Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 63.djvu/75

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Wotton
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Wotton

payment of five thousand pounds. This did not satisfy him, and he clung to office some weeks longer in the vain hope of extracting a viscountancy as a further compensation. He was excluded from the council on Charles I's accession on the ground of being a catholic (Gardiner, v. 419; Brewer, Court and Times of Charles I, i. 8), He retired to Boughton Malherbe, where he died early in 1626; the inquisitio post mortem was taken on 12 April (6 Charles I, vol. iii. no. 92).

Wotton married, first, on 1 Sept. 1575, Hester, daughter of Sir William Puckering, who died on 8 May 1592, and was buried in Boughton Malherbe church; and secondly, Margaret, daughter of Philip, third baron Wharton, who survived until 1652 (see Calendar of the Committee for Compounding, p. 2309; Addit. MS. 5494, f. 197; and Lords' Journals, vii. 302, 388, viii. 254, 315, ix. 118). Wotton had issue bv his first wife only, a son Thomas and a daughter Philippa, who married Sir Edmund Bacon. Thomas succeeded as second baron, but, being of weak health and a catholic, took little part in politics. He died, aged 43, on 2 April 1630, and was buried in Boughton Malherbe church; his widow was in February 1632-3 fined 500l. by the court of high commission for removing the font in the church to make room for her husband's tomb and for inscribing on it 'a bold epitaph' stating that he died a roman catholic (Court and Times of Charles I, ii. 227; Laud, Works, v. 311). He married, on (6 June 1608, Mary (1590-1658), daughter of Sir Arthur Throckmorton, and had issue four daughters: Catherine, who inherited Boughton Malberbe, and married, first, Henry. lord Stanhope, by whom she was mother of Philip Stanhope, second earl of Chesterfield [q. v.]; secondly. John Polyander à Kirkhoven [see Kirkhoven, Catherine]; and, thirdly, Daniel O'Neill [q.v.]; Hester (d. 1649), who was third wife of Baptist Noel, third viscount Campden [q. v.]; Margaret, who married Sir John Tufton; and Anne, who married Sir Edward Hales, father of Sir Edward Hales, titular earl of Tenterden [q. v.]

[Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1580-1625; Lansdowne MSS. xlv. 6, 1. 87. lxii. 54, lxxix. 19. cxi 37; Addit. MSS. 20770 f. 23. 34176 ff. 37-43, 49, 80 (corresp. with Sir William Twyslen); Ashmole MSS. 232 f. 71. 582 f. 411. 1132 f. 3; Collin's Letters and Memorials, vol. ii.; Birch's Mem of Elizabeth, i. 157; Winwood's Memorials, ii. 151; Brewer's Court and Times of James I, i. 132-3. 176-7. 451-5; Cal. Hatfield MSS.; Cal. Buccleuch MSS.; Hist. MSS, Comm. 5th Rep. App. p. 487; Official Return Memb. of Parl.; Reg. P. C. Scotl., ed. Manson; Camden's Annals and Britannia, ed. Gough; Baker's Chron.; Spedding's Bacon; Brown's Genesis U.S.A.; Fortescue Papers (Camden Soc.), pp. 38,43; Gardiner's Hist. of England; Reliquiæ Wottonianæ, id. 1685; Strype's Works {general index); A. W. Fox's Book of Bachelors, 1899 (contains various errors respecting the Wotton family); Hasted's Kent, esp. ii. 429; Archleologia Cantiana {general index); Burke's Extinct and G. E. C[okayne]'s Peerages; authorities cited in text.]

A. F. P.


WOTTON, Sir HENRY (1568–1639) diplomatist and poet, was born in 1568 at Boughton Hall, in the parish of Boughton Malherbe, in Kent. He was grandson of Sir Edward Wotton (1489–1551) [q. v.], and fourth son of Thomas Wotton (1521–1587), being only son of bis father's second marriage with Eleanor, daughter of Sir William Finch, and widow of Robert Morton of Kent. Edward Wotton, first baron Wotton [q. v.], was his eldest half-brother, After receiving some instruction at home from his mother and a tutor, Henry was sent to Winchester school, and at the age of sixteen proceeded as a commoner to New College, Oxford, matriculating on 5 June 1584, Two years later he migrated to Queen's College, and while an undergraduate there he wrote a play called 'Tancredo,' which was apparently based on Tasso's recently published 'Gerusalemme Liberate.' Wotton's effort is lost. Science also attracted him, and he is said when in his twentieth year to have 'read in Latin three lectures "do oculo," wherein he described the form, the motion, and the curious composure of the eye' (Walton), At Oxford, despite Wolton's five years' seniority, he began a friendship with John Donne [q. v.], which was only terminated by the latter's death. Alberico Gentili [q. v.], professor of civil law, also became warmly attached to him. Wotton's father died in 1587, leaving him a beggarly annuity of a hundred marks. He supplicated for the degree of B.A. on 6 June 1588, and then left the country for a long tour on the continent of Europe, which seems to have occupied him nearly seven years.

He first proceeded to the university of Altdorf, where he met Edward, lord Zouche [q.v.], a regular correspondent of his in later years. From Altdorf Wotton passed to Linx, where be witnessed some experiments carried out by Kepler. He also visited Ingolstadt and Vienna, and early in 1592 pushed on to Rome, where he was introduced to Cardinals Deltarmine and Allen. After a few months, which be divided among Naples, Genoa, Venice, and Florence, he arrived at Geneva on 22 June 1593; he lodged with the scholar