James "Spanish" Blake, Anglo-Irish merchant, soldier, and spy, born circa 1562,[1] died 20 February 1630.
[2] The following year, he worked salvaging material from ships of the Armada wrecked on the Irish coast.
He moved through the world of international intrigue as an agent for, variously, the Irish, English, French and Spanish during the Nine Years War in the 1590s.
He has been named as the assassin of Red Hugh O'Donnell in Spain in 1602.
[3] He was in the company of O'Donnell at the time of his death, and offered his services to Sir George Carew for the plot.