me by a much respected baronet of this county. He told me that,
having read in Howell’s _Anecdotes_ of the singular appearance of
a white bird flying across, or hovering about the lifeless body of
divers members of the Devonshire Oxenham family, immediately after
dissolution, and also having heard the tradition in other quarters,
wishing rather for an opportunity of refuting the superstitious
assertion than from an idea of meeting with anything like a
confirmation; having occasion to come to Sidmouth shortly after
the death of his friend Mr. Oxenham, who resided in an old mansion,
not now standing, he questioned the old gardener, who had the care
of the house, as to who attended his master when he died, as Mr.
O. had gone there alone, meaning only to remain for a day or two.
‘I and my wife, sir,’ was the reply. ‘Were you in the room when
he expired?’ ‘Yes, both of us.’ ‘Did anything in particular take
place at that time?’ ‘No, sir, nothing.’ But then, after a moment’s
pause, ‘There was indeed something which I and my wife could almost
swear we saw, which was a white bird fly in at the door, dart
across the bed, and go into one of the drawers; and as it appeared
in the same way to both of us, we opened all the drawers to find
it, but where it went to we could never discover.’ If I recollect
rightly, the man on being questioned had not heard of the tradition
respecting such appearances.”
Unfortunately Mr. Mogridge does not name the writer of this letter.
But it matters little--the story comes third hand. The “much-respected
baronet” had a bad memory. He thought Howell called the apparition a
“white bird,” and that he related that it crossed the bed after the
body was dead. Accordingly the gardener sees things after the erroneous
fashion of the story remembered so badly by the “much-respected
baronet.” Who this Mr. Oxenham was, when he died, and where he is
buried is unknown.
In _Glimpses of the Supernatural_, published in 1875, is a
communication of the Rev. Henry Nutcombe Oxenham, and a still more
detailed account from his pen is in Mr. Cotton’s article on “The
Oxenham Omen” in the _Transactions_ of the Devonshire Association for
1882.
“Shortly before the death of my late uncle, G. N. Oxenham, Esq., of
17 Earl’s Terrace, Kensington, who was then head of the family, this
occurred: His only surviving daughter, now Mrs. Thomas Peter, but then
unmarried, and living at home, and a friend of my aunt’s, Miss Roberts,
who happened to be staying in the house, but was no relation, and had
never heard of the family tradition, were sitting in the dining-room,
immediately under his bedroom, about a week before his death, which
took place on the 15th December, 1873, when their attention was roused
by a shouting outside the window. On looking out they discerned a white
bird--which might have been a pigeon, but if so was an unusually large
one--perched on the thorn-tree outside the windows, and it remained
there for several minutes, in spite of some workmen on the opposite
side of the road throwing their hats at it in a vain attempt to drive
it away. Miss Roberts mentioned this to my aunt at the time, though not
of course attaching any special significance to it, and my aunt, since
deceased, repeated it to me soon after my uncle’s death. Neither did my
cousin, though aware of the family tradition, think of it at the time.
Miss Roberts we have lost sight of for some years, and do not even
know if she is still living; but Mrs. Thomas Peter confirms in every
particular the accuracy of the statement. Of the fact, therefore, there
can be no reasonable doubt, whatever interpretation may be put upon it.
My cousin also mentioned another circumstance which either I did not
hear of or had forgotten: viz. that my late aunt spoke, at the time, of
frequently hearing a sound like a fluttering of a bird’s wings in my
uncle’s bedroom, and said that the nurse testified to hearing it also.”
Here we have a development of the story. The bird is _white_, not
white-breasted, and it appears before the death of the head of the
family, whereas in the original story it appeared before the decease
of any member of the Oxenham family. This looks like a shrinkage of
the story. So many had died without the apparition, that it was reduced
in significance to the appearance before the death of the head of the
family.
Mr. Cotton says: “On my pointing out to Mr. Oxenham that at least the
earlier notices of his family tradition did not seem to warrant his
supposition that the apparition was limited to the head of the family,
he informed me that, so far as he was aware, it had always been the
oral tradition in the family that the bird was bound to appear before
the death of the head of the family, and that it might or might not
appear at other deaths, but certainly not that it always did so. Mr.
Oxenham, who was himself a boy at the time, does not remember hearing
of any appearance of the omen to his great uncle, Richard Oxenham, the
head of the family in the previous generation, who died August 24th,
1844, at Penzance. He was a bachelor, and lived alone, and only his
sister, Mrs. Oddy, who herself died in 1861, was with him at the time
of his death. It certainly was not seen at the death of the Rev. W.
