THE DIPLOMATIST

SIR HENRY WOTTON

WHE

"Integer vitæ scelerisque purus."

HORACE, Odes I. xxii. 1.

HEN the same man at the same time combines in his single person the gifts of courtier, politician, scientist, philosopher, scholar, poet, and man of letters, a supreme degree of excellence is not to be expected in each of these varied attainments, and their fortunate possessor must needs be deemed accomplished, rather than great. That Sir Henry Wotton was accomplished beyond the compass of most men few will venture to dispute; that he was truly great fewer still, save partial friends like Izaak Walton, John Donne and Abraham Cowley, have ventured to assert. His natural and acquired endowments were undoubtedly both numerous and extraordinary; but he does not seem to have been gifted with those especial qualities which unite to make a distinguished statesman, or with that dogged perseverance which is essential to a literary genius. Possibly he squandered his energies upon too many pursuits to do full justice to each, as was often the case in those days, when specialisation had not attained its present prevalence. Yet he played an honourable, and by no means undistinguished, part at home and abroad for many years; while two, if not three, of his poems will be treasured for ever by those who can appreciate true poetry. His despatches are characterized by epigrammatic yet flowing prose; but it must be confessed that he does not appear to have effectively contributed to the final settlement of any diplomatic problem of first-rate importance during his numerous embassies. It is doubtless true that James I., with customary wisdom, sent his ambassador more than once to solve the insoluble, a circumstance which certainly militates against any marked degree of success. But Wotton does not seem to have been a diplomatist of the first

rank, as far as can be judged from his letters and despatches. His unquestionable learning and his graceful carriage, joined to a happy accident, endeared him to James. The King's superficial observation readily discerned personal accomplishments, and his own scholarship gave him an insight into real learning, when it was unostentatiously presented to him. But he seldom perceived that learning and a handsome person do not of necessity imply the possession of diplomatic ability. Thus he removed Wotton from that sphere of scholarly research in which he was best fitted to shine, and sent him on the Continent to achieve tasks for which he was wholly unfit. By this lack of discrimination, while he may have gratified his ambassador, he sent an insufficient representative of the power and will of Britain to the neighbouring princes, as they soon discovered to their profit.

It is presumptuous for a later chronicler to tread in the footsteps of Izaak Walton, whose life chiefly of the last years of Wotton exhibits a character-sketch drawn with surpassing delicacy and supreme tact. But the simplehearted old angler, who lived in an age untroubled by chronological qualms, has supplied but few dates, and there are some details of his hero's life unknown to him, which may be gleaned from a careful study of contemporary authorities. With these bare bones of fact the latter-day biographer must perforce content himself; since he cannot hope, let him do his utmost, to come within a measurable distance of honest Izaak's exquisite portraiture. Sir Henry Wotton, his rival diplomatists, and their loyal henchmen have left behind them a great mass of letters which are of supreme use in a survey such as the present, the bulk of which have been consulted, with most of the other available authorities. That more remain unexamined in the Record Office, in the library of Queen's College, Oxford, and in the British Museum, goes without saying; but a close investigation of these would not, in all probability, materially affect the conclusions to be set forth hereafter. It is sufficient to say that the estimate of Wotton's diplomatic talents, which has been derived from independent research, agrees in substance with that of Doctor Gardiner, and humbler historians can give no sounder authority for the men and matters of this particular period. Every fact or inference given below is based upon contemporary evidence, which is recorded in

the notes, and where errors, such as are unavoidable, are made, they are in the main due to the chronological inexactitude of writers who had not yet learned the value of strict accuracy in this important department of history. If the picture to be presented is less favourable than Wotton's numerous admirers are entitled to expect, every effort has been made to depict the man as he was, without idealisation and with an honest and whole-hearted respect for one who lived in the main a spotless life in one of the most corrupt periods of our annals.

Henry Wotton was the youngest son of Thomas Wotton, of Bocton Hall, Bocton-Malherb, which is situated about six miles east of Maidstone, in the very heart of Kent. Here for many previous generations the family of Wotton had dwelt in patriarchal fashion on their own estate, while some of its members had already won no mean distinction in statecraft and diplomacy. Dr. Nicholas Wotton, who, amongst his numerous appointments, was Dean of Westminster, had been Privy Councillor to Henry VIII., Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth, a circumstance which serves to show his cautious diplomatic talents. He had been sent on nine several embassies to foreign Courts, in which he has been justly credited with good service to his country. Thomas Wotton, the son of Sir Robert Wotton, was his nephew, who, scorning the unsubstantial glare of Court life, preferred to spend his days in the tranquil retirement of a country gentleman. He is said to have successfully resisted the allurements of knighthood and the promises of further favour made to him by Elizabeth, when she halted at his mansion during one of her splendid progresses; and to his death he remained true to his unambitious love of the calm countryside. Among his children by his first wife was Edward, who was knighted by the Queen and appointed to the important office of Comptroller of the Royal Household, in which he was continued by her successor, by whom he was raised to the peerage. Somewhere about the year 1566 his first wife died, leaving him with three sons and several daughters; but the sons, with their heirs male, died during the life of Sir Henry, as a pathetic letter of his to his nephew by

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Reliquia Wottonianæ (1672), p. iii. N.B.-Walton's life has no pagination; hence its pages have been here denoted by Roman numerals. Camden, Britannia (Gibson's Translation), col. 192. Idem, ibidem.

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marriage, Sir Edmund Bacon, sadly shows. So the ancient name became extinct in the direct line, to the infinite sorrow of its last possessor; and though the blood may by marriage have flowed into channels not less distinguished, it lost its distinctive mark when his name was engraved on his tomb at Eton.1

Thomas Wotton found that the cares of his family and estate could not be easily supported without the counsel and company of a wife; and when his widower's thoughts were turned towards a second marriage, he laid down for himself three indispensable conditions for his future partner. First, she was to have no children; secondly, she must be free from the subtle entanglements of the law; and thirdly, she must be of another stock than his own.' Bitter experience of the profitable delays of legal business had taught him the wholesome lesson not to add to his cares the lawsuits of a wife. But, in spite of his precautionary wisdom, his second wife fulfilled none of the foregoing requisites. She was one of his kindred, she had children, and she was involved in the tedious toils of the law. It was while he was endeavouring to settle one of his own claims that he met Eleanora, the widow of Robert Morton, of Kent, who was similarly employed; and, struck by her comely discretion, he made her his wife. Her personal charms and her intellectual endowments left him no reason to regret his unforeseen choice, and on March 30th, 1568, their only son, Henry, was born. Younger by several years than his half-brothers, he soon showed signs of that precosity which made him grow up into a distinguished scholar and a man of rare accomplishments. In his earliest boyhood his mother took sole charge of his education, but when he was old enough his father engaged a private tutor for him, and finally sent him to Winchester College, which even in those days of scholastic rigour was noted for the extreme severity of its discipline.*

In his sixteenth year he was entered as a gentleman commoner at New College, Oxford, where he matriculated on June 5th, 1584.5 He appears, like many students of his standing, to have had rooms at Hart Hall, where he may have met the famous historian Sir Richard Baker.

1 Reliquiæ, p. 477.

Idem (Life), pp. vi., vii.

Reliquiæ (Life), p. vii.

3 Wood (Bliss), Athena, Vol. II. col. 643. Register of the University of Oxford (Oxford Historical Society),

Vol. II. Part II. (Matriculations), p. 135.

6 Reliquiæ, p. 351.

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