eclipsed, their honours blemished, and their renown obscured?' He finds in the vain attempts to assassinate Elizabeth a proof of divine favour and protection. The Lord hath said that His elect shall not be confounded with human wisdom; He hath said, and we may swear, that heaven and earth shall sooner perish than His word shall fail. Why then do the princes rage? Why then do the Pope and the King of Spain fret and fume against the Lord's Anointed? Against His chosen Vessel? Against His dear Virgin?'1 Wotton, although he had intended to return to England in the spring of 1594, remained at Geneva till nearly the end of August. The want of money for travelling and for the payment of his debts was probably the cause of delay. As the remittances he was expecting did not arrive, he finally borrowed money and bought a horse on the credit of Casaubon, to whom he owed thirty-three gold crowns for board and lodging, giving him an order for money which he expected to be sent to the Autumnal Mart at Frankfort. The total amount for which Casaubon was responsible was 263 gold crowns, besides the price of the horse, an enormous sum for a poor scholar, but which was intended to be repaid within a few weeks' time.2 Wotton left Geneva on Aug. 243, meaning to travel down the Rhine to Heidelberg and the Low Countries. He carried letters of introduction from Casaubon to Marquard Freher at Heidelberg, to Melchior Junius, Rector of the Academy at Strassburg, and two copies of Casaubon's recently printed edition of the Apology of Apuleius, one for Scaliger, one for the younger Dousa, both of them at Leyden. The letter to Junius has been preserved, and gives us another glimpse of Wotton at this time. 'A noble Englishman,' Casaubon describes him, 'a youth adorned with all the virtues, who has lived many years abroad in order that, returning home at length, he might truly recall the account of Ulysses, that he had seen the cities of many men, and known their minds. Wherever he comes, therefore, his first care is to meet with those from whose company he may depart a better and a wiser man.'4 1 pp. 84-91. * Casaubon to Wotton, Epist., pp. 578, 579. To Scaliger, p. 11. Pattison, p. 42. Casaubon to Marquard Freher. Hodie iter instituit Anglus quidam nobilis, cui literas ad te dedi, Frehere amicissime. a.d. IX Kal. Septemb. Ci xiv. Epist., p. 576. 'Qui tibi has litteras reddit, vir clarissime, nobilis Anglus est, iuvenis omnibus virtutibus ornatissimus. Is multos iam annos peregre versatur, ut We next hear of Wotton at Leyden, whence Scaliger wrote in November to Casaubon to say that the copy of Apuleius had been delivered.1 Wotton was back in England before the end of the year; but in the meantime, by his fault or misfortune, Casaubon was plunged into great trouble and embarrassment. The money which was to have been received at the Frankfort Mart had not arrived; none of Wotton's debts were paid, and his creditors came down on the impecunious scholar for their money. Casaubon was in despair; it seemed to his excitable mind that complete overthrow and ruin threatened him. To Wotton he wrote a pathetic letter begging and imploring that the money might be paid. This letter he sent to Scaliger to forward to Thomson, whom he asked to see that it was delivered. To Scaliger and Thomson, and to the French scholar and diplomatist Bongars, he related the whole story.3 Scaliger took up the case warmly and wrote himself to Thomson.4 At the next Frankfort Mart in the spring the money arrived and Casaubon was paid in full. By Casaubon's and his own biographers Wotton has been very much blamed for this incident. The original misfortune was not, however, as Casaubon admitted, Wotton's fault; and the delay in payment may have been due to the fact that there was no safe way of sending money to so distant a place as Geneva, save by the Frankfort Mart, where English traders would meet with traders from Geneva; and that Wotton was therefore compelled to wait till the next Mart in the spring to pay his debt. tandem domum revertens vere possit elogium Ulyssis referre, Tоλλâv åvůρúñav ἰδεῖν ἄστεα, καὶ νύον γνῶναι. Quacunque igitur venit, prima illi semper cura conveniendi viros, a quorum ovvovoia et melior et doctior possit discedere.... Genevae, a. d. X Kalend. Septemb. CIO IO XCIV.' Epist., p. 575. 1 'Apologiam tuam, vel potius meam, Wultonus nuper mihi reddidit. Lugduni Batavorum, XII Kalend. Decemb. cIo 10 XCIII.' Scal., Epist., p. 151. 2 Cas., Epist., pp. 578-9. 4 Scalig., Epist., p. 152. 3 Ibid., pp. 11, 578. 5 Casaubon to Scaliger a. d. XIII Kalend. Iunias CIO 10 XCV. 'Qui adversis meis doluisti, gaude nunc laetis, Vir nobilissime. Recrearunt me proximae nundinae Francofurtenses, tam felices mihi quam fuerunt superiores infaustae. W. satisfecit.'. . . Cas., Epist., p. 19. 'In molestias maximas, non sua culpa, me coniecerit ; sed perfidia quorundam mercatorum, quibus cum illo res saepe fuerat.' To Scaliger, Epist., p. 11. CHAPTER III IN THE SERVICE OF ESSEX; SECOND VISIT TO THE CONTINENT. 1594-1603 HENRY WOTTON's years of travel and study were now for the time over; he had returned to England to seek his fortune, endowed with great learning, much experience, and a wide knowledge of European politics and languages. He was then noted by many, Izaak Walton writes, both for his person and comportment; for indeed he was of a choice shape, tall of stature, and of a most persuasive behaviour; which was so mixed with sweet discourse and civilities, as gained him love from all persons with whom he entered into an acquaintance. And whereas he was noted in his youth to have a sharp wit, and apt to jest; that by time, travel, and conversation was so polished, and made so useful, that his company seemed to be one of the delights of mankind.' His character, as we shall find it determining his future career, was now formed. A wit and courtier, with the self-possession of a man of action, ready for any adventure and disguise, he was yet by nature and inclination a scholar and student; and beneath his cosmopolitan experience, and the taste and culture of Italy, he had preserved something of the simplicity and piety of the old Wottons, and an untouched devotion to the religion of his country. Whom, free from Germany's schisms, and lightness Having from these sucked all they had of worth And brought home that faith which you carried forth, his friend Donne wrote to him in a verse-epistle which, as Mr. Gosse has proved, belongs to about this period,2 and which gives us another glimpse of Wotton through contemporary eyes. But it is vain to search history for perfect beings. Izaak Walton, who saw every one in the light of his own beautiful and pious nature, has given to Wotton's life a character of sanctity which it may have possessed in his retired and religious old age, 2 Gosse, i, p. 76. 