"It is incredible how quickly he wrought himself through the notice into the favour, through the court into the chamber, yea closet, yea bosom of Pope Pius Quintus; 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 finding it cheaper to fill Stuckley's swelling sails with airy titles than real gifts, created him Baron of Ross, Viscount Murrough, Earl of Wexford, Marquis of Leinster; and then furnished this title-top-heavy general with eight hundred soldiers, paid by the King of Spain, for the Irish expedition. "In passage thereunto, Stuckley lands at Portugal, just when Sebastian, the king thereof, with two Moorish kings, were undertaking a voyage into Africa. Stuckley, scorning to attend, is persuaded to accompany them. Some thought he wholly quitted his Irish design, partly because loath to be pent up in an island (the continent of Africa affording more elbow-room for his achievements); partly because so mutable his mind, he ever loved the last project (as mothers the youngest child) best. Others conceive he took this African in order to his Irish design; such his confidence of conquest, that his breakfast on the Turks would the better enable him to dine on the English in Ireland. "Landing in Africa, Stuckley gave council which was safe, seasonable, and necessary; namely, that for two or three days they should refresh their land soldiers; whereof some were sick, and some were weak, by reason of their tempestuous passage. This would not be heard; so furious was Don Sebastian to engage; as if he would pluck up the bays of victory out of the ground, before they were grown up; and so, in the battle of Alcaser, their army was wholly defeated: where Stuckley lost his life. 'A fatal fight, where in one day was slain, Three kings that were, and one that would be fain!' "This battle was fought anno 1578, where Stuckley, with his eight hundred men, behaved himself most valiantly, till overpowered with multitude." _Worthies of England_, by Nuttall, i. 414. Mr. Dyce, in his prefatory note to Peele's _Battle of Alcazar_, having cited the above extract with several poetical notices of Stukeley, mentions another play founded on this adventurer's exploits (_The Famous Historye of the Life and Death of Captaine Thomas Stukely_), acted in 1596, and printed in 1605 (Peele's _Works_, ii. 85). The ballad is from _The Crown-Garland of Golden Roses_ (Percy Society, vol. vi.) p. 33. There are some verses on Stukeley's projected voyage to Florida in Mr. Collier's _Old Ballads_, in the first volume of the Percy Society, p. 73.