Thomas Wilson, Tudor Scholar-Statesman

Abstract

JACOB BURCKHARDT in his masterly volume on the Italian Renaissance observed that there were two purposes ... for which the was as indispensable to the republics as to princes or popes, namely, the official correspondence of the State, and the making of speeches on public and solemn occasions' He proceeded to show how only the humanist was credited with the knowledge and ability for the post of secretary! What Burckhardt had to say of Italian humanists of the Quatrocento most assuredly pertained to the humanist-statesmen of Tudor England. Uncommonly versatile, English scholars frequently during the sixteenth century passed directly from the hallowed life of the university to the more exciting and lucrative one at court. No impractical academicians were these scholar-statesmen; rather they often appeared hard-headed and ruthless, no less adept in applying the rack to a rebel than discoursing on Cicero and Demosthenes. Their creditable performance as diplomats and secretaries needs no amplification here; generally, because of their grounding in the Roman law and classics, they were conservative in their political and social creeds. Reform, they supposed, should conform to the pattern prescribed by the ancients. They found it difficult to reconcile the disruptive forces unleashed by the break from Rome with their concepts of the well-

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