Thomas Lee (1551/2 – 14 February 1601) was an English army captain, who served under Queen Elizabeth I and spent most of his career in Ireland during the Tudor conquest of that country. Although of middle rank, he played a turbulent role in the factional politics of the time and was highly active during the Nine Years' War (1595–1603). He was put to death at Tyburn for his involvement in the treason of the 2nd Earl of Essex.
Early life
Thomas Lee was the grandson of Robert Lee (d.1539) by his second wife, Lettice Peniston, widow of Sir Robert Knollys, and daughter of Thomas Peniston of Hawridge, Buckinghamshire. His parents were Benedict Lee (d. February 1559) and Margaret Pakington, the daughter of Robert Pakington.
By his first wife, Robert Lee was the father of Sir Anthony Lee, and Thomas Lee was thus a cousin of the half blood of Sir Anthony Lee's eldest son and heir, the courtier Sir Henry Lee, Queen Elizabeth's champion.
Career
Lee eventually became attached to Walter Devereux, 1st Earl of Essex. He probably arrived in Ireland in 1574 to take part in the colonisation scheme of Essex in eastern Ulster, and in 1576 was serving as constable of Carrickfergus.
By his marriage in 1578 to the Irish Catholic widow, Elizabeth Peppard, widow of John Eustace, he came into considerable property, including Castlemartin in County Kildare. He later bought Castle Reban, seeking its fee farm in April 1583, and much other property.
In 1580 he was charged with highway robbery in Oxfordshire, but upon his release on bail he returned to Ireland.
Rebellion in the Pale
In 1581, Lee and his wife were cited in a petition to Lord Deputy Grey for wrongs done to Robert Pipho, who again complained against him in the following year for cattle theft. However, Grey was relying on him to counter the Eustace rebellion in the Pale and suppressed the charges. Lee managed to capture the rebel brother of Viscount Baltinglass, Thomas Eustace, and incurred the displeasure of the Earl of Ormond, who objected to his invasions of Tipperary, describing him as, "this railing fellow". The following year in Waterford he had to clear himself of "clamorous complaints".
In February 1583, after the suppression of the rebellion, Lee's company of 24 horsemen was disbanded. He was commended by the archbishop of Dublin, Adam Loftus, and Geoffrey Fenton, the latter commenting that he was "not without his portion of that common and secret envy which biteth most of us that serve here". At the same time Grey wrote to the queen's secretary, Walsingham, that Lee should have 200 Irish soldiers to conduct into Flanders, noting that "Lee is settled to reform his mis-spent life by hazard in service".
Lee had taken into his custody various properties of Baltinglas, for which he made petition, and managed to settle in Kildare, where he proposed to defend the country with 25 horsemen and 50 foot. This proposal was favoured by Loftus, who noted that Lee, "hath so weeded out those parts of that lewd sort of people as the inhabitants of their own report find great quiet and better security of their lives, goods and cattle than of many years they have had". The privy council wrote to Lee in July 1583 granting the horse and men.
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.
