Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 63.djvu/72

 p. 42). By her Wotton had no issue, but by his first wife he was father of

(1521–1587), who was in December 1547 employed in conveying treasure to his father at Calais, and in 1551 succeeded to his estates, his father having procured two acts of parliament ‘disgavelling’ his lands in Kent. Edward VI had intended making him K.B., but after Mary's accession the council on 19 Sept. 1553 wrote him a letter ‘discharging him from being knight of the Bath, whereunto he was once appointed and written unto’ (Acts P. C. 1552–4, p. 351). On 16 Jan. 1553–4 he was summoned before the council, and on 21 Jan. ‘for obstinate standing against matters of religion was committed to the Fleet, to remain there a close prisoner’ (ib. pp. 385, 389). Walton in his ‘Life of Sir Henry Wotton’ (Reliquiæ Wottonianæ, 1685, sig. b4) declares that the council's action was due to Nicholas Wotton, who had twice dreamt that his nephew was in danger of participating in some dangerous enterprise, apparently Wyatt's rebellion, and secured his temporary imprisonment to save him from worse perils. The date of his release has not been ascertained; but on 23 Nov. 1558, six days after Elizabeth's accession, he was made sheriff of Kent. For nearly thirty years he was regularly included in the various commissions for the county, such as those for the peace, for taking musters, gaol delivery, examining into cases of piracy, and fortifying Dover. In July 1573 he entertained Queen Elizabeth at Boughton Malherbe, when he declined an offer of knighthood, and in 1578–9 again served as sheriff. He was a person of ‘great learning, religion, and wealth,’ and a patron of learning and protestantism in others. Thomas Becon [q. v.] dedicated to him his ‘Book of Matrimony,’ and Edward Dering his ‘Sparing Restraint.’ William Lambarde [q. v.] also dedicated to Wotton in 1570 his ‘Perambulation of Kent,’ which was published in 1576 with a prefatory letter by Wotton. He died on 11 Jan. 1586–7, and was buried at Boughton Malherbe (Inquisitio post mortem, Elizabeth, vol. ccxv. No. 263). He married, first, Elizabeth, daughter of Sir John Rudston, by whom he had issue Edward, first baron Wotton [q. v.]; Robert; Sir John, who travelled widely, was knighted by Queen Elizabeth, and died young after giving some promise as a poet (cf. his two contributions to England's Helicon of 1600, ed. A. H. Bullen, 1899, pp. xviii, 65, 82); James (d. 1628), who served in Spain and was knighted on the field in 1596 near Cadiz; and Thomas. By his second wife, Eleanor, daughter of Sir William Finch and widow of Robert Morton, Wotton was father of Sir Henry Wotton [q. v.], the diplomatist and poet.

[Brewer and Gairdner's Letters and Papers of Henry VIII; State Papers, Henry VIII; Acts of the Privy Council, ed. Dasent, vols. i–xii.; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1547–90, For. 1547–53; Stowe MS. 150 ff. 31, 42, 44, 51, 180 f. 168; Harl. MSS. 283 and 284; Cal. Inq. post mortem, Henry VII, i. 694; Hist. MSS. Comm. 5th Rep. App. passim; Chron. of Calais and Troubles connected with the Prayer-book (Camden Soc.); Lit. Remains of Edw. VI (Roxburghe Club); Corresp. Pol. de Odet de Selve, 1546–8; Original Letters (Parker Soc.), ii. 612; Parker Corresp. pp. 304, 370, 441; Cranmer's Works, ii. 54; Strype's Works (general index); Reliquiæ Wottonianæ, ed. 1685; Lists of Sheriffs, 1898; Burnet's Hist. of the Reformation, ed. Pocock; Nichols's Progresses of Queen Elizabeth; Hasted's Kent, passim, esp. iv. 176; Archæologia Cantiana (general index); Todd's Deans of Canterbury, pp. 11–12; Burke's Extinct Peerage.]  WOTTON, EDWARD (1492–1555), physician and naturalist, born at Oxford in 1492, was son of Richard Wotton, bedel of the university. He was educated at Magdalen College school, and became a chorister at Magdalen College in 1503. In 1506 he was elected demy, and on 9 Feb. 1513–14 graduated B.A.; he was elected fellow of Magdalen in 1516, and in 1520 was accused of conspiring with other fellows to elect certain undergraduates to scholarships (, Reg. Magdalen Coll. i. 73, 74, 153). Soon afterwards he became first reader in Greek at Corpus Christi College, just founded by Bishop Foxe, though he was not definitely appointed until 2 Jan. 1520–1, and retained his rooms at Magdalen. In a letter (Lansd. MS. 989, f. 129) to Wotton, ascribed by Dr. Fowler and the Rev. W. D. Macray to that date, Bishop Foxe says that he has heard of Wotton's talents from the president of Corpus Christi, and regrets that the statutes of Magdalen did not permit him to make Wotton fellow of Corpus. He made him, however, socio compar, and gave him leave to travel in Italy for three or five years from 1 May next, ‘to improve his learning, and chiefly to learn Greek.’ But in a note to this letter in Brewer's ‘Calendar’ the date is corrected to 2 Jan. 1523–4 (Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, iv. 4). Wotton spent most of his time at Padua, where he graduated M.D., being incorporated at Oxford in that degree on 16 May 1526 (, Reg. Univ. Oxon. i. 84).

Wotton was admitted fellow of the College of Physicians on 8 Feb. 1528, was 