Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 62.djvu/194

 he was accredited with the Duke of Suffolk and Nicholas West [q. v.] on a special embassy to France to congratulate Francis I on his accession. It was on this occasion that Suffolk married the French queen (widow of Louis XII), but that step was known to neither of his brother envoys.

Wingfield accompanied Mary of France from Calais to England on 2 May (Letters and Papers, iii. 4406; Chron. of Calais, p. 17), perhaps to press his claim to exemption from the act just passed resuming royal grants. The claim was not allowed, but he remained at Calais, apparently discharging his former duties, and appears to have been the ‘master deputy’ instructed to report on the French naval preparations in August 1515. About the same time he was instructed by Henry, in a despatch addressed to him as ‘deputy of Calais,’ to proceed on a fresh mission to Francis I. He was directed among other matters to advance the project of an interview between the two sovereigns, and to pave the way for overtures for the surrender of Tournay. He was back at Calais in September. He was by no means a subservient official, for he more than once refused to execute orders he judged prejudicial to Calais until after reconsideration by the king.

In June 1516 Wingfield, with Cuthbert Tunstall [q. v.], was again accredited to the court of Brussels. Charles had on 23 Jan. succeeded to the crown of Castille, and Henry was anxious to secure his friendship. Wingfield was commissioned to invite him to visit England on his way from the Netherlands to Spain, and to offer him a loan of 20,000 marks (13,333l. 6s. 8d.) towards his expenses. The offer was declined, and on 1 Sept. Wingfield returned to Calais, resuming his functions as deputy and as continental intelligencer to Wolsey. On 26 Aug. he was appointed commissioner to sit at Calais on 1 Sept. 1517 and adjudicate the disputes between English and French merchants. On 5 May and again on 5 Nov. 1518 Wingfield was nominated, together with the treasurer and secretary of Calais, to receive payment of instalments of 50,000 francs each due to Henry under the convention with Louis XII on his marriage with the Princess Mary. On 4 March 1519 Wingfield received a grant in tail male of the reversion of the manors of Donyngton, Cretyngham, Clopton Halle, and Ilkettyshall, Suffolk, upon the death of Elizabeth, countess of Oxford. Before 15 May he resigned his post as deputy of Calais, receiving a grant of 200l. a year for life. On the 25th he left Calais ‘most honourably spoken of by all there,’ amid the ‘weeping eyes’ of the inhabitants. He proceeded to Montreuil, probably to confer with the French commissioners as to the meeting of the two kings. On his return to England he was one of the four ‘sad and ancient knights’ placed by the council in the king's privy chamber with the duty of checking his extravagance (, p. 598). He was also appointed, with Sir Edward Belknap and Sir John Cutte, an inspector of ordnance.

Wingfield's high favour with the king, who designated him one of his ‘trusty and near familiars,’ led to his appointment early in 1520 as successor to Sir Thomas Boleyn, the English ambassador at the court of France. His salary was fixed at 1l. a day. He left England on 4 Feb. His despatch to Wolsey, giving an account of his reception by Francis I at Cognac, is dated 8 March. The arrangements for the projected interview between Henry and Francis were incorporated in a treaty which Wingfield negotiated by means of constant personal interviews with Francis. At the Field of the Cloth of Gold (7 June) Wingfield rode as a knight of the king's chamber. When Francis grew suspicious of the purport of the subsequent interview between Henry and the emperor at Gravelines (5 July), Wingfield employed all his diplomacy to keep him in good humour, protesting on his knees by his bedside for an hour at a time the devotion of Henry and Wolsey to his person and his interest. Francis, who had vainly hoped to be admitted to participate in the meeting, rivalled Wingfield in the extravagance of his assurances. In August Wingfield received permission to return home on private affairs, but before doing so was instructed, together with Jerningham, his successor, to communicate to Francis Henry's version of the overtures made by Chièvres at Gravelines to detach him from the French alliance. He was now employed, as before, in the inspection of military stores. On 10 Jan. 1521 he and Sir Weston Browne reported on the armament of the king's great ship, the Henry Grace à Dieu.

In the spring of 1521 Wingfield was selected to act as Henry VIII's representative in mediating between Francis and Charles V. His instructions were to urge on Charles the impolicy of war and the advantages of England's mediation. Wingfield arrived at Worms at the close of May, and obtained the emperor's consent to Henry's mediation. But on 1 June he wrote from Mayence that Charles had just heard of the invasion of Navarre by the French, and demanded ‘such aid as was secured by the treaties between’ Henry and himself. At the end of a fortnight Charles's passion on account of the French invasion had had time to cool, and on