1565–6 Stucley purchased from Sir Nicholas Bagenal, for 3,000l. Irish—probably the ill-gotten gains of piracy—his office of marshal of Ireland and all Bagenal's estates in the country. These included lands of considerable extent bordering on O'Neill's territory. Sidney and Cecil were both favourable to the recognition of this transaction, but Elizabeth wisely and resolutely refused her sanction.
There was good cause to distrust Stucley. The queen's religious policy had excited his active hostility, and for three years he had maintained treasonable relations with the Spanish ambassador. Before his piratical expedition he had informed De Quadra that they ‘were sending him on a bad and knavish business, but … he would show him a trick that would make a noise in the world’ (Simancas Papers, i. 322). On his release, in October 1565, he had renewed his relations with the ambassador, professing a desire to serve the king of Spain, and excusing his acts of piracy against Spanish merchants. Before setting out for Ireland he said he could do Philip great service there. He accepted a pension from Philip, and it is probable that his relations with O'Neill and anxiety to secure a strong position in Ireland were prompted by treasonable motives. Instead, therefore, of sanctioning Stucley's bargain with Bagenal, Elizabeth ordered Stucley home to answer charges brought against him in the admiralty courts; and Sidney lamented Stucley's ‘evil plight,’ especially as he was just settling down and meditating a marriage with a daughter of William Somerset, third earl of Worcester [q. v.]
For the present, however, Stucley's projects were only suspected, and in 1567 he was allowed to return to Ireland. Undeterred by his previous failure, he now purchased of Sir Nicholas Heron the offices of seneschal of Wexford, constable of Wexford and Laghlin castles, and captain of the Kavanaghs, together with various estates (Cal. Fiants, Elizabeth, Nos. 1127–9, 1136, 1265–1266, 1442, 1444). On 24 Aug. he was empowered to exercise martial law in co. Wexford (ib. No. 1119). Elizabeth, however, was opposed to Stucley holding any office in Ireland; on 20 June 1568 Heron was ordered to resume his functions, and Stucley lost all his preferments (Cal. State Papers, Ireland, 1509–73, pp. 380, 392, 402). Heron died before he could take up his appointments, and Nicholas White was sent instead. Not content with assuming Stucley's offices, White on 6 June 1569 accused Stucley before the Irish privy council of felony and high treason, and on the 10th he was imprisoned in Dublin Castle. He had in that same month proposed the invasion of Ireland to the Spanish ambassador, and demanded twenty fully armed ships for the purpose. But sufficient evidence was not forthcoming to convict him, and, after seventeen weeks' imprisonment, Stucley was on 11 Oct. released by the privy council on sureties for 500l. (‘Acts of the Privy Council in Ireland’ in Hist. MSS. Comm. 15th Rep. iii. 232–3).
These misfortunes strengthened Stucley's determination to turn traitor. While in Dublin Castle he had found means to communicate with Richard Creagh [q. v.], Roman catholic archbishop of Armagh, then a prisoner in the castle, and also with Don Guerau de Spes, the Spanish ambassador in London. Soon after his release he visited London, and apparently offered his services to Fénelon, the French ambassador, in February 1569–70. In March he returned to Ireland, and on the 13th he began to make arrangements at Waterford for escaping to Spain. He sailed on 17 April, and on the 24th landed at Vinero in Galicia. On 4 Aug. he was summoned to Madrid; he was received with a consideration that astonished the English ambassador. On 21 Jan. 1570–1 he was knighted by Philip; he was generally styled Marquis or Duke of Ireland, and the king was reported to have allowed him five hundred reals a day and a residence at Las Rozas, a village nine miles from Madrid.
Meanwhile Stucley was busy scheming the invasion of Ireland. Five thousand men were promised him under the command of the notorious Julian Romero (see ‘Julian Romero—Swashbuckler’ in Hume, The Year after the Armada, pp. 96–7). Stucley's character, however, soon inspired distrust of his ability to perform his magnificent promises, and his credit was undermined by Maurice Gibbon, archbishop of Cashel, whose quarrels with Stucley divided the Spanish court into factions, one supporting the archbishop and the other Stucley. Eventually ‘an honest excuse was found to divert him, and he left for Bivero (in Sicily), having dismissed the people who came from Ireland with him and dismantled his ship’ (Simancas Papers, ii. 305). The archbishop went to Paris and informed Walsingham of Stucley's plots, drawing up at the same time an account of his career. Stucley's proposed intervention in the Ridolfi plot accordingly miscarried. The ‘honest excuse’ was some mission to the pope. It is not clear what it was, but on 7 Oct. 1571 Stucley was present in command of three galleys at Don John's victory over the Turks at Lepanto, where his gallant conduct rehabilitated him to some
