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 who had forfeited her right by marrying a Spaniard. He even adopted the full arms of England without any difference on his seal. His pretensions involved him in a quarrel with his fellow exile, Sir Robert Stafford, erroneously said to have been his brother (cf. Peerage, vii. 213), and ‘if ever there were a tragico comœdia played, surely these men played it’ (Wotton to Petre, Cal. State Papers, For. 1553–8, p. 264). On the ground that Thomas sought his life, Robert in October 1556 procured his imprisonment ‘in the vilest prison of Rouen, among thieves and such honest companions.’ Thomas procured his release two months later, and retaliated by having Robert cast in heavy damages in an action for ‘injurious imprisonment.’ Early in 1557 the English ambassador was alarmed by the favourable treatment Thomas was receiving from the French court, for Henry II of France had apparently determined to use Stafford as a pawn in the coming struggle with England. Though the French king subsequently denied having aided Stafford, it is probable that he supplied the two ships in which Stafford and his supporters embarked at Dieppe on Easter Sunday (18 April). He landed on the coast of Yorkshire and seized Scarborough Castle on the 25th; in the proclamation he issued (printed in, Eccl. Mem. III. ii. 515; , Essays on the Reformation, pp. 154–6) he denounced the Spanish marriage, asserted that a Spanish army was about to land to enslave the English, called upon the people to rise, and styled himself protector (, ed. 1586, iii. 1133; , ed. 1615, pp. 630–631). But his plans were known to the English ambassador before he left France. The militia rapidly assembled under the command of Henry Neville, fifth earl of Westmorland [see under, fourth ]. Stafford was captured almost without a blow, and on 2 May was sent to London, where he was tried and convicted of high treason. He was hanged and quartered at Tyburn on 28 May 1557.

[Cal. State Papers, Venetian and Foreign Ser. passim. and Dom. Ser. Addenda, 1547–65, p. 449; Acts of the Privy Council, ed. Dasent; G. E. C[okayne]'s Peerage, vii. 213; Rymer's Fœdera, xv. 440 (document misdated 1556 for 1557); Ambassades de Noailles, 1763, 4 vols.; Reginaldi Poli Epistolæ, Brescia, 1744–57, 5 vols.; Strype's Eccl. Mem. passim; Wriothesley's Chron. and Machyn's Diary (Camden Soc.); Burnet's Hist. Reformation, ed. Pocock, ii. 163; Holinshed's Chron.; Stow's Annals; Tytler's Hist. ii. 363; Froude, vi. 243, 475–6; Hinds's Making of the England of Elizabeth, pp. 92–101.]

 STAFFORD, THOMAS (fl. 1633), reputed author of ‘Pacata Hibernia,’ was probably, though the evidence is incomplete (cf., Cal. Carew MSS. vol. i. p. lviii, and Lismore Papers), a natural son of Sir George Carew, earl of Totnes [q. v.] Stafford served under Carew, when president of Munster, as captain in the wars in Ireland during Elizabeth's reign. Chronology will not permit the captain's identification with the Thomas Stafford of Devon, gent., who graduated B.A. from Exeter College, Oxford, on 12 Nov. 1613, aged 21 (, Alumni Oxon. 1500–1714), and who may indeed have been the person designated as Carew's illegitimate son. Stafford was a common name in the south-east of Ireland (one Sir Francis being governor of Clandeboye, another Henry M.P. for Dungarvan, and another Nicholas bishop of Ferns and Leighlin, all more or less his contemporaries), and it is therefore not unlikely that Sir Thomas may himself have been an Irishman. It is as an Irishman rather than as an Englishman that he speaks of Irishmen and Englishmen in his preface to ‘Pacata Hibernia.’ But however this may be, Stafford appears to have accompanied Carew to England shortly before the death of Elizabeth, and afterwards to have lived with him in the capacity of secretary. When his patron was in 1608 created master of the ordnance, Stafford was joined with him as his assistant, being by special grace allowed after Carew's death to retain his office until the appointment of Lord Vere. On 6 Oct. 1611 he was knighted in Ireland by Sir Arthur Chichester, the lord deputy (, p. 212). In 1624 he was recommended by Carew for a company in Ireland, but apparently unsuccessfully (Cal. State Papers, James I, Ireland, v. 555–6). When Carew died in 1629, it was intended that Stafford should be buried in the same tomb at Stratford-on-Avon, and an inscription (printed in Warwickshire, ii. 686) was engraved on it describing Stafford's career, leaving the date of death to be filled in. That was never done, and it is uncertain when Stafford died (he was alive in 1639) and whether he was buried in Carew's tomb.

Carew by his will, dated 30 Nov. 1625 and proved on 29 May 1629, bequeathed to Stafford his vast collection of manuscripts relating to Ireland, the greater part of which, consisting of thirty-nine volumes, is at present preserved in the archiepiscopal library at Lambeth. Four other volumes have found their way into the Bodleian Library. Probably others are extant elsewhere. A calendar of those in the Bodleian and at Lambeth, edited by Brewer and Bullen, was