Thomas Stukley

Thomas Stucley (c. 1520 – 4 August 1578), also written Stukeley or Stukley and known as The Lusty Stucley, was an English mercenary who fought in France, Ireland, and at the Battle of Lepanto (1571) and was killed at the Battle of Alcazar (1578) fighting the Moors. He was a Roman Catholic recusant and a rebel against the Protestant Queen Elizabeth I.

He was a younger son of Sir Hugh Stucley (1496–1559) lord of the manor of Affeton, in the parish of West Worlington in Devon, head of an ancient gentry family, a Knight of the Body to King Henry VIII and Sheriff of Devon in 1545. His mother was Jane Pollard, daughter of Sir Lewis Pollard (c. 1465 – 1526), lord of the manor of King's Nympton, Devon, Justice of the Common Pleas, and his wife Anne Hext.

It has been alleged that he was instead an illegitimate son of King Henry VIII. Details of any wives or children he may have had are imprecise.

Stucley's early mentors were Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk, and then the Bishop of Exeter, in whose household he held a post. He was present at Boulogne during the siege of 1544–45, and again in 1550 on the surrender of the city to the English. From 1547 to 1550, he was a standard-bearer at Boulogne, and then entered the service of Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset. After his master's arrest in 1551 a warrant was issued against him, but he succeeded in escaping to France, where he served in the French army.

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