Lord Henry Wotton

“ He took to wife, eight years and two months before his death, the Lady Catharine Manners, heir-general to the noble house of Rutland, who, besides a solid addition to his estate, brought him three sons, and a daughter, called the Lady Mary, his first-born. His eldest son died at nurse before his journey to Knee, and his third, the Lord Francis, was born after his father's death; so that neither his first, nor his last, were participant of any sense of his misfortunes, or felicities. His second son, now Duke of Buckingham, was born to chearhim after his return from that unlucky voyage. ”

“ This gentleman, chiefly on account of his mother's descent, was created a baron of this realm by the title of Lord Wotton of Wotton in Kent, by letters patent bearing date at St. Johnstone's (Perth) in Scotland, August 31, 1650, and in September, 1660, was naturalised by authority of parliament, together with his sisters. He was likewise in 1677 created Earl of Bellomont in Ireland, and, dying without issue, left his estates to his nephew Charles Stanhope, the younger son of his half-brother the Earl of Chesterfield, who took the surname of Wotton. ”

“ At his departure the emperor presented him with a jewel of great value, which Wotton received with due respect, but before leaving the city he gave it to his hostess, because, he said, he would accept no gifts from the enemy of the Bohemian queen. After a third term of service in Venice he returned to London early in 1624 and in July he was installed as provost of Eton College. ”

“ Sir Henry Wotton has been allowed by all critics to be a man of real and great genius, an upright statesman, a polite courtier, compassionate and benevolent to those in distress, charitable to the poor, and in a word, an honest man and a pious christian. As a poet he seems to have no considerable genius. ”

“ In 1593 Wotton wrote to Lord Zouch: "Here I am placed to my great contentment in the house of Mr. Isaac Casaubon, a person of sober condition among the French." The learned professor soon became very fond of Wotton, so far as to allow him to get into debt for his board and lodging, and the young man left Geneva without paying his debts, leaving Casaubon to face his numerous creditors in the town. Casaubon was in despair; but fortunately the episode ended satisfactorily, for Wotton lived up to his character, and paid his debts in full as soon as he was able. ”

“ Our College customs allow not that: and I should account myself most happy, if I might change with you; for I have always observed the thread of life to be like other threads or skeins of silk, full of snarles and incumbrances. Happy is he, whose bottom is wound up, and laid ready for work in the New Jerusalem.—For myself, dear Mother, I always feared sickness more than death, because sickness hath made me unable to perform those offices for which I came into the world, and must yet be kept in it ”

“ Was worlds of seas to quench thine ire:
O, precious ransom! which once paid,
The Consummatum est was said. [81]
And said by him, that said no more,
But sealed it with his sacred breath:
Thou, then, thus hast dispurged our score,
And dying wert the death of death;
Be now whilst on thy name we call,
Our life, our strength, our joy, our all.
Sir Henry Wotton.
Stretched on the cross, the Saviour dies,
Hark! his expiring groans arise!
See, how the sacred crimson tide
Flows from his hands, his feet, his side.
But life attends the deathful sound,
And flows from every bleeding wound ”

“ To the Right Honourable The Lady Mary Wotton Baronness, and to her Three Noble Daughters.
{ KATHERIN STANHOP. THE LADY { MARGARET TUFTON. { ANN HALES. Since Bookes seeme by custome to Challenge a dedication, Justice would not allow, that what either was, or concern'd Sir Henry Wotton, should be appropriated to any other Persons; Not only for that nearnesse of Aliance and Blood (by which you may chalenge a civil right to what was his;) but, by a title of that intirenesse of Affection, which was in you to each other, when Sir Henry Wotton had a being upon Earth. ”

“ Wotton, after proceeding Master of Arts in his twentieth year, left Oxford, and passed a year in France; and then going on to Geneva, formed there the friendship of Casaubon and of Beza. He remained nine years in Germany and Italy, 307and returned to England an accomplished and enlightened, as well as a learned man; being, says his biographer, “a dear lover of painting, sculpture, chemistry, and architecture.” He was soon appreciated by Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, then high in favour with Elizabeth; and became one of that nobleman’s secretaries, and the most devoted of his friends. ”

