Blount, Charles, 8th Lord Mountjoy and Earl of Devonshire 1563-1606
English soldier

He came from a declining family whose fortunes he was determined to revive. He served in the Low Countries, in Brittany, and in the Azores (1597). In 1600 he accepted the Irish command against the rebellion of Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, winning a decisive victory at Kinsale (1601), laying Munster waste and ultimately receiving Tyrone's surrender at Mellifont, in 1603, concealing Queen Elizabeth I's death six days previously, thus enabling him to exact more stringent terms. Made Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, he reduced disaffected towns, and returned to England where he was rewarded by King James VI and I with an earldom, mastership of the ordnance, and lands, and by King Philip III of Spain with a pension.