1 Chambers, ii, p. 9. but which one can hardly expect to find in one of the young courtiers of Elizabeth. There is plenty of evidence to show that observers, less friendly than Donne, watched Wotton with the distrust of the traditional Inglese Italianato'-with a certain suspicion of his sincerity and good faith. Even Donne's epistle might read like an admonition to Utopian youth grown old Italian', a warning against the notion that one could touch pitch and not be stained, could know vices and not act them. Throughout Wotton's active career we have the curious phenomenon of a man leading an unusually blameless life, in an age when great qualities were almost always associated with great faults and misdeeds, a man against whom a definite accusation was seldom or never brought, and who was yet frequently suspected of double-dealing and sinister motives. It would almost seem as if Wotton had learned only too well the need of disguise impressed on him by his old host in Siena; and finding in Italy 'that he who would be safe must not always be good', had decided that even for the virtuous, an appearance of subtlety and evil was a useful part of the mask which, for his own protection, the wise man must wear. However this may be, his habit of concealing his thoughts was enough to make him an object of suspicion; and, in any case, a travelled Englishman, returning home with foreign manners and foreign phrases, was but doubtfully regarded by his sturdy and straightforward compatriots. But Wotton's character was not without definite faults, both in reality and appearance. An undervaluer of money,' as Izaak Walton gently puts it, we shall find him, like most of his contemporaries, often in pecuniary difficulties, and, like them, not unwilling to accept secret gifts of money. But, perhaps, for the life he had chosen, his greatest fault was a certain carelessness or nonchalance of character, a bookish abstraction and love of quiet, which, in future years, made him sometimes forget absent friends and neglect routine obligations. For the present, however, he was but a youth, mingling, with the hopes and ambitions of youth, in the life and politics of the English Court. These years at the end of the sixteenth century are of supreme importance in the history of literature, although politically the great days of Elizabeth's reign were over. The Queen had grown old; the famous statesmen of her reign were either dead or dying, and the last years were troubled by personal quarrels and her own follies. The faction between Essex and the Cecils, which occupies the foreground of the history of this decade, was a strife, not for principle or faith, but for personal power and the favour of the Queen. But this struggle must always remain interesting on account of the great personalities involved, the dramatic incidents, and the tragic ending. We are, however, only concerned with the modest part played in it by the young Henry (or, as his contemporaries called him, Harry) Wotton. When he returned to England, late in the year 1594, his hope of winning the favour of some great man was speedily fulfilled; and by the solicitation of his brother, Sir Edward Wotton, he was taken, almost immediately, into the service of the Queen's favourite, the Earl of Essex.1 Essex at this time was not only ambitious of military glory, but had come to desire political power as well. As foreign affairs were the great preoccupation of the time when Elizabeth was excommunicated, and still at war with Spain, and continually threatened from abroad, Essex devoted his wealth and energies to obtaining early and accurate information from foreign countries. He maintained, in rivalry with Burghley, what might almost be called a foreign office of his own, with news-agents and spies; and by 1594 much of the foreign correspondence, greatly to the annoyance of the Cecils, passed through his hands. In 1595 Wotton entered the Middle Temple 2, but he was never called to the Bar. Already in the summer of this year he had become, as he wrote his friend Blotius, one of the secretaries of Essex.3 A paper, preserved among the Cecil MSS., signed 'Harry Wotton', giving the names of his political acquaintances 1 On Dec. 12, 1596, Wotton wrote to Casaubon that he had been two years in England (i, p. 302). Among a number of copies of Anthony Bacon's letters at Lambeth, is an unsigned letter to Sir Edward Wotton, endorsed Dec. 20, 1594: 'Sir, having found by my Lord that you had not as yet motioned unto his lordship that which it pleased you to mention unto me yesternight of my cousin your brother, I was so bold in kindness to take the opportunity to let my Lord understand your desire and purpose, which my Lord took very kindly, and with most honourable acknowledgement of the merit of your devoted love towards him, asserted without any solicitation; and assured me with great affection that he would receive him, place him, and employ him in the best sort, and do him what good he could hereafter' (Lambeth MS. 650, no. 214). This letter is almost certainly by Anthony Bacon, who was Essex's secretary, and a cousin to the Wottons (see Appendix III, under Francis Bacon). 2 Foster, Ox. 3 Vivo in aula apud Comitem Essexium, qui me secretarium loco dignatur, et (nisi Domini mei amor fallit) dignus est cui et ultima Thule serviat.' Wotton to Blotius, ex aula Nonis Iulianis cIo 10 x cv (Hofbibl. MS. 9737, Z. 17, f. 363). Two letters from Essex to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, written in Wotton's hand and signed by Essex, are preserved at Florence (Arch. Med. 4183, March 5, 1597, Jan. 18, 1598). |