Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 55.djvu/128

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Stucley
122
Stucley

bishops of York.’ None of the manuscripts mention him as the author, but Bale's ascription is generally accepted for the latter part of the chronicle from Paulinus to Thoresby, the whole of which he assigned to Stubbs. Twysden did the same in his edition of the chronicle in the ‘Decem Scriptores’ (1652), but the subsequent discovery of a twelfth-century manuscript ending with Archbishop Thurstan (Bodl. MS. Digby, 140) proved that Stubbs only continued the work from 1147 (Tanner, p. 697; Historians of York, vol. ii. p. xxi). It appears from the preface in some of the manuscripts (a list of which is given by Canon Raine) that Stubbs had originally intended to carry it down only to the death of Archbishop Zouche in 1352, but he afterwards added a life of Archbishop Thoresby, which brought it down to 1373. It was afterwards continued to Wolsey. A critical edition of the whole chronicle was published by Canon Raine in 1886 in the Rolls Series as part of the second volume of the ‘Historians of the Church of York and its Archbishops.’ The other works attributed to Stubbs by Leland, Bale, and Pits are:

  1. ‘Statutum contra impugnantes ecclesiasticas constitutiones’ or ‘Contra statutorum ecclesiæ impugnatores.’
  2. ‘De Stipendiis prædicatoribus verbi debitis.’
  3. ‘De perfectione vitæ solitariæ.’
  4. ‘De arte moriendi.’
  5. ‘Meditationes quædam pro consolatione contemplativorum.’
  6. ‘In revelationes Brigidæ.’
  7. ‘De Misericordia Dei.’
  8. ‘Super Cantica Canticorum.’
  9. ‘Sermones de Sanctis.’
  10. ‘Sermones de tempore.’
  11. ‘Officium completum cum missa de nomine Jesu.’
  12. ‘Officium de B. Anna.’
  13. ‘De pœnis peregrinationis hujus vitæ.’

[Leland's Commentarii de Scriptoribus Britannicis; Bale, De Scriptoribus Majoris Britanniæ, ed. 1559; Pits, De Illustribus Angliæ Scriptoribus; Tanner's Bibliotheca Scriptorum Brit.-Hib.; other authorities in the text.]

J. T-t.


STUCLEY or STUKELY, Sir LEWIS (d. 1620), vice-admiral of Devonshire, was eldest son of John Stucley of Affeton in Devonshire, and Frances St. Leger, through whom he was related to all the leading families of the west of England. His grandfather Lewis (1530?–1581) was younger brother of Thomas Stucley [q. v.] The younger Lewis was knighted by James I when on his way to London in 1603 (Metcalfe, Book of Knights), and in 1617 was appointed guardian of Thomas Rolfe, the infant son of Pocahontas [see Rolfe, John]. In June 1618 he left London with verbal orders from the king to arrest Sir Walter Ralegh [q. v.], then arrived at Plymouth on his return from the Orinoco. He met Ralegh at Ashburton, and accompanied him back to Plymouth, where, while waiting for further orders from the king, Ralegh attempted to escape to France; but, relinquishing the idea, Ralegh returned to his arrest, and was taken up to London, where he was for a short time a prisoner at large. Afterwards, on attempting to escape, he was lodged in the Tower.

Stucley, in whose charge Ralegh was, has been greatly blamed for his conduct in this matter. He has been represented as a mean spy, professing friendship in order to worm himself into Ralegh's confidence, which he betrayed to the king. For this there does not appear to be any solid foundation. On the contrary, it appears that Stucley, although Ralegh's cousin, was appointed his warden not only as a vice-admiral of Devonshire, but as having an old grudge against Ralegh dating from 1584, when Ralegh did his father, John, then a volunteer in Sir Richard Greynvile's Virginia voyage, ‘extreme injury’ by deceiving him of a venture he had in the Tiger [see Grenville, Sir Richard]. It has been said that Stucley wished to let Ralegh escape in order to gain credit for rearresting him. But a gaoler does not gain credit by allowing his prisoner to escape, and Stucley's refusal of the bribe which Ralegh offered him at Salisbury on the way to London may be taken as evidence that Ralegh knew that Stucley was not on his side. If, after that, he chose to give Stucley his confidence, he could only expect it to be betrayed. Stucley certainly gave hostile, but not necessarily false, evidence against Ralegh. No one will pretend that Stucley's conduct was chivalrous, but it seems to have been very much what might have been expected from an honest but narrow and vulgar minded man who believed that he had an injury done to his father to redress. Popular opinion, however, idealising Ralegh, vented on Stucley the indignation which could not be expressed against the king. To the public he was Sir Judas Stucley, and it was reported, probably falsely, that even the king had said to him ‘his blood be on thy head.’ As vice-admiral of Devonshire he had occasion to call on the old Earl of Nottingham, who, addressing him as ‘Thou base fellow! thou scorn and contempt of men!’ threatened to cudgel him for being ‘so saucy’ as to come into his presence. Stucley complained to the king, who answered, ‘What wouldst thou have me do? Wouldst thou have me hang him? On my soul, if I should