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.
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.
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".
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".
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".
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.
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.
Following the battle of Belleek he was commended for bravery by Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone and by Bagenal, having been the first to enter the ford on the river Erne.
In his writings he cast himself in the model of the Roman hero Scaevola, who had entered the Etruscan camp to assassinate the king and, upon his discovery and trial, had thrust his right hand in the flame, whereupon a treaty had been concluded.
In the following April Lee complained to the Queen's secretary, Robert Cecil, of slanderous reports against himself and sought authority to take, banish or kill O'Byrne.
Lee was promoted to provost-marshal of Connacht; the following month he commanded the party which killed the ailing O'Byrne and was commended by Loftus.
She was imprisoned in the castle, and Lee had her execution stayed in return for her promise to assist in the apprehension and killing of O'Byrne's sons, two of whom were married to her own sisters.
When O'Neill had defeated Bagenal at the Battle of the Yellow Ford in 1598, Lee was confined to prison at Dublin for twenty weeks on charges of treason brought against him by Ormond and the sheriff of Kilkenny following his efforts to have the rebel leader installed as president of Ulster.
[10] In April 1599 Lee's patron, William FitzGerald, 13th Earl of Kildare, died in a shipwreck while travelling to join Essex in Ireland at the start of the latter's costly and unsuccessful campaign against O'Neill.
In August he again visited the rebel earl with the cognisance of Sir Christopher Blount; finding O'Neill "quite changed from his former disposition and possessed with insolency and arrogancy", Lee cursed him and left.
At about this time he submitted his Discovery - written while under house arrest - in which he proposed the recovery of the province of Leinster, and sought the seneschalship of O'Byrne's country and the lieutenancy of Leix as well as the distribution amongst his followers of the rebels' lands.
However, Crosse informed the authorities of their plan, and Lee was apprehended as he watched the door of the chamber in preparation for an attempt on the following evening.
Lee denied the construction put upon his words by the attorney-general and spoke boldly in defence of Essex, who had written in commendation of him to Lord Mountjoy.
[15] The subject is shown in the regalia of a captain of the royal kerne, posing with legs and feet bare, and armed with shield, sword, helmet, pike and petronel (horse pistol).