[Sidenote: Fitzgibbon too sanguine. Philip II. hesitates.] Yet Fitzgibbon certainly did not underrate the importance to Spain of an Irish alliance. Few will think that the resources of Ireland were at any time equal to those of England. Of the twelve prelates whom he enumerates not more than three or four were in a condition to give an invader material help. Among the six Earls whom he mentions Desmond was a prisoner in England, Ormonde a loyal subject of Queen Elizabeth, and Clanricarde at least not actively disloyal. There was no Earl of Tyrone. Thomond and Clancare were ready enough both to rebel and to submit when pressed. The Irish chiefs were all Catholics no doubt, but nothing like continuous combined action could be expected from clans who had from time immemorial been fighting against each other. From the chartered towns a Catholic prince might expect much sympathy, but very little open aid; England had always been strong enough to punish them. Forty years before, Charles V., after a careful investigation, had made up his mind that the Desmonds could not be maintained against the Tudors, and the more he learned about the matter the less likely was Philip to disagree with his father's opinions. [Sidenote: Thomas Stukeley.] Some account must now be given of one of the most extraordinary adventurers which even the England of the sixteenth century produced. Thomas Stukeley, a gentleman belonging to an old English family in North Devon, having run through his younger brother's portion by riotous living while in the Duke of Suffolk's retinue, sought after his patron's death to enrich himself at the expense of others. Claiming a legacy from another West-countryman, Serjeant Prideaux, he broke into the testator's house and searched his coffers in spite of an injunction to the contrary. He tried piracy for a while, and was imprisoned in the Tower at the suit of an Irish gentleman whom he had robbed. His friends managed to procure his enlargement, and he soon persuaded the only daughter and heiress of Alderman Curtis to marry him. When his father-in-law died he spent his money in every kind of dissipation. If a balladmonger of the day may be believed, he squandered 100_l._ a day, selling at last the blocks of tin with which the Alderman, probably a Cornishman or Devonian, had paved the yard of his London house. When all was gone he deserted his wife. 'Make much of me, dear husband,' she did say. 'I'll make much more of thee,' said he, 'Than any one shall, verily:' And so he sold her clothes, and went his way. His magnificent patronage had been extended to travellers, one of whom dedicated to him a description of the countries bordering on the Baltic, and, like other Devon men, he looked to the sea as to his native element. The Queen licensed him to found a colony in Florida, and he promised in his usual vein of braggadocio to write to her 'in the style of princes, to our dearest sister.'