William Stanley (Elizabethan) - Ireland

Ireland

On the outbreak of the Second Desmond Rebellion in 1579, Stanley was promoted to captain under Sir William Drury, lord justice of Ireland, who knighted him at Waterford for his service in penetrating Limerick in pursuit of the followers of Gerald Fitzgerald, 15th Earl of Desmond. He fought in the battle of Monasternenagh and defended the town of Adare. In 1580, he enlisted troops in England and led them to the rebellious province of Munster; but the new lord deputy, Lord Grey, quickly recalled him to the Pale to help put down the rebellion that had broken out in the vicinity of Dublin.

In 1581, he campaigned against the clans of Kavanagh and O'Toole, and on the 30 August 1581 was commissioned to follow the lord deputy in the government's campaign against Fiach MacHugh O'Byrne, a rebel leader whose fastness lay in the Wicklow mountains. During that campaign he was engaged at the Battle of Glenmalure in charge of the rear guard, and covered the retreat of Grey's forces after they had been routed from the glens. At the end of the year his troops were discharged, and he went to England to seek further employment from the queen's principal secretary, Lord Burghley.

At the beginning of 1583, Stanley was sent back to Ireland to deal with the rebel Geraldines of Desmond, and was appointed by the Earl of Ormond as commander of the garrison at Lismore; he was also constable of Castlemaine, which he intended to "make a town of English". During this tour of duty he assisted in the pursuit of the earl of Desmond and James Fitzedmund Fitzgerald, the seneschal of Imokilly, and in the final subjugation of Munster at the end of the rebellion.

The defeat of the rebels presented many opportunities for advancement to the New English, those adventurers and administrators who had taken advantage of crown policy in Ireland to establish fortunes for themselves outside of their restricted circumstances at home. Stanley became ambitious and sought the presidency of the province of Connacht by petitioning Sir Francis Walsingham and Burghley, but this was denied. Instead, he was made sheriff of Cork in August 1583, and then assumed the government of Munster in the absence of Sir John Norris. He boasted of having hanged 300 rebels and of leaving the rest so terrified that, "a man might now travel the whole country and none molest him".

At the end of 1584, the new lord deputy, Sir John Perrot, sent Stanley north in the company of Sir Henry Bagenal to act against the Ulster chieftains and the Scots led by Sorley Boy MacDonnell. During this campaign he received severe wounds and was laid up for several months. He had marched with two companies to Ballycastle to join up with a troop of cavalry stationed in Bunamargey Abbey (the burial place of the MacDonnells), after Bagenal was forced to take refuge in Carrickfergus. On 1 January 1585, the enemy took him completely by surprise in camp beside the abbey, when half a dozen horsemen at the head of the Scots foot set the thatched roof of the church on fire. Stanley was forced to fight in his shirt, having had no time to don armour, and was wounded in the thigh, the arm and side, and in the back (he claimed he had turned to his men to urge them on). Some of the horse were burned in the abbey, and the enemy fell away without pursuit, and soon after twenty four oared galleys of the Scots rowed across Ballycastle Bay while Stanley's ships remained at anchor in flat calm conditions. Although he subsequently almost defeated Sorley Boy's nephew, reinforcements arrived from Scotland and there was little more to be achieved. Stanley returned to England in October, where his service in Ireland was considered to have been brilliant.