Nicholas Wotton was an English diplomat, cleric and courtier.
Background
He was the fourth child of Sir Robert Wotton of Boughton Malherbe, Kent, by his wife Anne, daughter of Sir Henry Belknap. He was a descendant of Sir Nicholas Wotton, Lord Mayor of London in 1415 and 1430, who was Member of Parliament for the City from 1406 to 1429. Sir Edward Wotton (1489-1551) was his eldest brother.
Education
He certainly graduated not only doctor of civil and canon law, but of divinity as well, and in 1536 he was officially described as "sacrae theologiae, juris ecclesiastici et civilis professor".
Career
He early became vicar of Boughton Malherbe and of Sutton Valence, and later of Ivychurch, Kent; but, desiring a more worldly career, he entered the service of Cuthbert Tunstall, bishop of London.
On 11 March 1538-9 Wotton was one of the ambassadors sent to the Duke of Cleves to negotiate a marriage between Henry VIII and the duke's sister Anne, and a league with the German protestant princes against Charles V. His description of Anne's domestic virtues was, however, pitched in a minor key, and he remarked that she could not sing or play upon any instrument.
In July Henry nominated him archdeacon of Gloucester, though he was not admitted until 10 February 1539-40, and on 25 October 1539 commissioned him as sole ambassador to the dukes of Saxony and Cleves. As a further reward for his services Henry designed for him in the same month the bishopric of Hereford, which Bonner had just vacated by his translation to London.
On this and on subsequent occasions Wotton successfully resisted all attempts to make him a bishop. Meanwhile he accompanied Anne of Cleves to England in December 1539, and on 27 January 1539-40 was again sent as ambassador to her brother, reaching Cleves on 5 February.
In April he attended the duke to Ghent, on his negotiations with Charles V about the duchy of Gueldres, returning to Cleves in May. In July he had the unpleasant task of communicating to the duke Henry's repudiation of his sister. Naturally the negotiations for an alliance did not prosper; the Duke of Cleves threw himself into the arms of Francis I, and on 20 June 1541 Wotton was recalled.
He crossed over to England with the royal bride, but, unlike Thomas Cromwell, he did not lose the royal favour when the king repudiated Anne, and in 1541, having already refused the bishopric of Hereford, he became dean of Canterbury and in 1544 dean of York.
In 1543 he went on diplomatic business to the Netherlands, and for the next year or two he had much intercourse with the emperor Charles V.
He helped to conclude the treaty of peace between England and France in 1546, and was resident ambassador in France from 1546 to 1549. Henry VIII made Wotton an executor of his will and left him £300, and in 1549, under Edward VI, he became a secretary of state, but he only held this post for about a year.
In September 1558, Wotton was once more sent to France as commissioner with Arundel and Thirlby for drawing up terms of peace, in which England and Spain, France and Scotland should be included. Mary died while the conference was sitting at Cercamp, and Elizabeth immediately ordered Wotton to Brussels to renew with Philip the treaties existing between England and Spain. The peace negotiations were continued there, and subsequently at the congress of Cambray. The chief difficulty was the English demand for the restitution of Calais, and Wotton advocated a continuance of the war rather than acquiescence in its loss.
Philip, however, was bent on peace, and eventually on May 1559 Wotton was commissioned to receive the French king's ratification of the treaty of Cateau-Cambresis. He was then to return to England, leaving Sir Nicholas Throckmorton as resident ambassador in France.
Four days after Queen Mary's death the Spanish ambassador, De Feria, had urged Philip to offer Wotton a pension, as he would be one of Elizabeth's most influential councillors and possibly archbishop of Canterbury. The archbishopric seems to have been offered him, but even this temptation failed to move Wotton from his attitude of nolo episcopari. De Feria implies that there was some difficulty in persuading Wotton to take the oath of allegiance, 'etcetera, ' but while Canterbury was vacant Wotton performed, as he had done in 1553-5, some of the archiepiscopal functions. His religious opinions were catholic in tendency, and he absented himself from convocation in 1562.
Meanwhile in April 1560 he laid before the queen his views on the policy to be adopted with regard to Scotland, and on 26 May he and Cecil were commissioned ambassadors to Scotland to arrange terms with the French envoys for the evacuation of Scotland by the French, and other questions raised by the establishment of the Reformation in Scotland and return of Mary Queen of Scots.
On 5 June conferences were held at Newcastle, and subsequently at Berwick and Edinburgh. Cecil complained of having all the work to do, 'for Mr. Wotton, though very wise, loves quietness. ' On 6 July the treaty of Edinburgh was signed, and Wotton and Cecil returned to London.
Wotton remained in attendance upon the privy council until March 1564-5, when he was sent with Montagu and Haddon to Bruges to represent the grievances of English merchants to the Netherlands government, and to negotiate a commercial treaty. The negotiations dragged on for eighteen months, and it was not till October 1566 that Wotton returned to London.
He died there on 26 January 1566-7, and was buried in Canterbury Cathedral; a magnificent tomb, erected by his nephew Thomas, is engraved in Dart's 'Canterbury Cathedral' and in Hasted's 'Kent'; the inscription on it, composed by his nephew, has been frequently printed, lastly, and most accurately, in Mr. J. M. Cowper's 'Inscriptions in Canterbury Cathedral', 1807. Wotton's books and papers were presented by his nephew and heir to Cecil in 1583.
He had again visited the Netherlands before his death in London on the 26th of January 1567.
Achievements
Views
He was no more inconsistent than modern diplomatists in serving governments of opposite political and religious views. He made no pretence to theological learning; his clerical profession was almost a necessity for younger sons ambitious of political service, and his resolute refusal of the episcopacy on the ground of personal unfitness is testimony to his honesty. His simultaneous tenure of the deaneries of Canterbury and York is unique, but his ecclesiastical preferments were for the age comparatively scanty.
Personality
A master of Latin, French, Italian, and German, he humorously protested against his appointment as secretary, on the ground that he could neither write nor speak English. A scholar himself, he was a patron of learning in others, and figures as one of the chief interlocutors in the 'De Rebus Albionicis' (London, 1590, 8vo) of John Twyne, the Canterbury schoolmaster. Verses on him are extant in the Bodleian Library (Rawlinson MS. 840, ff. 293, 297, 299). He was small and slight in stature, and his effigy in Canterbury Cathedral represents him with a handsome bearded face.
Connections
His brother, Sir Edward Wotton (1489 - 1551), was made treasurer of Calais in 1540, and was one of those who took part in the overthrow of the protector Somerset. His son, Thomas Wotton (1521 - 1587) was the father of Sir Henry Wotton.