Oxenham, Vicar of Cornwood and Prebendary of Exeter, younger brother
of the above, six months earlier, Feb. 28th, 1844, nor at the death
of either of the younger brothers of the late head of the family, G.
N. Oxenham, Esq., before mentioned. On the other hand, it is stated
by a relative of the family now living, that when Mrs. Oddy died, her
daughter, now dead, spoke of birds flapping and hopping at the bedroom
window the night before.”
My mother was most intimate with Miss Anne Oxenham, who lived in the
Close, Exeter, one whom I remember and loved. My mother informed me
that the bird was seen when Miss Anne Oxenham’s sister died. But on
what authority she received this I am unable to say.
Finally, in September, 1891, on the death of a female descendant of
the Oxenhams, the Rev. C. S. Homan states that, while at Oxenham Manor
(Oxenham, by the way, never was a manor), he was one day up very early
by daylight, and as he went out of the front door, he just caught sight
of what in the early light looked like a very large white bird. His
father said, “Perhaps it is the Oxenham white bird; if so, there ought
to be a death in the family.” Within a few days they noticed in the
newspaper the death of a connexion of the family, and were struck by
the coincidence.[12]
In these last cases, it will be seen that the bird has grown plump and
big. It was first white-breasted, then white, and finally a big white
bird. So fables grow. One wonders where the bird nests, how many little
white-breasted ones it has had, what has become of them! For that it is
the old hoary humbug there can be little doubt becoming blanched with
age, and stout, “going in for its fattenings,” as the Yorkshire folk
say.
“LUSTY” STUCLEY
If Devonshire has turned out a number, and a very considerable number,
of gallant and honourable gentlemen, she has also given birth to some
great scoundrels, and one of these was Thomas Stucley or Stukeley.
His life was worked out with great pains and elaboration by the late
Richard Simpson in his _School of Shakespeare_, London, 1878. Indeed,
it occupies one hundred and thirty-nine pages in the first volume of
that work. To give the biography at all fully here is not possible,
space is not at one’s disposal for all details; it is also unnecessary,
since that exhaustive account by Simpson is accessible to every one.
The utmost we can do is to give a summary of the chief events of his
chequered career. Captain Thomas Stucley was the third son of Sir Hugh
Stucley, of Affeton in the parish of West Worlington, near Chumleigh.
Hugh Stucley, the father of our Thomas, was Sheriff of Devon in 1544;
his wife was Jane, daughter of Sir Lewis Pollard. Sir Hugh died in 1560.
The eldest son, Lewis Stucley, was aged thirty at the death of his
father. He became standard-bearer to Queen Elizabeth.
It was rumoured during the life of Thomas that he was an illegitimate
son of Henry VIII, like Sir John Perrot. “Stucley’s birth,” says Mr.
Simpson, “must have occurred at the time when the King, tired of his
wife Catherine, was as yet ranging among favourites who were contented
with something less than a crown as the price of their kindness.
Elizabeth Tailbois had been succeeded by Mary Boleyn; and as Mary
Boleyn was married to William Carey at Court, and in the presence of
the King, 31 January, 1521, it is clear that some one else had already
succeeded to her place.”
Whether Thomas ever claimed to be of royal blood we do not know. If so,
Lady Stucley, like Lady Falconbridge, might have cried out:--
Where is that slave--where is he,
That holds in chase mine honour up and down?
But he was certainly treated at foreign courts as one of birth superior
to that of a younger son of a Devonshire knight; and the tradition
obtains some support from the familiar way in which he was received by
both queens, Mary and Elizabeth, and the peculiar terms of intimacy
which he assumed towards royal personages; moreover the Duke of
Northumberland treated him with the same jealousy with which he might
have treated Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond, had he been still alive.
In the play Vernon says:--
Doubtless, if ever man was misbegot,
It is this Stucley.
As a retainer of the Duke of Suffolk, into whose household he had
entered, and whose livery he wore, he was present at the siege of
Boulogne, 1545-50; and he acted as standard-bearer, with the wage of
six shillings and eightpence a day, from 1547 until its surrender to
the French in March, 1549-50. Then he returned to England, and attached
himself closely to the Protector Somerset.
