Note 16 — Chapter III

The Sir William Stanley here named was the eldest son of Sir Rowland Stanley, of Hooton, in Wirral, Cheshire, and the one who afterwards covered himself with infamy by his shameless violation of trust in the betrayal and surrender of Deventer to the enemies of his country while holding the commission of the Queen and charged with its defence—an act of perfidy that was only equalled by Cardin Allen's (a Lancashire man) attempted justification of it. He had accompanied the English auxiliaries under Leicester, and in a few weeks after the Earl's return to England he and Rowland Yorke entered into a treacherous correspondence with Baptisti Tasse, governor of Zutphen, and began to propose their measures for delivering to him the important fortresses that had been entrusted to their care, and in the beginning of February both Deventer and the fort opposite Zutphen were given up to the Spaniards. Stanley is said to have been concerned in Babington's conspiracy in favour of Mary Queen of Scots, and was probably betrayed by a dread of discovery into this unworthy conduct.