Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 10.djvu/329

 12 s.x. APRIL s, 1922.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 267 no less for the service of His Majesty than for the rest of Christendom. To this Sega replied, on March 25, that he had already procured the order requested and had sent it to Mrs. Angelica Clyburne by means of the Nuncio of Savoy, and had also caused William Clyburne himself to be given a hundred ducats " so that he may go on his journey the more cheerfully." Stucley's ship arrived at Cadiz on April 5, and not being allowed to refit there left on the 7th. On the 8th, meeting with bad weather, she had put back into Puerto de Santa Maria, whence she set sail again on the 12th. On the 10th Clyburne was at Lisbon, and hearing that Stucley was at Cadiz started to rejoin him there, but failing to find him returned to Lisbon. By May 7 Clyburne had organized a company for Stucley, to consist nominally of 100 foot- soldiers paid by the King of Portugal, which consisted for the most part of Spanish adventurers picked up by Stucley at the various Spanish ports he had visited. As they were paid by the King of Portugal they were obviously destined for his African campaign. When Stucley set out for Africa on June 24, Clyburne started with him, but when they had rounded Cape St. Vincent and put in to Lagos, Stucley ordered his secretary, Filiberto Cotta, and Clyburne to proceed to Rome, bearing letters to the Pope and the Cardinal of Como to answer the charges which had been brought against him. On July 24 Sega, writing to Gallio from Madrid, says : Captain Clyburne has come here again in the hope of exculpating Stucley with the King and myself, but, being denied an audience, has begun to change his tone to save himself. So far as I myself am concerned, I regard them as all tarred with the same brush (io gli ho tuiti per macchiati d' una pece). I am almost out of my wits (ho quasi che perso la scrimma) with these people. On August 5, Dr. Nicolas Sander told Sega that Clyburne was then lying danger- ously ill and had called him (Sander) in for the unburdening of his conscience, and on the 8th Sega forwarded to Gallio a document given him by Sander and signed by Clyburne. This seems to be the paper written by Sander, and printed by Alphons Bellesheim, " Geschichte der Katholischen Kirche in Irlancl" (Mainz, 1890-1), vol. ii., p. 703, which is to the following effect : Captain William Clyburne, fearing lest he be about to die, has commanded me to write in his name to your Most Illustrious Worship, and to tell you what he would have told His Holiness, if he could have arrived at Rome safe and sound, namely, that Stucley is unworthy of being placed at the head of this, or any other, business, es- pecially as, when he saw that Mr. James Geraldine [i.e., James Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald J was made equal with himself in the division of the twenty thousand ducats [which were set aside at Lisbon for the payment of the Irish expedition] he said he would make Geraldine repent of that matter and hour, and that he would sell the Pope's arms, and betake himself with the Pope's soldiers wherever they could get booty, and finally that he would make the Pope's throne quake, or the Pope quake on his throne. This testimony of William Clyburne is to a very large extent borne out by that of the English merchant William Pillen, who in the same year deposed (Cal. S.P. Dom. Add., 1566-79, p. 543) that at Lisbon he supped with Stucley and a Knight of Spain, whom he termed Don John, and also with one Cleburne, a Lancashire man, who, as he affirmed, had six ducats a month, and that Stucley affirmed that the King of Spain proffered him great titles of honour, and he refused them, but that the title which the Pope gave him of Marquis of Leinster and Baron or Earl of Washford he could not refuse, and although they said in England he was going to Ireland, he was not appointed for it, that he knew Ireland as well as the best, but there was nothing to be got there but hunger and lice : They say (said he) that I am a traitor to Her Majesty ; 'tis they are traitors that say so. I will ever accept her as my Queen. It is true there is in England my cruel enemy, Cecil the Treasurer, whom I care not for. I have had 1,000 ducats of the Pope, and I have 1,000 a month, and am to serve the King of Portugal in Africa against the Moors. Clyburne died Aug. 8, 1578. On Aug. 18, Sega wrote to Gallio : Captain Clyburne is dead. God rest his soul. The few effects found to be belonging to him the Captain Commissary has been allowed at my instance to pocket, as a small instalment of the large debt that Clyburne owes him. This large debt may account for the way that the Captain Commissasy, Bastian di San Joseppi, wrote of him to the Cardinal on Aug. 19 : Captain William Climborne, who had the hundred scudi in Home, has died here. At the hour of death, on the 8th of this month, he was asked whether he were a Catholic or not, and refused to receive the Most Holy Sacrament, after Extreme Unction, and when they gave him the Crucifix to kiss, he tried to break it with his teeth. The above account has been compiled from the ' Transcripts from the Vatican Archives ' in the Public Record Office,.