Thomas Lee (army Captain) - Service Under Perrot

Service Under Perrot

In 1584-5 Lee complained of his loss of horse under Bagenal and Stanley in the north on campaign against Sorley Boy MacDonnell. He then visited England, and was employed in the autumn of 1585 by the new lord deputy, John Perrot, against the rebel Cahir Oge Kavanagh in Kilkenny. There he ran into the sheriff who "grew to words and so to blows" with him; Lee was outnumbered 300 to 60 but still captured the sheriff and killed several of his men. This event cemented the enmity of the Earl of Ormond, but Lee was able to rely upon the backing of Walsingham and Perrot, who allowed that he had acted according to duty.

Lee plotted to take the leader of the rebellious bastard Leinster Geraldines, Walter Reagh, but the plot was betrayed by Lee's wife, who had been an interpreter in negotiations with the rebels. Lee separated from his wife in October 1587, but it seems he maintained some relations with her. By this time he had fallen out with Perrot - in part because of non-payment for his services - and was imprisoned for eight weeks in Dublin Castle and deprived of his company. Lee sent his wife to court to plead his case, and in 1588 she was still there requesting that a band of 50 men taken from another captain be assigned to her husband.

In 1591 Lee suffered "a great casual fire by the means of lewd servants" at Castlemartin, which cost him £1,000 and left him and his wife with nothing but their clothes and some horses. He laid the blame for this incident on Nicholas White, a senior judge and adherent of Ormond's.