In 1561, Thomas Hoby announced that one of the most iconic literary figures of the day ‘is become an Englishman’.Footnote ¹ He was referring to Il cortegiano – Castiglione's speculative prototype of an ideal Renaissance courtier. Il libro del cortegiano was originally published in Venice in 1528. Hoby's Covrtyer of Count Baldessar Castilio was the first ‘Englished’ version of the work to be printed. As such, it is rightly regarded as a cultural milestone.

Il cortegiano's reinvention as an Englishman was long overdue. The first Spanish translation of the dialogues was published in 1534. A French translation followed three years later.Footnote ² There is no doubt that contemporary English readers were interested in, and familiar with, Castiglione's text.Footnote ³ Yet they had to wait almost thirty years longer than their continental counterparts for a native vernacular edition. Hoby had actually begun translating the dialogues in 1552, but they were not ready for publication until 1556 at the earliest.Footnote ⁴ A further five years elapsed before they finally appeared in print. Their printer, William Seres, intimated that Hoby would have been willing to publish much sooner, had circumstances permitted.Footnote ⁵ The delay is undoubtedly puzzling, given that the work was internationally renowned and would presumably have been guaranteed an appreciative readership. The literature relating to the Covrtyer has never seriously attempted to explain this curiosity. Yet the story of how, when, and why the English edition was produced throws considerable light upon the politics of publication in the mid-Tudor period.

To address the problem, we need to begin by reviewing Hoby's background and career. Born in 1530, he matriculated at St John's College, Cambridge, in 1545. He left Cambridge in 1547, and thereafter led a rather peripatetic existence. He travelled extensively on the continent, and became renowned for his linguistic scholarship. His first major literary project was a translation of Martin Bucer's Gratulation vnto the Churche of Englande, which was a riposte to Stephen Gardiner's polemical defence of clerical celibacy.Footnote ⁶ Hoby's evangelical sympathies (illustrated by his willingness to act as Bucer's mouthpiece) ensured that his political career stalled under Mary I. In 1566, however, Elizabeth I appointed him ambassador to France and he died in Paris later that year.Footnote ⁷

Hoby was extremely well connected. His half-brother, Philip, was a highly regarded diplomat. During Edward's reign, the Hoby brothers worked closely and amicably with other rising stars in the political firmament, such as William Cecil, John Mason, John Cheke, Thomas Smith, William Parr, and Walter Mildmay.Footnote ⁸ The brothers were affiliated to the coterie that Winthrop Hudson has labelled ‘the Cambridge Connection’.Footnote ⁹ This was a group of individuals who attended Cambridge University during the 1530s and 1540s, and allied themselves with tutors John Cheke and Thomas Smith. They were particularly associated with a campaign to popularize an historically authentic method of Greek pronunciation, and were thus sometimes known as the Athenians,Footnote ¹⁰ and they were also interested in promoting vernacular English as a literary language.Footnote ¹¹ Their devotion to Cicero, and his ideal of public service, was legendary.Footnote ¹² They were generally regarded as sympathetic to religious reform, although by no means all of them were Protestants.

The translation of Il cortegiano – with its Ciceronian ethos and analysis of the usage and development of language – was an eminently suitable project for an ‘Athenian’ to undertake. In fact, it has seemed so entirely appropriate that Hoby should have wished to anglicize the work that few commentators, if any, have paused to consider his actual motivation for doing so. It is easy enough to understand why the project would have appealed to him when he first embarked upon it in 1552. Italian literature was popular among cosmopolitan Edwardian reformists, and its early sixteenth-century disciples included Anne Boleyn's brother Lord Rochford, the earl of Surrey, Thomas Wyatt, and William Thomas.Footnote ¹³ Edward Courtenay claimed to have taught himself the language whilst imprisoned in the Tower of London between 1538 and 1553. Princess Elizabeth and Sir Anthony Cooke's daughter, Anne, both translated Italian sermons by the radical Protestant preacher Bernardino Ochino.Footnote ¹⁴

The disproportionate representation of religio-political reformists among the vanguard of enthusiasts can partly be explained by the fact that several Italians who rose to prominence in England were Protestant refugees.Footnote ¹⁵ Under Edward, an Italian church was established in London for such individuals, which, according to the historian and antiquarian John Strype, developed into a kind of language school ‘for the use of such English gentlemen as had travelled abroad in Italy. That by their resorting thither, they might both serve God, and keep their knowledge of the Italian language.’Footnote ¹⁶ Needless to say, those who chose to worship at the Italian church, whilst simultaneously improving their linguistic skills, were almost invariably Protestant.

