The Lewkenor Circle · Soldiers and military associates
Camillo del Monte
An Italian cavalry commander whom Lewkenor remembered with gratitude
“Two notable captains”
Camillo del Monte and his brother Giovanni Battista belonged to the professional military world Lewkenor knew in the Low Countries. In The Estate of English Fugitives, Lewkenor names them together and describes their subsequent employment in Italy:
John Baptista de Monte, and Camillo de Monte, two notable captains, both now retained under two mighty states, the one being general to the Duke of Florence, the other bearing like charge under the Venetians, who both lie in wait to cry quittance with him.
Lewes Lewkenor, The Estate of English Fugitives (1595); extract, spelling modernised.
The passage places the brothers within a mobile profession. Experience gained in the Low Countries could lead to command under Italian rulers, carrying personal friendships and grievances from one service to another.
Title-page image.
Lewkenor’s personal acknowledgement
Lewkenor returned to the brothers in his account of Venetian government four years later. This time he explicitly identifies Battista as the Venetian commander and records the favours received from both:
Always do they entertain in honourable sort, with great provision a Captain General, who always is a stranger born: he that now enjoyeth that place is one John Baptista de Monte, a Florentine born, a notable soldier, and a very honourable gentleman, one under whom I have served in the wars, and am in all thankfulness to acknowledge many favours that I received both from him and his brother Camillo de Monte.
Lewkenor, The Commonwealth and Government of Venice (1599), p. 166; spelling modernised.
The testimony distinguishes their roles. Lewkenor states that he served under Battista; his gratitude extends to Camillo as well. Read beside the 1595 passage, Battista’s Venetian appointment identifies Camillo with the Florentine command.
Camillo’s cavalry at Breda
Camillo also appears in Lewkenor’s account of Captain Walsh. After the breaking of his regiment, Walsh had fallen from the position of captain to that of a private soldier:
After the breaking of the regiment, from a captain he was fain to become a private soldier, and yet not thereunto without great suit accepted, under Camillo del Monte’s company of horsemen in the garrison of Breda, which issuing one day forth of the town, was upon the plains near adjoining encountered and defeated by Sir Philip Sidney’s company of English lances, and among the rest Captain Walsh in two places grievously wounded and taken prisoner, and brought into Holland, where my Lord of Leicester gave commandment presently to hang him.
Lewkenor, The Estate of English Fugitives; extract, spelling modernised.
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. The print illustrates the town’s wartime setting; it depicts an earlier event than the capture of Walsh.
View the engraving.
The account continues with Sidney’s intervention:
Sir Philip Sidney, being full of true honour, earnestly entreated my Lord for his pardon, and obtained it, in respect that he knew him to be valiant, and withal, that howsoever in this action transported, yet he had ever borne a dutiful regard towards her Majesty.
Lewkenor, The Estate of English Fugitives; spelling modernised.
Camillo’s company becomes the setting for a story of lost rank, capture, threatened execution and mercy. Walsh’s courage survives the collapse of his professional standing, and Sidney’s judgement saves him from the punishment Leicester had ordered.
A second report of the capture
Thomas Doyley’s correspondence with Lord Burghley supplies a separate report naming the same company and prisoner:
News came that our cavalry of Gertruydenberg by an ambuscade took sixteen of Camillo del Monte’s cornet of Breda, and amongst them Captain Walsh, one of those who gave up Alost.
Thomas Doyley to Lord Burghley; extract quoted in the account of the Low Countries campaigns.
The report gives Camillo’s command a documentary setting beyond Lewkenor’s narrative. “Cornet” here refers to a cavalry troop, identified through its standard.
Florentine command and Shakespeare’s soldiers
The brothers’ later appointments bring Lewkenor’s remembered soldiers into the Italian settings of the plays. Battista’s Venetian command is particularly relevant to Othello. Camillo’s Florentine employment invites comparison with the military opportunities offered to Bertram in All’s Well That Ends Well.
The Duke of Florence appoints Bertram:
The general of our horse thou art; and we,
Great in our hope, lay our best love and credence
Upon thy promising fortune.
Duke of Florence, All’s Well That Ends Well, III, iii.
The comparison concerns a particular office and setting: foreign service, cavalry command and advancement under an Italian ruler. Lewkenor’s testimony supplies the names and careers behind that professional world.
Service, favours and remembrance
Camillo’s place in Lewkenor’s biography rests on direct printed acknowledgement. He was a commander whose company appears in the military narrative and a man from whom Lewkenor remembered receiving favours.
The two books preserve different aspects of that relationship: the campaigns and fortunes of soldiers in 1595, followed by a personal expression of gratitude in 1599. Together they make Camillo more than a passing name in a list of Italian captains.
Related Shakespeare investigation
Othello — Venetian command and Lewkenor’s military testimony →
People in this circle
Battista del Monte ·
Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma ·
Sir Roger Williams
Sources and further reading
Lewes Lewkenor, The Estate of English Fugitives (1595), passages concerning the del Monte brothers and Captain Walsh’s service in Camillo’s cavalry company.
Lewkenor, The Commonwealth and Government of Venice (1599), p. 166: Battista’s Venetian command and Lewkenor’s acknowledgement of favours received from both brothers.
Thomas Doyley’s correspondence with Lord Burghley concerning the capture of men from Camillo del Monte’s cavalry at Breda.
William Shakespeare, All’s Well That Ends Well, III, iii; Othello.
Frans Hogenberg, capture of Breda, 1581, engraved circa 1581–83; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
The Master of the Ceremonies, 18 October 2026, sections concerning the del Monte brothers, Captain Walsh and the Low Countries campaigns.