As one of the Protector’s retainers, he was probably involved in his
plot to revolutionize the government. The gendarmerie upon the muster
day were to be attacked by two thousand men under Sir Ralph Vane, and
by a hundred horse of the Duke of Somerset’s, besides his friends, who
were to stand by, and the idle people who, it was calculated, would
take part. After this was done, the Protector intended to run through
the city and proclaim, “Liberty! Liberty!” But the plot was discovered
in time, and Somerset and his chief accomplices were committed to
the Tower, 17 October, 1551. The Council gave orders for Stucley’s
apprehension, but he escaped in time, and took refuge in France, where
he devoted his sword to the service of Henry II, who entitled him “mon
cher et bon ami.”
He must have fought in the campaign of Henry against the Emperor
Charles V in 1552, when Metz was taken by fraud. He was certainly
received as a disaffected subject, and was admitted to the French
counsels. In 1552 he returned to England with a story which he hoped
would purchase his pardon. This was to the effect that Henry II
meditated a sudden attack upon Calais.
According to his account the French King himself had spoken to him
of the weak points in the defences, had pointed out the very plan of
assault by which, six years later, Calais was actually taken. Moreover,
according to his scheme, the Scots were to enter Northumberland; Henry
II would land troops at Falmouth, and the Duke of Guise would land at
Dartmouth, which he knew to be undefended. Cecil suggested that Stucley
should be sent back to France to acquire further information; but the
Duke of Northumberland sent Stucley’s report to the French King, and
committed Stucley to the Tower. Henry denied the truth of what had been
reported. The payment of his debts, which had been promised to Stucley
as a reward for his revelations, was now refused, and he remained in
prison to the end of Edward’s reign. He was released on 6 August, 1553,
but his debts compelled him again to leave England. Unable to return
to France, he betook himself to the Emperor, and he was at Brussels in
the winter of 1553-4, and served with the Imperial army at St. Omer.
Philibert, Duke of Savoy, invited Stucley to accompany him to England
in October of 1554, and Stucley accordingly appealed to Queen Mary for
security against arrest whilst in her dominions, and this was granted
to him for six months, and at the end of December he accompanied the
Duke to England.
During his visit he attempted, Othello-like, to bewitch Anne, the
grand-daughter and sole heiress of Sir Thomas Curtis, a wealthy
alderman of London, with his tales of adventure. Against her father’s
wishes the lady was beguiled into a secret marriage, and he retired
with her to North Devon. On 13 May, 1555, the sheriffs of Devon and
Cheshire were ordered to arrest him on a charge of coining false money.
His house was searched, his servants questioned. There was much that
was suspicious, but nothing certainly to convict. But Thomas Stucley
had taken himself off before the sheriff arrived, and again took
service under the Duke of Savoy, and shared in the victory of the
Imperialists over the French at St. Quintin, 10 December, 1557.
Then he went into the Spanish service, but in November old Sir Thomas
Curtis died, brokenhearted, it was asserted, at the match his favourite
grandchild had contracted with one so disreputable and unprincipled.
Stucley at once returned to England, and a correspondent of Challoner,
the Ambassador in Spain, writes of him in November, 1559: “The
Alderman Curtes is dead, and by this time is busy Stucley in the
midst of his coffers.” Speedily the accumulations of the merchant’s
industrious life were squandered in extravagance. We next hear of him
in April, 1561, when he was appointed to a captaincy in Berwick. There
he entertained Shan O’Neil, a famous, turbulent chief from Ireland, who
late in this year visited Elizabeth’s Court, where his train of kerns
and gallowglasses, clothed in linen kilts dyed with saffron, made a
great impression.
While at Court, Shan wrote to Elizabeth: “Many of the nobles, magnates,
and gentlemen treated me kindly and ingenuously, and, namely, Master
Thomas Stucley entertained me with all his heart, and with all the
favour he could.” The friendship was destined to bear fruit later.
In a few years but little of the alderman’s savings remained, and with
the wreck that was left, Stucley fitted out a small squadron, and
obtained permission from Elizabeth to colonize Florida; and the Queen
contributed “2000 weight of corn-powder, and 100 curriers; and besides
artillery to the value of £120 towards the furniture of his journey.”
This was her investment in the venture, though she did not furnish the
powder out of her own stores, but made one Bromefield go into debt for
it with a Dutchman.