Italian probably excited many reformists quite simply because Italy was deemed to be the cradle of advanced thought and culture. David Starkey has argued that, during the Edwardian era: ‘Power politicians such as Seymour, Somerset and John Dudley, Earl of Warwick, and intellectuals such as Thomas Smith, William Cecil and John Cheke, were progressives and thought of themselves as such. Their progressivism embraced every sphere of activity’.Footnote ¹⁷ The Italian peninsula was undeniably glamorous to such individuals, as it was the birthplace of new learning and the rediscovery of classical civilization. As the poet Samuel Daniel would later observe, ‘The Hebrewes [were deemed to have] hatched knowledge, Greece did nourish it, Italie clothed and beautified it.’Footnote ¹⁸

Hoby's translation of Il cortegiano was not simply inspired by his enthusiasm for Italian culture. His journal records that, having arrived in Paris in late July or early August 1552, ‘the first thing I did was to translate into Englishe the third booke of the “Cowrtisan”, which my Ladie Marquesse had often willed me to do, and for lacke of time ever differed it’.Footnote ¹⁹ The 1561 publication states that Book iii was ‘Englished at the request of the Layde Marquesse of Northampton in anno 1551’.Footnote ²⁰ The marchioness of Northampton was Elizabeth Parr, wife of the influential courtier and politician, William Parr.

As the brother of the Protestant queen Katherine Parr, the marquis of Northampton was closely affiliated to the religious reformists of Hoby's acquaintance. At the age of thirteen, he had been married to Lady Anne Bourchier, who had deserted him in 1541. The couple's separation was legally recognized in 1542. The following year, Parr became involved with Elizabeth Brooke, who was the daughter of the MP and privy councillor, Lord Cobham.Footnote ²¹ For the next eight years, Parr attempted to secure the dissolution of his marriage. His affair with Elizabeth Brooke was common knowledge, and the pair made no secret of their ambition to become man and wife.Footnote ²² A commission to consider his case for divorce was established, but, anticipating its conclusion, Parr arranged for a marriage service to be performed privately and this action was validated, rather belatedly, by parliament in 1551.Footnote ²³

For the first time, then, Elizabeth Brooke was officially recognized as the ‘Ladye Marquesse of Northampton’. She was evidently determined to enjoy her newfound status, and participated extensively in London's social calendar.Footnote ²⁴ Whilst her activities can be interpreted as a public celebration of her position, it seems plausible that she took other steps to assert her new-found respectability. Susan E. James has observed that ‘Elisabeth's education had been neglected, and she never pretended to be an intellectual.’Footnote ²⁵ In 1551, however, she assumed the role of literary patroness, requesting that a portion of one of the most celebrated books of her age be translated into English. If this was, indeed, atypical behaviour on her part, we can only suppose that the text possessed some special significance at this juncture in her career. In Book iii of Il cortegiano, the protagonists stress the importance of virtue and reputation for a gentlewoman of the court:

By commissioning the translation of this book, Elizabeth may have sought to emphasize to contemporaries that her honour was now beyond reproach.

Elizabeth would certainly have been aware that her husband's late sister, Katherine Parr, had cultivated a formidable reputation as a patroness of the arts. Queen Katherine had given encouragement and financial support to musicians, artists, printers, and authors.Footnote ²⁷ She was particularly renowned for her sponsorship of Protestant devotional texts.Footnote ²⁸ Margaret P. Hannay has noted that early modern women who produced or promoted works of literature were often encouraged to concentrate exclusively upon religious material:

If Elizabeth's sole objective was to bolster her respectability, we might reasonably wonder why she chose to commission the translation of a secular work. It seems likely, however, that she also wished to advertise her status as a luminary of civil society. After all, Castiglione's interlocutors had argued that a female courtier should be more than ‘a good huswief’. Virtue and modesty were no excuse for dull conversation, unsophisticated manners or an unprepossessing appearance:

Elizabeth could presumably appreciate the delicacy of this balancing act. Whatever she hoped to achieve through the translation, the Northamptons would have had ample opportunity to suggest the project to Hoby. In May 1551, Parr was sent to France at the head of an embassy with instructions to confer the Order of the Garter upon the French king, Henri II, and to arrange a betrothal between King Edward and Henri's daughter Elizabeth.Footnote ³¹ Thomas Hoby accompanied the delegation, and his brother Philip was a commissioned negotiator.Footnote ³²

