# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Stafford, Thomas (fl.1633)

​STAFFORD, Sir THOMAS (fl. 1633), reputed author of ‘Pacata Hibernia,’ was probably, though the evidence is incomplete (cf. Brewer, Cal. Carew MSS. vol. i. p. lviii, and Lismore Papers), a natural son of Sir George Carew, earl of Totnes [q. v.] Stafford served under Carew, when president of Munster, as captain in the wars in Ireland during Elizabeth's reign. Chronology will not permit the captain's identification with the Thomas Stafford of Devon, gent., who graduated B.A. from Exeter College, Oxford, on 12 Nov. 1613, aged 21 (Foster, Alumni Oxon. 1500–1714), and who may indeed have been the person designated as Carew's illegitimate son. Stafford was a common name in the south-east of Ireland (one Sir Francis being governor of Clandeboye, another Henry M.P. for Dungarvan, and another Nicholas bishop of Ferns and Leighlin, all more or less his contemporaries), and it is therefore not unlikely that Sir Thomas may himself have been an Irishman. It is as an Irishman rather than as an Englishman that he speaks of Irishmen and Englishmen in his preface to ‘Pacata Hibernia.’ But however this may be, Stafford appears to have accompanied Carew to England shortly before the death of Elizabeth, and afterwards to have lived with him in the capacity of secretary. When his patron was in 1608 created master of the ordnance, Stafford was joined with him as his assistant, being by special grace allowed after Carew's death to retain his office until the appointment of Lord Vere. On 6 Oct. 1611 he was knighted in Ireland by Sir Arthur Chichester, the lord deputy (Metcalfe, p. 212). In 1624 he was recommended by Carew for a company in Ireland, but apparently unsuccessfully (Cal. State Papers, James I, Ireland, v. 555–6). When Carew died in 1629, it was intended that Stafford should be buried in the same tomb at Stratford-on-Avon, and an inscription (printed in Dugdale's Warwickshire, ii. 686) was engraved on it describing Stafford's career, leaving the date of death to be filled in. That was never done, and it is uncertain when Stafford died (he was alive in 1639) and whether he was buried in Carew's tomb.
Carew by his will, dated 30 Nov. 1625 and proved on 29 May 1629, bequeathed to Stafford his vast collection of manuscripts relating to Ireland, the greater part of which, consisting of thirty-nine volumes, is at present preserved in the archiepiscopal library at Lambeth. Four other volumes have found their way into the Bodleian Library. Probably others are extant elsewhere. A calendar of those in the Bodleian and at Lambeth, edited by Brewer and Bullen, was ​published in six volumes, under the direction of the master of the rolls, in 1867–73.
Among the manuscripts thus bequeathed to Stafford was the original of the ‘Pacata Hibernia,’ written, we are given by him to understand, by Carew himself, but ‘out of his retyred Modestie, the rather by him held backe from the Stage of Publication, lest himselfe being a principall Actor in many of the particulars, might be perhaps thought under the Narration of publicke proceedings, to giue vent and utterance to his private merit and services, howsoever justly memorable.’ After having submitted it ‘to the view and censure of divers learned and judicious persons,’ the work was published by Stafford, under the following title, sufficiently descriptive of its contents, ‘Pacata Hibernia: Ireland appeased and redvced; or, an Historie of the Late Warres of Ireland, especially within the Province of Mounster, under the government of Sir George Carew, Knight, then Lord President of that Province … Wherein the Seidge of Kinsale, the Defeat of the Earle of Tyrone, and his Armie; the Expulsion and sending home of Don Juan de Aguila, the Spanish Generall, with his forces; And many other remarkable Passages of that time are related. Illustrated, with Seventeene severall Mappes, for the better understanding of the Storie. London, Printed by A. M. 1633. And part of the Impression made over, to be vended for the benefit of the Children of John Mynshew, deceased.’ The book, now exceedingly rare, was reprinted by the Hibernia Press Company, Dublin, in 1810, and a new edition was edited in 1896 (2 vols.) by Mr. Standish O'Grady. It is an impartial if not very interesting account of the struggle it records.
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