Stanley was a member of the famous
Stanley family, and a relative of the 3rd Earl of Derby. A Roman Catholic, he had fought on the Spanish side in the
Netherlands under
Alva[?] from
1567 to
1570, and then served the English crown in
Ireland. Throughout the period of his service in Ireland, he had fought with distinction, despite being a co-religionist of his anatgonists. When in
1585 he was sent to the Netherlands, his loyalty to the crown was on the one hand apparently unquestioned, but on the other there had been rumours of links with
Jesuit priests and connections with the
Babington plot. With hindsight, therefore, it was a mistake to to have put him in command of the recently acquired city of
Deventer with an army of Irish Roman Catholics. Despite
Leicester having defended his loyalty to the suspicious Dutch, Stanley betrayed the town to the Spanish, the day after
Zutphen had similarly been betrayed by the English commander
Rowland York[?] (January 28th).
Shortly after the event, Cardinal William Allen wrote a pamphlet defending Stanley's actions with a view to justifying the assasination of Elizabeth I as provided for in the bull Regnans in Excelsis.
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