Elizabeth Brooke's ‘Englished’ dialogue was never published independently. However, given the timing of the scheme, this is hardly surprising. In July 1553, a year after Hoby settled down to his assignment, Mary Tudor became queen of England. The implications for the Parrs were catastrophic, particularly since William had supported Lady Jane Grey's claim to the throne. The new queen stripped Parr of his title and withdrew the divorce that Thomas Cranmer had granted him. It was reported that Parr's pardon had been granted ‘on condition that he shall take back his first wife and put away the daughter of Lord Cobham’.Footnote ³³ It would thus have been impossible for Hoby, or anyone, to publish a work dedicated to the ‘Ladye Marquesse of Northampton’ whilst Parr was known as the ‘late marquess’ and the queen was pointedly referring to Elizabeth by her maiden name.Footnote ³⁴

The circumstantial details outlined above suggest that Hoby did not, at least initially, intend to translate all four books of the Covrtyer. We know that he was working on the third book in 1552, but we should not thereby infer that he had already anglicized the first two, or had immediate plans to engage with the fourth. Indeed, his dedication of 1556 explicitly asserts that when he finished Book iii, he regarded his task as complete:

Whilst the identity of the alternative translator cannot be established conclusively, it is possible to suggest a highly plausible candidate. The first point to note is that he is identified by Hoby as an expert practitioner of Italian. In the early 1550s, the number of scholars known primarily for their proficiency in this particular area was still somewhat limited. Italian was a newly fashionable language, only recently elevated to the status of an essential accomplishment for members of the political and cultural elite. The publication of the first Anglo-Italian dictionary in 1550 testifies both to the growing enthusiasm for the tongue and to the need for basic aids to its acquisition.Footnote ³⁶ Italian translation was a specialist skill; according to George B. Parks, ‘we do not find any translations direct from Italian published in England until Thomas Wyatt's Certain Penitential Psalms (1549)’.Footnote ³⁷ The translator of the Covrtyer would thus have belonged to a fairly select group of linguistically accomplished Italophiles.

Hoby's apparent reluctance to name the individual is also striking and suggestive. In early modern dedications, acknowledgement of a predecessor's work was often accompanied by a fulsome description of his or her learning and character. Thomas Wilson, for example, self-confessedly translated the Orations of Demosthenes in the intellectual shadow of Sir John Cheke. He recalled Cheke's exposition of the orations, and expressed profound regret that the great man had not ‘Englished’ them himself:

This warmly personal tribute to a deceased colleague contrasts markedly with the unspecific allusions in the preface to the Covrtyer.

Hoby may well have had good reason for his reticence. It seems probable that the translator to whom he so fleetingly refers was an evangelical Italophile who had antagonized the Marian authorities. John Ponet, Richard Morison, and Edward Courtenay were all competent linguists with reputations for religious unorthodoxy. Moreover, their deaths fell within the parameters established by Hoby in that the scholar in question was alive for ‘a long space after’ Hoby completed his translation of Book iii, begun in summer 1552, but was evidently dead when he composed the dedication in 1556. The likeliest candidate, however, is William Thomas.Footnote ³⁹

Relatively little is known about Thomas. He was almost certainly born in Wales in the early sixteenth century, and by the 1540s, he had entered the service of the prominent Henrician courtier, Anthony Browne. Facing substantial gambling debts, he fled abroad in 1545 with money he had stolen from Browne, and was apprehended in Venice. His captor, Edmund Harvell, convinced the council of his contrition, and Thomas was released to spend the next four years in Italy.Footnote ⁴⁰

In 1549, by which time Browne had died, Thomas was back in London. Edward VI's Chronicle records his appointment as clerk of the privy council in April 1550.Footnote ⁴¹ He became involved with the young king's political education, supplying him with eighty-five Machiavellian ‘Common Places of State’,Footnote ⁴² and several treatises on subjects such as the reform of the coinage, the organization of armies, and the forging of alliances with foreign princes.Footnote ⁴³ Thomas remained in England after the accession of Mary in July 1553, despite counselling his Protestant friend Thomas Hancocke to flee the kingdom.Footnote ⁴⁴ However, he was clearly profoundly unhappy with the Marian regime. He was implicated in the Wyatt conspiracy, and executed at Tyburn on 18 May 1554.Footnote ⁴⁵

Thomas's political career and criminal escapades explain why Hoby would have been reluctant to identify him in 1556. Yet Thomas was arguably the most renowned Italian scholar of his day. In 1547, he composed a defence of Henry VIII's ecclesiastical policy in both English and Italian.Footnote ⁴⁶ The Peregryne, like Il cortegiano, was framed as a typically Italian dialogue, with a realistic setting and multiple protagonists.Footnote ⁴⁷ In 1548, Thomas compiled an Italian grammar and dictionary which was published in England in 1550, and a Historie of Italie which was published in 1549.Footnote ⁴⁸ After his return to the English court, he presented King Edward with a ‘poore new yeres gifte’ – a translation of The narration Josaphat Barbaro, citezein of Venice, in twoo voyages, made th'one into Tana and th'other into Persia – ‘being the worke of myne owne handes’.Footnote ⁴⁹

