Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 55.djvu/129

 hang all that speak ill of thee, all the trees in the country would not suffice.’ In January 1618–19 Stucley and his son were charged with clipping coin. His enemies exulted; for this at least the gallows would claim him as their own. The charge may have been true, though he seems to have been condemned by acclamation on the very doubtful evidence of a servant who had formerly been employed as a spy on Ralegh. The king possibly took this into consideration; possibly he thought that he owed Stucley something for his service against Ralegh. He pardoned him, and Stucley, an outcast from society in London, went down to Devonshire. The popular hatred pursued him even to Affeton, and he fled to hide his shame in the lonely island of Lundy, where he died in the course of 1620, raving mad it was said.

Stucley married Frances, eldest daughter of Anthony Monck of Potheridge in Devonshire, and sister of Sir Thomas, the father of George Monck, duke of Albemarle [q. v.] By her he had issue, and the family is still Stucley of Affeton.

[Cal. State Papers, Dom.; The Humble Petition and Information of Sir Lewis Stucley, knt., Vice-admiral of Devonshire, in Harl. Misc. iii. 63–8; Vivian's Visitations of Devon, 1895, pp. 721–3; Gardiner's History of England; Spedding's Life of Bacon; Burke's Baronetage.] 

STUCLEY or STUKELY, THOMAS (1525?–1578), adventurer, born probably about 1525, was third of the five sons of Sir Hugh Stucley or Stukely (d. 1560) of Affeton, near Ilfracombe, Devonshire, and his wife Jane, second daughter of Sir Lewis Pollard [q. v.] (, Visitations of Devonshire, 1895, p. 721). It was reported during Stucley's lifetime that he was an illegitimate son of Henry VIII, an hypothesis that receives some slight support from the familiarity with which Stucley treated, and was treated by, the various sovereigns with whom he came into contact (, pp. 5–6). His early life is obscure; the author of the ‘Life and Death of Captain Thomas Stukeley’ makes him ‘a member of the Temple;’ the ballad-writer says he was servant to a bishop in the west, and Maurice Gibbon, the archbishop of Cashel, describes him as having been a retainer to the Duke of Suffolk (i.e. Charles Brandon [q. v.]), until the duke's death in 1545. He probably served in 1544–5 at the siege of Boulogne, where he was a standard-bearer with wages of 6s. 8d. a day from 1547 until its surrender to the French in March 1549–50. He was acting in a similar capacity on the Scottish borders in 1550, and in May he escorted the Marquis du Maine through England to Scotland (Acts of the Privy Council, ed. Dasent, ii. 412, iii. 26, 48). Before 1551 he had entered the service of the Duke of Somerset, and on 21 Nov. a month after the duke's arrest, the council ordered Stucley's apprehension (ib. iii. 421), but he escaped to France. There his conduct, possibly at the siege of Metz, brought him under the notice of Henry II, who in August 1552 strongly recommended him to Edward VI (Cal. State Papers, Foreign, 1547–53, pp. 92, 218, 221). The French king's design in sending Stucley to England was to obtain through him information that might be useful in his projected attempt on Calais, but Stucley defeated the scheme by confessing his errand. On 16 Sept. he laid before the English government details of Henry's plans, and on the 19th Cecil drew up an account of his examination (Lit. Remains of Edward VI, ii. 455, et sqq.; Cal. State Papers, 1547–80, pp. 44, 46). Cecil suggested that Stucley should be sent back to France to acquire further information, but Northumberland preferred a more Machiavellian scheme. The designs of Henry II, being known, were no longer dangerous, and the duke thought to secure the French king's friendship by revealing to him Stucley's communications and affecting to disbelieve them. Henry naturally denied Stucley's story, and Stucley was sent to the Tower (Lit. Remains, p. 462). The payment of his debts, which had been promised him as a reward, was refused, and he remained in prison until the end of Edward's reign.

He was released, with Gardiner and Tunstal, on 6 Aug. 1553 (Acts P. C. iv. 312), but his debts compelled him again to leave England. Naturally precluded from re-entering Henry II's service, he betook himself to the emperor. He was at Brussels in December, and in February 1553–4 he was serving in the imperial army at St. Omer. Thence he wrote to the English government offering information about the French king's designs, and the services of himself and his whole band, to Queen Mary, probably for the purpose of suppressing Wyatt's rebellion (Cal. State Papers, For. 1553–8, p. 55). His offer was not accepted, and throughout that year he served in Flanders under Philibert, duke of Savoy. In October Philibert wished Stucley to accompany him to England, and Stucley accordingly wrote to Mary on the 7th, begging for security against arrest for debts which, he pleaded, had been incurred in the service of Henry VIII and Edward VI. On the 23rd a patent was made out giving the requisite security for six months, and