‘perhaps through discontent of a shrewd wife, a burthen of children, and a benefice unequal to his desires, he brought his purpose out of England.’ Wadsworth became an officer of the inquisition in Seville, receiving from the king of Spain a pension of forty ducats a month. Five years later, in 1610, his wife and children arrived, and also joined the catholic faith. From 1615 to 1620 Wadsworth engaged in correspondence with his early college friend and neighbour in a Suffolk parsonage, William Bedell [q. v.], afterwards bishop of Kilmore, in support of his new beliefs. The argument is published in the rare ‘Copies of certain Letters which have passed between Spain and England in Matter of Religion,’ London, 1624, 4to. Reprinted in Gilbert Burnet's ‘Life of Bedell,’ London, 1692, 8vo; Dublin, 1736, 8vo. His interesting correspondence with Sir Robert Phelips [q. v.], chiefly about the Spanish match, from 1618 has not been published (Hist. MSS. Comm. 3rd Rep. App. xviii. 282, 284). Wadsworth became steward or agent to Sir Robert Shirley [q. v.], and, on the proposed Spanish match, was appointed English tutor to the Infanta Maria. In a letter to the Duke of Buckingham, written from Madrid, 11 Nov. 1623 (Goodman, Court of James I, ed. 1839, ii. 319), he reports that his pupil ‘proceeds very cheerfully to learn English.’ ‘A Grammar, Spanish and English,’ London, 1622, 8vo, of which Professor Knapp owns a copy, may have been prepared by Wadsworth for the infanta previous to this time. Wadsworth died of consumption on 30 Nov. 1623, and was buried at Madrid.
[T. W. Jones's Life of Bedell (Camden Soc.), 1872, p. 95; The English Spanish Pilgrim, by the son, James Wadsworth, 1629, 4to; Strype's Annals, vol. iii. pt. i. p. 421.]
WADSWORTH, JAMES (1604–1656?), renegade and Spanish scholar, youngest son of James Wadsworth (1572?–1623) [q. v.], was born in Suffolk in 1604, and accompanied his mother when six years old to Spain. He was educated at Seville and Madrid, and in 1618 went to the newly founded English Jesuit College of St. Omer, where he remained four years. In 1622 he sailed with several other students on a mission to Spain. The ship was captured by Moorish pirates, the young men carried to Algiers, and sold as slaves. Their adventures, a manuscript account of which, differing from Wadsworth's own, is at Burton Manor, Somerset (Hist. MSS. Comm. 1st Rep. App. p. 61), were made by the jesuits into a ‘tragicall comedy, whereby they got much money and honour’ (English Spanish Pilgrim, 1630, p. 47). Upon his release Wadsworth joined his parents at Madrid in time to serve as interpreter to James Hay, earl of Carlisle, who had just arrived (1623) with Prince Charles. Wadsworth's hope of permanent employment in the infanta's suite failed with the breaking of the match; but her influence procured to him and his brother the payment of their father's pension at least for a time after his death.
Philip now gave Wadsworth a commission in the army in Flanders, with a ‘viaticum’ of two hundred crowns. Henceforth he styled himself ‘Captain,’ but he probably never reached the Low Countries. Already tired of the jesuits, he made for England (December 1625), professed himself a convert from popery, and offered his services at once to Laud and to the English romanists. The designs of the latter he promptly imparted to William Trumbull [q. v.], clerk of the council (‘Demonstrance by Captain James Waddesworth, how and in what manner he has served his King and Country, especially the Lord his Grace of Canterbury, unto the Hazard of his Life,’ at the P.R.O., State Papers, Charles I, vol. cxxvi. fol. 73).
Proceeding to Brussels, and again in 1626 to Paris, Wadsworth was well received by Gondomar and the Marquis Spinola, but after the former's death was imprisoned six months in Paris, ostensibly for debt. Upon his release, by his mother's means, he passed as a Spaniard to Calais, where he was denounced by his old schoolfellow, George Gage [q. v.], as a spy of Buckingham, and thrown into prison for ten months. There he probably commenced his ‘English Spanish Pilgrim,’ and on reaching England (1628) petitioned the Earl of Pembroke, vice-chancellor, for license to make a collection in the university of Oxford to help to print it (Hist. MSS. Comm. 4th Rep. App. p. 464). A few sums were received, and it appeared at London in 1629, 4to (Grenville Library, Huth Cat.); 2nd edit., with a second part, ‘Further Observations,’ London, 1630, 4to. From that time until about 1648, or later, Wadsworth was actively engaged as a pursuivant, even giving evidence against Laud on his trial (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1643–4, p. 232; State Trials, iv. 547).
This business appears, however, not to have been always profitable, for he presented more than one petition for moneys due out of ‘popish relics seized on his information,’ or as recompense for his bringing jesuits and papists to conviction (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1633–4, p. 319; Hist. MSS. Comm. 5th Rep. App. p. 102, and 6th Rep. App. p. 159; Lords' Journals, vi. 27, ix. 27). The last heard of him is Sanderson's account (Life of
