Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 37.djvu/77

 

MATTHEW, TOBIE (1577–1655), courtier, diplomatist, and writer, was born at Salisbury on 3 Oct. 1577, ‘a little after three of the clock in the afternoon’ (, Vicaria Leodiensis, 1724, p. 174), his father, Tobie or Tobias Matthew [q. v.], afterwards archbishop of York, being at that time dean of Christ Church, Oxford, where Wood states, erroneously, that Tobie was born. He matriculated from Christ Church 13 March 1589–90, and graduated B.A. 5 June 1594, M.A. 5 July 1597. While still at Oxford the advantages of ‘pregnant parts’ and ‘a good tutor’ combined to render him a ‘noted orator and disputant,’ and his father conceived the greatest hopes of him from his vivacity. The same quality made him a welcome guest at the houses of the great, and as early as 1595 he acted the esquire's part in Essex's ‘Device’ on the queen's day (Rowland Whyte to Sir Robert Sidney, Sidney Papers, i. 362). In 1596 he had a severe illness, aggravated by a misunderstanding with his father, who was inclined to be severe and exacting (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1595–1597, p. 168). In 1598 he was staying with young Throgmorton in France (, Letters, Camd. Soc., p. 10); later in the year the domestic atmosphere was again troubled owing to Tobie's debts. On 15 May 1599 he was admitted of Gray's Inn. On 3 Oct. 1601 he entered parliament as member for Newport, Cornwall, and about the same time laid the foundation of an intimacy with Francis Bacon, which only terminated with the latter's death in 1626. In March 1603 he undertook to deliver a letter from Bacon to James I, and Bacon describes him as a very worthy and rare young gentleman. On 25 March 1604 he re-entered parliament as member for St. Albans, vice Sir Francis Bacon, who elected to serve for Ipswich (Returns of Memb. of Parl. i. 444). In 1604, in accordance with a wish that he had long entertained, he resolved to visit Italy, having ‘often heard of the antiquities and other curiosities of’ that country. But his parents refused their consent. His mother, who was puritanically inclined, and seems to have early suspected his bias towards Roman catholicism, was most reluctant to lose sight of him, and offered to settle her fortune on him if he would stay in England and marry. But deceitfully announcing that he intended to go to France only, he obtained his parents' permission, on the express condition that he did not stay long abroad, and on no account visited either Italy or Spain. With a license to travel for three years, dated 3 July 1604 (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1603–1610, p. 128), he sailed for France early in the following year, and once out of England he did not stop until he reached Florence. While there he was surprised and touched by a kind letter from his father, begging him to return after satisfying his curiosity, and urging him to be true to the protestant religion. His protestant principles were, he says, at that time in no need of confirmation, but soon after this he met in Florence some English catholics, especially Sir George Petre and Robert Cansfield; and from one Partridge, nephew of Sir Henry Western, he received a sensational account of the liquefaction of the blood of St. Januarius—protestant testimony to the miracle, which was confirmed by that of another protestant, the Earl of Suffolk's eldest son. Subsequently Matthew moved to Siena, that he might ‘be with Italians only, in order to learn their language,’ and thence he went to Naples, and finally to Rome. At Rome he visited the famous jesuit Robert Parsons [q. v.], partly, as he says, out of curiosity, and partly ‘out of respect to one who might possibly do him an injury.’ Parsons at once set about converting him, and recommended him to read William Reynolds's ‘masterly “Reprehension of Dr. Whitaker.”’ At the same time he was most courteously received by Cardinal Pinelli, his conversion being evidently regarded as a foregone conclusion. He returned to Florence in an unsettled state, kept aloof from the little English colony, and lived ‘freely and dissolutely’ in a small house in a retired part of the town. During the spring of 1606 he was much impressed by the Florentine observance of Lent. He resolved impulsively to reform his life and change his religion, and was received into the Roman catholic communion at the close of March by Father Lelio Ptolomei, an Italian jesuit, whom he had frequently heard preach during Lent. He remained abroad for about six months after his conversion, and then set out for England, where he arrived, by way of France and Flanders, in September. He took up his abode in a French ordinary near the Tower of London, and at first kept his conversion secret, but subsequently