“ And the same night that he had his induction, he said to Mr. Woodnot, "I now look back upon my aspiring thoughts, and think myself more happy than if I had attained what then I so ambitiously thirsted for. And I now can behold the Court with an impartial eye, and see plainly that it is made up of fraud and titles, and flattery, and many other such empty, imaginary, painted pleasures; pleasures, that are so empty, as not to satisfy when they are enjoyed. ”

“ He is supposed about this time to have written his Arcades; for, while he lived at Horton, he used sometimes to steal from his studies a few days, which he spent at Harefield, the house of the countess dowager of Derby, where the Arcades made part of a dramatick entertainment.
He began now to grow weary of the country, and had some purpose of taking chambers in the inns of court, when the death of his mother set him at liberty to travel, for which he obtained his father's consent, and sir Henry Wotton's directions ”

“ This house was then kept by John Churchman, sometime a Draper of good note in Watling-street, upon whom poverty had at last come like an armed man, and brought him into a necessitous condition; which, though it be a punishment, is not always an argument of God's disfavour ”

“ Owing to the almost perfect identity of these verses with some by a German poet, George Rudolph Weckerlin, a doubt has been expressed in a German work as to whether they are to be considered the production of Sir Henry Wotton, or a translation from the Geistliche und weltliche Gedichte of Weckerlin, a lyrical poet of considerable eminence and popularity in his day, and who died in London in 1651. Weckerlin was employed in important affairs connected with the Protestants in Germany during the Thirty Years' War, as secretary to an embassy in London from that country ”

“ John's College, Cambridge, where he embraced the Protestant faith. He was committed to the Tower and Marshalsea for having preached in favour of Lady Jane Grey; and on his release he left the kingdom, till the accession of Elizabeth, by whom he was made Bishop of Worcester. In 1570, he was translated to London, in 1576 to York, and in 1588, he died: his sermons are still admired, and a most virtuous character is given him by Fuller. ”

“ The second and third brothers were Richard and William, who ventured their lives to purchase honour in the wars of the Low Countries, and died officers in that employment. Charles was the fourth, and died fellow of New College in Oxford. Henry was the sixth, who became a menial servant to the Crown in the days of King James, and hath continued to be so for fifty years; during all which time he hath been Master of the Revels; a place that requires a diligent wisdom, with which God hath blessed him. ”

“ In this time of retirement, he had many conflicts with himself, whether he should return to the painted pleasures of a Court-life, or betake himself to a study of Divinity, and enter into Sacred Orders, to which his dear mother had often persuaded him. These were such conflicts, as they only can know, that have endured them; for ambitious desires, and the outward glory of this world, are not easily laid aside; but at last God inclined him to put on a resolution to serve at his altar. ”

“ Landenberg, at all hazards, must be prevented from joining the enemy; and, considering the terms on which they stood with one another, he trusted 'his good brother would not stick at a small thing with him.' If Henry was dainty in such matters, he would himself undertake the retribution. He had old provocations of his own besides the present, which could be settled simultaneously. [52] Wotton could but repeat his conviction that the King would never consent. It was rather for the Emperor, he thought, to use present compulsion, than for the English Government to stoop to treachery. ”

“ For eighteen months Wotton remained in England, taking an active share in the proceedings of the privy council. On 2 April 1553 he was commissioned with Sir Thomas Chaloner the elder [q. v.] to proffer England's mediation with a view to ending the war between France and the emperor. The genuineness of the council's desire for peace is open to doubt, as the war gave Northumberland his only chance of supplanting Mary without Charles V's interference. On the failure of the duke's conspiracy Chaloner was recalled as a pronounced reformer, and Wotton was left as resident ambassador in France. ”

