Among the few who remembered George Villiers with gratitude, or who endeavoured to rescue his memory from opprobrium, Henry Wotton, his biographer, appears in a conspicuous and favourable light. Most of the eminent men of the time had been reared, and even trained, to public service, during the reign of Elizabeth, when strength of purpose, honesty, ability, and learning were the grounds of promotion in all the minor, as well as in the superior departments of the State. Henry Wotton, born in 1568, at Bocton Hall,[[240]] in Kent, and descended from an ancient family, was a thoroughly-educated English gentleman. After some years’ instruction at Winchester School, he was entered at New College, Oxford. Close to that grand old college was Hart Hall, a sort of subsidiary establishment; and Wotton, perhaps from being a freshman, had his rooms in Hart Hall Lane. Here his chamber-fellow, as he was then called, was Richard Baker, the historian, who was entered at the same time, and born the same year, and whose predilections for letters resembled those of young Henry Wotton. The inestimable advantage of a companionship of such a nature cannot be too highly appreciated by those who watch the dawning mind of youth, and who desire them to have recourse to the only sure preventive of dissipation--employment. Baker, well known for his Chronicle, was also a writer on theological subjects, and a young man of sincere piety. His friend Wotton was then less distinguished for historical studies than for his wit and learning. For some reason, not explained, he left New College, and established himself in the then old-fashioned tenement of Queen’s College, in the High Street, where he was soon complimented by being selected to write a play for the inmates of that house to perform. He produced a tragedy called “Tancredo,” which was declared to manifest, in a very striking manner, his abilities for composition, his wit, and knowledge. Thus, like the gay Templar, or the student of Gray’s Inn, did the young Oxonian delight in the drama--which formed, to borrow a French expression, a sort of debût for wits; nor did Baker, though serious and plodding, despise the drama; and even when, in after life, he had been knighted at Theobald’s by King James, and Baker’s reputation stood high, he vindicated the stage against Prynne, in a work entitled “Theatrum Redivivum.”
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, and 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. The parallel which he has left the world between Essex and Buckingham, and which Lord Clarendon answered, is written with an enthusiasm for the character of Wotton’s first patron, which can only have sprung from intimate acquaintance, and from that true affection which generous, impulsive natures, such as that of Essex, are likely to inspire.
With Essex, Wotton remained until his patron was apprehended and attainted of treason; then he fled to France, and scarcely had he landed there when he heard that the Earl had been beheaded. He took refuge from solitude, and perhaps peril, in Florence, where the Grand Duke[[241]] of Tuscany received him cordially. James I. was then reigning over Scotland; a plot threatened his life, and the Grand Duke having become aware of this, by some intercepted letters, sent Wotton, in disguise, to warn James of his danger. Wotton spoke Italian perfectly; he, therefore, assumed the name and dress of an Italian, and, thus disguised, set off on his hazardous journey. Having been so deeply concerned in the affairs of Essex, he did not venture to pass into England. He travelled, therefore, into Norway, and, by that route, reached Scotland. He found the King at Stirling, and was introduced into his presence under the name of Octavio Baldi. He soon found an opportunity of disclosing himself to the King, and, after remaining three months in Scotland, he returned to Florence.
Queen Elizabeth’s death brought him back to England, where his favour with the new King was ensured. When James I. saw Sir Edward Wotton, he inquired if “he knew not Henry Wotton?”
"I know him well," was the reply, “for he is my brother.”
The King then asked where he was, and ordered him to be sent for. When Wotton first saw his Majesty, James took him into his arms, and saluted him by the name of Octavio Baldi; then he knighted him, and nominated him Ambassador to Venice. But it was not easy, in those days, to avoid giving offence. The new Ambassador, passing through Augsburg, met there, amongst other learned men, his old friend, one Christopher Flecamore, who requested him to write something in his Album, a book which even then Germans usually carried about with them; Sir Henry, complying, wrote a definition of an Ambassador in the Album. The sentence was given in Latin, as being a language common to all that erudite company, but the definition was, in English, this--“An Ambassador is an honest man sent to lie abroad for the good of his country.”
This sentence was imparted, eight years afterwards, to one of King James’s literary opponents, a jealous Romanist priest, named Scioppius, who printed it in a work directed against the royal polemic, and which pretended to show upon what a degraded principle a Protestant acted. The book reached King James, who had the mortification of hearing that this definition of an ambassador, which happened to be then the correct one, whatever may now be the case, was exhibited in glass windows at Venice. For some time James was displeased, but on receiving Sir Henry’s explanation, he forgave him, saying that the delinquent “had commuted sufficiently for a greater offence.”
The various embassies in which Sir Henry Wotton was engaged detained him abroad until 1623, when he came home finally. A great piece of preferment was then vacant; and, by the influence of the Duke of Buckingham, it was bestowed on Wotton. This was the post of Provost of Eton; but one great obstacle presented itself--Wotton had been everything that was useful and important, but he was not in orders; nevertheless, anything could be accomplished in those days--he was made a deacon, and held the Provostship from 1623 to 1639, when he died. The appointment did no discredit to him who procured it, for Wotton was an able, honest man, singularly liberal in his religious tenets for his time. He ordered that upon his grave, in the Chapel of Eton College, there should be a sentence, in Latin, decrying the itch for disputation as the real disease of the Church. He was a great enemy to disputation. On being asked, “Do you believe that a Papist can be saved?” he answered, “You may be saved without knowing that; look to yourself.” When he heard some one railing at the Romanists with stupid rancour, he said:--“Pray, sir, forbear, till you have studied these points better. There is an Italian proverb which says, ‘he that understands amiss concludes worse;’ forbear of thinking that the farther you go from the Church of Rome the nearer you are to God.”
Nevertheless, he was, like most lenient judges of the faith of others, a staunch adherent to his own. “Where was your religion to be found before Luther?” wrote a jocose Priest at Rome, seeing Sir Henry in an obscure corner of a church, listening to the beautiful service of the Vespers, and enjoying the exquisite music of a faith which appeals so much to the senses. “Where yours is not to be found--in the written Word of God,” was the answer, scribbled on a piece of paper underneath the interrogation.
Another evening Sir Henry sent one of the choir boys to his priestly friend with this question:--“Do you believe those many thousands of poor Austrians damned who were excommunicated because the Pope and the Duke of Venice could not agree about their temporalities?” To which inquiry the priest wrote in French underneath--"Excusez moi, Monsieur."