discharge of his troops at the end of the year, he repaired to England, and prayed Burghley for fresh employment. At the beginning of 1583 he was sent back to Ireland, where the Geraldines were again giving trouble. He was appointed by Ormonde to the command of a garrison at Lismore, and at the same time made constable of Castlemaine, which he intended ‘to make a town of English.’ He took part in hunting down Desmond and Fitzgerald of Imokelly and in thoroughly subduing Munster. As a reward for his services he supplicated Burghley and Walsingham (15 March 1584) to make him president of Connaught. This request was refused; but in August he was appointed sheriff of Cork, and the government of Munster was left in his hands during the absence of the president, Sir John Norris (1547?–1597) [q. v.] In a letter to Walsingham he reported that he had hanged three hundred rebels, and so terrified the rest that ‘a man might now travel the whole country and none molest him.’ Towards the end of the year he was sent northward with Bagenal by Lord-deputy Perrot to act against the Ulster chiefs and their allies, the Scottish highlanders [see Perrot, Sir John]. In this campaign he showed his customary vigour, receiving some severe wounds, which invalided him several months. In October 1585 he returned to England.
Stanley's service in Ireland had been long and brilliant. Though the war, as Burghley admitted, was a religious one, and Sir William was a Roman catholic, he had served with fidelity. ‘Qui singulari fide et fortitudine in Hibernico bello meruerat’ is Camden's testimony (Annals, p. 471). But there can be no doubt that he left Ireland a disappointed man. In the partition of the great Desmond estates, which he had contributed to win, he had been passed over, while others, who had done little or nothing, received enormous grants. His resentment at his treatment, together with strong religious feelings, explains his future treachery.
In December 1585 Stanley accompanied Leicester in the expedition sent by Elizabeth to the assistance of the united provinces against Spain. The need of more troops was speedily felt, and Sir William was despatched to Ireland to levy recruits among the disbanded troops and native kernes. He raised about fourteen hundred men, the greater part of whom were Irish. While in England, on his way back to the Netherlands, he was probably guilty of traitorous conduct. ‘While in London he was in the confidence of the jesuits. He knew part, if not the whole, of the Babington conspiracy. He corresponded with Mendoza, and contrived to communicate with Lord Arundel in the Tower. When ordered to the Low Countries he made pretexts for delaying in London, in the hope that the queen might be killed, or that the Spanish fleet might arrive from Cadiz. When excuses would serve no longer and he was obliged to sail, he undertook to watch his moment, and, when he could do most injury, revolt with his regiment to Parma’ (Froude, Hist. of Engl. chap. 68; cf. Cal. Simancas MSS. iii. 604, 607).
Stanley's forces joined Leicester on 12 Aug. 1586, and in September he assisted Sir John Norris in taking possession of Doesborg, where his men ‘committed frightful disorders and thoroughly rifled the town’ (Norris to Wilkes in Motley, United Netherlands, ii. 44). At the action by Zutphen on 22 Sept., in which Philip Sidney received his death wound, Stanley displayed great prowess, and was declared by Leicester to be worth his weight in pearl. He assisted at the capture of the Zutphen sconce, which was committed by Leicester to the charge of Sir Rowland York [q. v.] In October Sir William Pelham [q. v.] and Stanley took possession of the important city of Deventer, deposed the magistracy, which inclined to the Spanish side, and installed a patriotic body in its place. In spite of the remonstrances of the States-General (ib. ii. 155–8), Stanley was appointed governor of the city, with a garrison of twelve hundred men, mostly Irish catholics; and, to give him additional authority, he was commissioned by Leicester to act independently of Norris (his bitter enemy), who, on the earl's departure to England, held the chief command. Stanley saw that his opportunity was come. Having acquired a full mastery of the city and made all the necessary arrangements, he put himself into communication, by means of his fellow-traitor York, with Tassis, the Spanish governor of Zutphen. To him he surrendered the place on 29 Jan. 1587. The garrison, with a few exceptions, entered the Spanish service (ib. ii. 159–64, 169–77).
From his new master Stanley received but slight rewards for his action, nor does he appear to have sought them. Parma declared his conduct to have been ‘singularly disinterested.’ There can be no doubt that at this period of his life he was almost entirely under the influence of the jesuits, of which order his brother John was a member. His conduct was loudly applauded by his jesuit friends. The society urged his claims for reward and countenance on the pope, Philip, and Parma, while Cardinal Allen published a letter at Antwerp in which he laboured to justify the treason. Almost at the moment
