The natural leadership of the Munster Geraldines is imprisoned in the Tower of London, and the Earldom is in the hands of a soldier, James Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald, the "captain general" of the Desmond military.

Fitzmaurice has little stake in a new demilitarized order in Munster, which envisages the abolition of the Irish lords’ private armies.

A factor that draws wider support for Fitzmaurice is the prospect of land confiscations, which had been mooted by Sidney and Peter Carew, an English colonist.

This ensures Fitzmaurice the support of important clans, notably MacCarthy Mor, O'Sullivan Beare and O'Keefe and two prominent Butlers –brothers of the Earl.

Fitzmaurice himself had lost the land he had held at Kerricurrihy in County Cork, which had been leased instead to English colonists.

He is also a devout Catholic, influenced by the Counterreformation, which has made him see the Protestant Elizabethan governors as his enemies.

To discourage Sidney from going ahead with the Lord Presidency for Munster and to re-establish Desmond primacy over the Butlers, he plans a rebellion against the English presence in the south and against the Earl of Ormonde.

Fitzmaurice however has wider aims than simply the recovery of Fitzgerald supremacy within the context of the English Kingdom of Ireland.

Before the rebellion, he secretly sends Maurice MacGibbon, Catholic Archbishop of Cashel, to seek military aid from Phillip II of Spain.

The Spanish ambassador informs King Philip on the twelfth of February, 1571, that news had been had in London from France of the pope’s cession to the Spanish crown the kingdom created for Philip and Queen Mary of England, which had fallen vacant upon the excommunication of Elizabeth by the bull Regnans in Excelsis, and that it is rumored that Stukley is to be sent to England with fourteen to fifteen companies of troops.

Amidst this international feinting and shaping, the papal Archbishop of Cashel, Maurice Reagh Fitzgibbon —an ally of the Irish rebel, James Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald—makes some effort while in Spain to discredit Stukley's ambitions, much to the dislike of Feria, and is supported by the Duke of Alba, who dismisses the proposed invasion on the ground that, once England falls, Ireland will fall of itself.

The archbishop's brief is to request the appointment of Don John of Austria as king of Ireland, but the upstart's arrival has disrupted his efforts, although Stukley's Irish followers had deserted to him upon their arrival.

Fitzgibbon, on removing to Paris, informs the English ambassador there, Sir Francis Walsingham, of Stukley's schemes.

Stukley’s credit with Spain has by now been seriously injured by Fitzgibbon, and he obtains his passports to leave Spain after Elizabeth demands his dismissal.

Intelligence of Stukley's schemes has been building since the intervention of Fitzgibbon.

The spy Oliver King, who had narrowly escaped capture in the Pyrenees by thugs in Stukley’s employ, had in 1572 informed London of invasion plans; Sir William Cecil, Lord Burghley, had in March 1573 received intelligence that certain "decayed gentlemen" were to join Stukley in Spain for the invasion of Ireland.

Walsingham hadn't known what to make of Maurice Fitzgibbon at their first encounter, realizing that an agent of Burghley's had sowed dissension between the archbishop and Stukley; but in 1575, he does have intelligence of Stukley's alliance with Fitzmaurice, at a time when the nuncio at Madrid is urging an invasion of England.

William Byrd, a gifted English musician at the court of Queen Mary, had been eighteen years old when Mary died and the staunchly Protestant Elizabeth succeeded her; the sudden change may well have driven him away from court.

He shows up again in his mid-twenties as organist and choirmaster of Lincoln Cathedral, living at 6 Minster Yard in the cathedral close.

There the clergy apparently had to reprimand him for playing at excessive length during services.

After being named a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal in 1572, a well-paying job with considerable privileges attached to it, Byrd moves back to London where he will work as a singer, composer and organist for more than two decades.

He and his teacher Thomas Tallis had obtained a joint printing license from Queen Elizabeth just after his appointment.

Byrd and Tallis compose a collections of Latin motets or Cantiones Sacrae, publishing them in 1575.

Walsingham has similar intelligence of English adventurer Thomas Stukley’s involvement in the Spanish plans to invade Ireland.

Having failed to induce the papal Archbishop of Cashel, Maurice Reagh Fitzgibbon, to give up his secrets in return for his passage back to Ireland, Walsingham procures his arrest in Scotland.