Sidney's departure had been partly delayed by a report that Stukeley's long-threatened invasion was at last coming. The adventurer had been knighted in Spain, and Philip had said something about the Duchy of Leinster. The Duke of Feria and his party were willing to make him Duke of Ireland, and he seems to have taken that title. At Paris Walsingham remonstrated with Olivares, who carelessly, and no doubt falsely, replied that he had never heard of Stukeley, but that the king habitually honoured those who offered him service. Walsingham knew no Spanish, and Olivares would speak nothing else, so that the conversation could scarcely have serious results. But the remonstrances of Archbishop Fitzgibbon and other genuine Irish refugees gradually told upon Philip, and the means of living luxuriously and making a show were withheld. 'The practices of Stukeley,' wrote Burghley to Walsingham, 'are abated in Spain by discovery of his lewdness and insufficiency;' and he went to Rome, where the Countess of Northumberland had secured him a good reception. 'He left Florida kingdom,' said Fitzwilliam sarcastically, 'only for holiness' sake, and to have a red hat;' adding that he was thought holy at Waterford for going barefooted about streets and churches. 'It is incredible,' says Fuller, 'how quickly he wrought himself through the notice into the favour, through the court into the chamber, yea, closet and bosom, of Pope Pius Quintus.' An able seaman, Stukeley was in some degree fitted to advance the Pontiff's darling plan for crushing the Turks. The old pirate did find his way to Don John of Austria's fleet, and seems to have been present at Lepanto. His prowess in the Levant restored him to Philip's favour, and he was soon again in Spain, in company with a Doria and in receipt of 1,000 ducats a week.[1] [Sidenote: Thomas Stukeley on the Continent.]