucley.

As a retainer of the Duke of Suffolk, into whose household he had entered, and whose livery he wore, he was present at the siege of Boulogne, 1545–50; and he acted as standard-bearer, with the wage of six shillings and eightpence a day, from 1547 until its surrender to the French in March, 1549–50. Then he returned to England, and attached himself closely to the Protector Somerset.

As one of the Protector’s retainers, he was probably involved in his plot to revolutionize the government. The gendarmerie upon the muster day were to be attacked by two thousand men under Sir Ralph Vane, and by a hundred horse of the Duke of Somerset’s, besides his friends, who were to stand by, and the idle people who, it was calculated, would take part. After this was done, the Protector intended to run through the city and proclaim, “Liberty! Liberty!” But the plot was discovered in time, and Somerset and his chief accomplices were committed to the Tower, 17 October, 1551. The Council gave orders for Stucley’s apprehension, but he escaped in time, and took refuge in France, where he devoted his sword to the service of Henry II, who entitled him “mon cher et bon ami.”

He must have fought in the campaign of Henry against the Emperor Charles V in 1552, when Metz was taken by fraud. He was certainly received as a disaffected subject, and was admitted to the French counsels. In 1552 he returned to England with a story which he hoped would purchase his pardon. This was to the effect that Henry II meditated a sudden attack upon Calais.

According to his account the French King himself had spoken to him of the weak points in the defences, had pointed out the very plan of assault by which, six years later, Calais was actually taken. Moreover, according to his scheme, the Scots were to enter Northumberland; Henry II would land troops at Falmouth, and the Duke of Guise would land at Dartmouth, which he knew to be undefended. Cecil suggested that Stucley should be sent back to France to acquire further information; but the Duke of Northumberland sent Stucley’s report to the French King, and committed Stucley to the Tower. Henry denied the truth of what had been reported. The payment of his debts, which had been promised to Stucley as a reward for his revelations, was now refused, and he remained in prison to the end of Edward’s reign. He was released on 6 August, 1553, but his debts compelled him again to leave England. Unable to return to France, he betook himself to the Emperor, and he was at Brussels in the winter of 1553–4, and served with the Imperial army at St. Omer. Philibert, Duke of Savoy, invited Stucley to accompany him to England in October of 1554, and Stucley accordingly appealed to Queen Mary for security against arrest whilst in her dominions, and this was granted to him for six months, and at the end of December he accompanied the Duke to England.

During his visit he attempted, Othello-like, to bewitch Anne, the grand-daughter and sole heiress of Sir Thomas Curtis, a wealthy alderman of London, with his tales of adventure. Against her father’s wishes the lady was beguiled into a secret marriage, and he retired with her to North Devon. On 13 May, 1555, the sheriffs of Devon and Cheshire were ordered to arrest him on a charge of coining false money. His house was searched, his servants questioned. There was much that was suspicious, but nothing certainly to convict. But Thomas Stucley had taken himself off before the sheriff arrived, and again took service under the Duke of Savoy, and shared in the victory of the Imperialists over the French at St. Quintin, 10 December, 1557.

Then he went into the Spanish service, but in November old Sir Thomas Curtis died, brokenhearted, it was asserted, at the match his favourite grandchild had contracted with one so disreputable and unprincipled.

Stucley at once returned to England, and a correspondent of Challoner, the Ambassador in Spain, writes of him in November, 1559: “The Alderman Curtes is dead, and by this time is busy Stucley in the midst of his coffers.” Speedily the accumulations of the merchant’s industrious life were squandered in extravagance. We next hear of him in April, 1561, when he was appointed to a captaincy in Berwick. There he entertained Shan O’Neil, a famous, turbulent chief from Ireland, who late in this year visited Elizabeth’s Court, where his train of kerns and gallowglasses, clothed in linen kilts dyed with saffron, made a great impression.

While at Court, Shan wrote to Elizabeth: “Many of the nobles, magnates, and gentlemen treated me kindly and ingenuously, and, namely, Master Thomas Stucley entertained me with all his heart, and with all the favour he could.” The friendship was destined to bear fruit later.

In a few years but little of the alderman’s savings remained, and with the wreck that was left, Stucley fitted out a small squadron, and obtained permission from Elizabeth to colonize Florida; and the Queen contributed “2000 weight of corn-powder, and 100 curriers; and besides artillery to the value of £120 towards the furniture of his journey.” This was her investment in the venture, though she did not furnish the powder out of her own stores, but made one Bromefield go into debt for it with a Dutchman.