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Wotton, Sir Henry (1568-1639) |
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The English diplomat and poet who has gone down in diplomatic legend as the author of the epigram, often misquoted, that ‘An Ambassador is an honest man, sent to lie abroad for the good of his country’. Wotton (pronounced ‘Wootton’) was an amiable but impecunious dilettante and literary amateur. He did not find stable employment until knighted on the accession of James I and sent to Venice as resident ambassador. On his way out, in 1604, he stayed in Augsburg. Having already some reputation in the town, he was invited by a resident to write some bon mot in a notebook kept for the purpose, and the famous quotation was the result. It was intended, of course, as a pun on the word ‘lie’, which in this context could mean either ‘sojourn abroad’ or ‘tell lies abroad’. (It is not known whether Wotton also meant it to refer to having sexual relations.) Unfortunately for Sir Henry, while he appears to have conceived the saying in English, he wrote it out in Latin: ‘Legatus est vir bonus peregrè missus ad mentiendum Reipublicæ causâ.’ According to his friend Isaak Walton, ‘the word lie (being the hinge upon which the conceit was to turn) was not so expressed in Latin [mentiendum], as would admit (in the hands of an enemy especially) so fair a construction as Sir Henry thought in English’. This was his undoing, for the notebook eventually fell into the hands of a Catholic controversialist who used it in a polemic against James I published in 1611, presenting it as evidence that the king had sent a confessed liar to represent him abroad. James never entirely forgave Wotton the indiscretion which provided such ammunition to his enemies. The hopes cherished by the diplomat in 1612 of being the King\'s secretary were accordingly dashed, and Wotton was doomed to remain in Venice (with interludes elsewhere) until 1624. In all, he spent nearly twenty years as either resident ambassador or ambassador in ordinary in Venice, and ended his career as provost of Eton College. |
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