The Gunpowder Plot (History/16th/17th Century History) Read Online Free PDF Page B

relationship with Elizabeth, especially after the plot in 1570 led by Sir Thomas and Sir Edward Stanley, to free Mary, Queen of Scots from Chatsworth and take her to the Isle of Man. A cousin of the Earl of Derby, William Stanley (b. 1548) had earned a brilliant reputation as a soldier, first serving with the Duke of Alva in the Netherlands, and then in Ireland under the Deputy, Lord Grey, being knighted in September 1579. Stanley won further acclaim for his martial acumen during the first part of the fitful campaign of the Earl of Leicester to assist the Dutch rebels against Spain. From late 1585–6 Stanley organized a levy in Ireland that sent over a thousand troops to assist, and he fought in the Zutphen engagement that became infamous for the wound taken by Sir Philip Sidney which led to an abominable lingering death. By December 1586, while Elizabeth deliberated over Stanley’s promotion to Viceroy of Ireland, he was frantically drawing attention to his situation and that of his men in the Low Countries. On the 26th of that month he wrote to Walsingham: ‘I am at his time driven to lay all my apparell to pawn in the Lombard, for money to pay for meat and drink . . . Were it not in respect of my duty to her Majesty I could as well run my head into a stone wall as endure it.’ The captains with him were subsisting on bread and cheese, while the ordinary soldiers were reduced to half a pound of cheese a day, unrelieved by bread or even an onion. This meant that many became sick and Stanley had no money to help. ‘We have not received a month’s pay since our coming into these countries, which is now almost six months.’ 2
    Driven to exasperated revolt by his immediate situation, which did not seem likely to improve, Stanley made the remarkable decision to surrender the town of Deventer to the Spanish in January 1587. This was what we might call a gut decision, but ironically it made no difference as agents and spies almost gleefully reported to London. About a year after the surrender Sir Ralph Sadler noted the atrocious condition of the regiment under Spanish control, forced to winter in the field and subsist on dry acorns. One of Stanley’s Irish captains, Oliver Eustace, upbraided him for this, saying that Stanley had brought them to a parlous situation and was duty bound to relieve their suffering. In the meantime, Stanley was applauded by the Jesuits and finely defended in print by Dr William Allen. As for the beneficiary of the defection – Philip II – he was reported to have commented rather grudgingly that he liked the act of handing over the town but not the traitor. Stanley was excluded from the Armada preparations against England, and this went on for years afterwards; the Spanish attitude had a stubborn hold and being unable to shift it Stanley set much greater store by the efforts of the English Catholic exiles, and the regiment became identified with these. It may have been called the ‘English regiment’, but it was actually a multi-national mercenary force of some 700 Irish, English, Welsh, Scots, Italians, Burgundians and later, Walloons. The Spanish sources were remarkably clear in saying 626 soldiers and 90 officers (mostly English) defected to them, and were later joined by Captain Sir Rowland Yorke’s group and some 200 Catholic refugee gentlemen. But very soon this figure of some 1,200 officers and men had plummeted, and by 1589 it was in danger of being disbanded. Morale was not assisted by the self-serving efforts of one of Stanley’s own officers who saw a chance to redirect his rickety career as a soldier and double agent.
    The man was Jacomo di Franceschi, more often known by his contemporaries as Captain Jacques. According to a report in the papers of Sir Ralph Sadler, this violent and subversive soldier was born in Antwerp of Italian parents, but had been brought up in England since early childhood. 3 There is a reference to him in the confession of Anthony Babington where he says