18 Facts About Henry Wotton

Sir Henry Wotton was an English author, diplomat and politician who sat in the House of Commons in 1614 and 1625.

About 1589 Henry Wotton went abroad, with a view probably to preparation for a diplomatic career, and his travels appear to have lasted for about six years.

Henry Wotton travelled by way of Vienna and Venice to Rome, and in 1593 spent some time at Geneva in the house of Isaac Casaubon, to whom he contracted a considerable debt.

Henry Wotton returned to England in 1594, and in the next year was admitted to the Middle Temple.

In 1602, he was living at Florence, and a plot to murder James VI of Scotland having come to the ears of the grand duke of Tuscany, Henry Wotton was entrusted with letters to warn the king of the danger, and with Italian antidotes against poison.

Henry Wotton was well received by James, and remained for three months at the Scottish court, retaining his Italian incognito.

Henry Wotton then returned to Florence, but on receiving the news of James's accession hurried to England.

James knighted him, and offered him the embassy at Madrid or Paris; but Henry Wotton, knowing that both these offices involved ruinous expense, desired rather to represent James at Venice.

Henry Wotton left London in 1604 accompanied by Sir Albertus Morton, his half-nephew, as secretary, and William Bedell, the author of an Irish translation of the Bible, as chaplain.

Henry Wotton spent most of the next twenty years, with two breaks, at Venice.

Henry Wotton helped the Doge in his resistance to ecclesiastical aggression, and was closely associated with Paolo Sarpi, whose history of the Council of Trent was sent to King James as fast as it was written.

Henry Wotton had offended the scholar Caspar Schoppe, who had been a fellow student at Altdorf.

In 1611, Schoppe wrote a scurrilous book against James entitled Ecclesiasticus, in which he fastened on Henry Wotton a saying which he had incautiously written in friend, Christoff Fleckhammer's, album years before.

Henry Wotton was at the time on leave in England, and made two formal defences of himself, one a personal attack on his accuser addressed to Mark Welser of Strassburg, and the other privately to the king.

Henry Wotton obtained no diplomatic employment for some time, but seems to have finally won back the royal favour by his parliamentary support for James's claim to impose arbitrary taxes on merchandise.

Henry Wotton was sent to the Hague and, in 1616, he returned to Venice.

At his departure, the emperor presented him with a valuable jewel, which Henry 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.

Henry Wotton did not neglect the duties of his provostship, and was happy in being able to entertain his friends lavishly.