“ She was sheathed with metal and perfectly cannon-proof. She had room for five hundred men, and provisions for six months. A picture of this famous ship is in the royal collections at Windsor’ (Harrison) . In the same year Weston, with the universal consent of the English knights, was granted the right of succession to the priories of England and Ireland. In 1524 he was sent on an embassy to the court of Henry VIII on behalf of the order; on 27 June 1527 he was appointed, by a bull of the Grand Master, lord prior of England, on the death of Prior Thomas Docrai or Docwra. ”

“ He commenced his retreat before the return of his messenger, and if Henry had gone forward he would have found himself at Paris alone. The Imperialists reached Chasteau Thierry. At that point they turned north towards Soissons. On the nth of September, the day on which Arras reached Boulogne, a French commission formally attached itself to the army. A proclamation was issued that the soldiers should do no more injury, and peace was generally talked of. On the 14th D'Annebault came in in person. On the 17th Granvelle told Wotton that the French offered reasonable conditions ”

“ In vain Wotton protested. The French king affected to be sorry. The Constable said that France was large; things happened which ought not to happen, yet could not be helped; the adventurers should be put down, if possible.
"These men brought nothing with them out of England," Wotton doggedly replied, "and were in such good credit with the people in France that nobody would lend them a shilling, and yet had they found ships which they had armed, and manned with good numbers of soldiers. What would the queen's highness think?" ”

“ But the word for lie—being the hinge upon which the conceit was to turn—was not so expressed in Latin, as would admit—in the hands of an enemy especially—so fair a construction as Sir Henry thought in English.’ Later in the ‘Life’ (ibid. 138–9) , Walton writes that ‘a friend of Sir Henry Wotton’s being designed for the employment of an Ambassador, came to Eton’ (of which Wotton was Provost) ‘and requested from him some experimental rules for his prudent and safe carriage in his negociations ”

“ Science also attracted him, and he is said when in his twentieth year to have 'read in Latin three lectures "do oculo," wherein he described the form, the motion, and the curious composure of the eye' (Walton) , At Oxford, despite Wolton's five years' seniority, he began a friendship with John Donne [q. v.] , which was only terminated by the latter's death. Alberico Gentili [q. v.] , professor of civil law, also became warmly attached to him. Wotton's father died in 1587, leaving him a beggarly annuity of a hundred marks. ”

“ Charles, if he so pleased, might use his opportunity; and it might prove less favourable than his hopes represented it. At all events, Henry would not tolerate the injuries of English subjects; the Emperor had sent no answer to his letter, and Wotton could not discover his intentions; the task of dealing with him was entrusted to the dexterous and fearless Paget; and the King with his owu hand instructed the ambassador in the terms which he was to use in detailing the injuries of which England complained. ”

“ The poetry of Wotton, though chiefly written for the amusement of his leisure, and through the excitement of casual circumstances, possesses the invaluable attractions of energy, simplicity, and the most touching morality; it comes warm from the heart, and whether employed on an amatory or didactic subject, makes its appropriate impression with an air of sincerity which never fails to delight. ”

“ How happy is he born and taught
That serveth not another's will
Whose armour is his honest thought
And simple truth his highest skill
Whose passions not his masters are ”

“ First, that he bottometh very much of his discourse upon a very erroneous principle, which yet he seemeth to be so deeply in love with, that he hath repeated it, I verily believe, some hundreds of times in that work: to wit this; That whatsoever is first in the intention is last in execution, and e converso. Which is an error of that magnitude, that I cannot but wonder how a person of such acuteness and subtilty of wit could possibly be deceived with it. All logicians know there is no such universal maxim as he buildeth upon. ”

“ Absolutely penniless, Wotton bent all his energies anew to the task of obtaining lucrative employment. In the spring he published his short and jejune tract on architecture, a paraphrase of Vitruvius, which Chamberlain described as ‘well spoken of, though his own castles have been in the air’ (Cal. State Papers, 10 April 1624) . James I suggested that he might in course of time succeed Sir Julius Cæsar as master of the rolls, and gave him the reversion. Happily a more suitable office was found for him. In April 1623 Thomas Murray's death had vacated the provostship of Eton. ”