Sir Henry Wotton

WOTTON, (Sir) Henry.  b. Boughton Malherbe, near Maidstone, Kent, 1568, exact date not known; d. Eton College, December 1639. He was educated at Winchester School and New College, Oxford, before moving to Hart Hall (now Hertford College) and then to Queen’s College (BA, 1588). From 1589 to 1594 he travelled widely in Europe, learning German and Italian, and studying in Geneva with a celebrated scholar, Isaac Casaubon (1559-1614). He became secretary to the earl of Essex in 1594, and in that capacity he took part (with his friend John Donne*) in two inconclusive expeditions against Spain, in 1596 and 1597. He went to Ireland with Essex in 1599, but left Essex’s service before the ‘Essex...