Fuller says that, “having prodigally misspent his Patrimony, he entered
on several projects (the issue-general of all decaied estates), and
first pitched on the peopling of Florida, then newly found in the West
Indies. So confident his ambition, that he blushed not to tell Queen
Elizabeth ‘that he preferred rather to be sovereign of a Mole-hill
than the highest Subject to the greatest King in Christendom’; adding,
moreover, ‘that he was assured he should be a Prince before his
death.’ ‘I hope,’ said Queen Elizabeth, ‘I shall hear from you, when
you are seated in your Principality.’ ‘I will write to you,’ quoth
Stucley. ‘In what languidge?’ said the Queen. He returned, ‘In the
style of Princes, _To our dear Sister_.’”
He took leave of the Queen on 25 June, 1563. Cecil wrote in her name
to the Earl of Sussex, Lord Deputy of Ireland: “Our servant Thomas
Stucley, associated with sundry of our subjects, hath prepared a number
of good ships well armed and manned to pass to discover certain lands
to the West towards Florida, and by our licence hath taken the same
voyage.” But in the event of stormy winds or accidents he was to be
well received, should he put into a port in Ireland.
So he sailed, but Stucley had no real intention of going to Florida:
his squadron lived by piracy on the high seas for two years. He made
his head-quarters at Kinsale, where he resumed acquaintance with Shan
O’Neil, chief of Tyrone, who aspired to be king of Ulster, and was
repeatedly in arms against the English. Shan had offered Ireland as
a fief to Philip II of Spain. And now Stucley from Kinsale swept the
seas, and made prizes of Spanish galleons, and of French and Portuguese
merchantmen. Complaints were made by the foreign courts, and the
English Ambassador at Madrid confessed that “he hung his head for
shame.” Stucley filled his cellars with sherry from Cadiz, and amused
Shan O’Neil with his boastful speech, his flattery, and his utterance
of what he would do for him; and Shan had the impertinence to write to
Elizabeth in favour of “his so dearly loved friend, and her Majesty’s
worthy subject.”
In June, 1563, Stucley took a Zealand ship with £3000 worth of linen
and tapestry, and then, joining a small fleet of West-countrymen,
fourteen sail in all, he lay off Ushant, watching for the wine fleet
from Bordeaux professedly, but picking up gratefully whatever the gods
might send. No less a person than the Mayor of Dover himself was the
owner of one of these sea-hawks. Wretched Spaniards flying from their
talons were dashed to pieces upon the granite cliffs of Finisterre.
At length the remonstrances of foreign ambassadors took effect, and
Elizabeth disowned Stucley, and took measures for his apprehension.
Some ships were sent out with this object, and he was caught in Cork
harbour, in 1565, put under arrest, and sent to London, where he was
consigned to the Tower.
Stucley was all the while playing a double game. While professing
loyalty to the Queen he was in correspondence with Philip of Spain.
Shan O’Neil proposed to Elizabeth that she should divide all Ireland
between himself and Stucley, when they would make of it a paradise.
Stucley had purchased a good deal of land in Cork, and he hoped to
have more granted him and to share with St. Leger and Carew in the
partition of Munster. He had a plausible tongue, put on an air of great
frankness, and soon obtained his release, and was actually sent back
to Ireland with a letter of recommendation from Cecil. There he bought
of Sir Nicholas Bagnal for £300 down his office of Marshal of Ireland
and all Bagnal’s estate in the island. Elizabeth, however, refused to
sanction the transaction; she mistrusted him, and with reason, for he
was engaged in constant treasonable correspondence with the Spanish
Ambassador, and he was in receipt of a pension from Philip. She heard
reports of murders, robberies, and other outrages committed by him, and
ordered him back to England. He obeyed, cleared himself, and in 1567
was allowed to return to Ireland, where he purchased of Sir Nicholas
Heron the offices of seneschal and constable of Wexford and captainship
of the Kavanaghs, together with many estates. Again Elizabeth
interfered, and Stucley was turned out of his offices. Nicholas White,
Heron’s successor, now accused Stucley of felony and high treason, and
in June, 1569, he was imprisoned in Dublin Castle. It was high time; he
had in that same month proposed to Philip the invasion of Ireland, and
had demanded twenty fully armed ships for the purpose. As sufficient
evidence to convict him was not forthcoming, he was discharged, but
felt that he could no longer rely on Elizabeth’s forbearance. With
treachery in his heart he pretended to Sidney, the Queen’s deputy in
Ireland, that after such misinterpretation of his acts and doubts of
his fidelity, he desired to go in person to his royal mistress and
clear his reputation with her; and Sidney, instead of sending him over
under a guard, was contented with his parole--Stucley’s parole!
Stucley informed him that for his defence he needed a certain number
of Irish gentlemen to serve as witnesses to his conduct. The deputy
permitted him to purchase and fit out a ship at Waterford to transport
them and himself. He took with him some Irish cavaliers, along with
their servants and horses, and a miscellaneous crew of adventurers.
They embarked as for London, but when clear of the harbour made for the
ocean. A few days after they sailed for Galicia, and sent messengers to
Philip to announce their arrival.
The Archbishop of Cashel, then at Madrid, not knowing much of Stucley,
recommended Philip to receive the party. The King accordingly sent
for him to Court, knighted him, loaded him with presents, granted him
five hundred reales a day and a residence at Las Rozas, nine miles
from Madrid, where he lived in great state, with thirty gentlemen
about him. He made great brag of the vast estates of which the Queen
had deprived him--Wexford, Kinsale, the Kavanagh country, Carlow, and
the whole kingdom of Leinster, and an income of £2200 per diem--and
was believed. He assumed the title of Duke of Ireland, but Philip only
allowed him to be received as Duke of Leinster. He represented himself
as of vast influence in Ireland, and Philip was completely taken in by
his boasting. But the Archbishop of Cashel soon received tidings of his
real position in the island. He had robbed churches, despoiled abbeys,
was detested by the native Irish whom he had cruelly maltreated, and
was of no influence at all. Thenceforth two parties were formed in
the Spanish Court, one denouncing Stucley as an adventurer and so
unprincipled that if he thought it would suit his purpose would betray
everything to Elizabeth. The other party believed in his professions
and encouraged the King to trust him; and his assumption, his audacious
and enormous lies, his perfect self-assurance bore down all opposition,
and under Stucley’s auspices the Spanish Government began serious
preparations for the invasion and conquest of Ireland. Ships were
collected at Vigo with arms and stores. Ten thousand men were to be
raised, and Julian Romero was to be recalled from Flanders to command.
Meanwhile he amused the Spaniards with scandalous stories about
Elizabeth and her Court, and his fool’s boast of what he was about to
achieve.
“Master Stukely said to the King’s Council that the Queen’s Majesty
will beat Secretary Cecil about the ears when he discontenteth her, and
he will weep like a child. The Spaniards asking him why the Queen’s
Highness did not marry, he said she would never marry, for she cannot
abide a woman with child, for she saith those women be worse than a
sow. He also said, ‘What hurt I can do her I will do it and will make
her vilely afraid.’”[13]
“The Duke’s Grace Stukely had received the Sacrament, and promised
to render unto the King of Spain not only entrance within his duchy,
but also possession of the whole realm of Ireland. The soldiers were
amassing from all parts of Spain--Spaniards, Burgundians, Italians, the
most part Bezonians, beggarly, ill-armed rascals, but their captains
old beaten men-of-war. The King was sparing no cost on the enterprise,
and no honours to Stukely, hoping by such means to enlarge his
empire.”[14]
Nothing, however, came of this at the time, and the party that
perceived Stucley to be a charlatan grew stronger, his boasting palled,
and the King at last became suspicious and withdrew his favour.
Perceiving himself to be regarded on all sides with mistrust, not to
say with contempt, in a huff he left Spain, went to Italy, and offered
his service to the Pope. In 1571 he was given command of three galleys,
and partook in Don John’s victory over the Turks at Lepanto; and thus
raised himself considerably in King Philip’s estimation. Then he went
back to Rome, where “it is incredible how quickly he wrought himself
into the favour, through the Court into the Chamber, yea Closet, yea
Bosom of Pope Pius V; so that some wise men thought his Holiness did
forfeit a parcel of his Infallibility in giving credit to such a
_Glorioso_, vaunting that with three thousand Soldiers, he would beat
all the English out of Ireland.”
The Pope created Stucley Baron of Ross, Viscount Murrough, Earl of
Wexford, and Marquess of Leinster, and furnished him with a few vessels
and eight hundred soldiers, but these were to receive their pay from
the King of Spain.
Some contention arose as to the division of spoil when Elizabeth was
overthrown and England and Ireland were at the feet of Gregory XIII and
Philip of Spain. The Pope gave Stucley a consecrated banner to plant
in Ireland, which was to become wholly his own, and to which he was to
appoint the Pope’s bastard son, Giacomo Buoncompagni, as king.