Evidently, Thomas had the linguistic ability to ‘English’ the Covrtyer. We know that he read it; in his History, for example, he commented that the duke of Urbino's palace ‘is a very fair house, but not so excellent as the Conte Baldessare in his Courtesan doth commend it’.Footnote ⁵⁰ Moreover, Thomas was an enthusiastic disseminator of Italian culture in England. The dedication of his Principal rvles of the Italien grammer to John Tamworth reads like a manifesto for the promotion of Italian studies. ‘[E]xperience sheweth, howe much … [Latin and Greek] haue flourished, remaignyng yet (as they dooe) in great estimacion’, he wrote

Thomas was also someone with whom Hoby was well acquainted, since the two men met on numerous occasions. Hoby's journal records, for example, an encounter at Strasbourg in January 1548,Footnote ⁵² whilst they were at court together for the Christmas festivities of 1550.Footnote ⁵³ More significantly, both accompanied William Parr on his embassy to France in 1551.Footnote ⁵⁴ If Hoby was indeed requested to translate Book iii shortly before, or during, the mission, it is quite plausible that he mentioned the project to Thomas, and he would thus have been alerted to any plan of the latter's to translate all four dialogues. Moreover, in 1553, Hoby joined his brother on an embassy led by the bishop of Norwich to the Imperial court, which Thomas also attended.Footnote ⁵⁵

As well as knowing each other, Hoby and Thomas had a considerable number of allies and acquaintances in common, the most significant of whom was Walter Mildmay. We know that Mildmay was on intimate terms with the Hoby brothers; when Philip Hoby urged William Cecil to spend the Christmas of 1557 at Bisham, he instructed him to ‘Exhort our friend Mildmay and his wife likewise to be there, that the company may be complete.’Footnote ⁵⁶ In the early 1550s, William Thomas also married Mildmay's sister Thomasine. Moreover, Mildmay took a keen and active interest in his brother-in-law's literary projects. The publication of Thomas's Principal rvles of Italian grammer, for example, was his initiative.Footnote ⁵⁷ A translation of Il cortegiano would certainly have had his warm support.

Thomas can also be linked to the Parr family. His wife, Thomasine, was the widow of Anthony Bourchier, who served as Catherine Parr's auditor. Moreover, Thomas dedicated his tract on The vanitee of this world (1549) to ‘the right woorshipfull and my singuler good Ladie, the Ladie Anne Herbert of Wilton’,Footnote ⁵⁸ Anne Herbert being the sister of William and Katherine Parr. The identification of a Parr connection is suggestive, given that it was William's wife, Elizabeth, who commissioned the original Hoby translation.

Despite their earlier acquaintance, Hoby would scarcely have wished to associate himself with Thomas in 1556. By this stage he was back in England, and consequently had good reason to avoid antagonizing the Marian government.Footnote ⁵⁹ The Hoby brothers already had too many dubious – if not dangerous – connections. They were close to Edward Courtenay, whom some of the Wyatt conspirators had sought to place on Mary's throne as the husband of Princess Elizabeth. Letters written by Courtenay from Cologne are filled with friendly ‘commendations’ to Philip Hoby.Footnote ⁶⁰ Philip was strongly suspected of complicity in the conspiracy that had cost Thomas his life. The Imperial ambassador Simon Renard described him as ‘a heretic, a plotter, ill-disposed, an enemy of the Chancellor and deeply devoted to the Lady Elizabeth’. Moreover, Renard dismissed Philip's ostensible reason for leaving England in 1554 (to visit continental spa-towns for the sake of his health) as a ‘pretext’, insisting that he and his friends ‘have prepared some new revolt, and are now getting out of the way until they see what happens’. In May 1554, Renard accused Philip of ‘having formed some seditious plan’ with Paget and Cobham, the latter being the father of Elizabeth Parr. In June he informed Charles V that ‘it has been discovered that Hoby gave his approval to the recent rebellion’.Footnote ⁶¹ Renard was not the only influential figure to regard Philip as ‘one of the stubbornest heretics and worst subjects of the Queen’.Footnote ⁶² Stephen Gardiner, the bishop of Winchester, was equally mistrustful, and his hostility extended to Thomas Hoby. When translating Bucer's Gratulation, Thomas Hoby had rather tactlessly sneered at Gardiner's arguments against clerical marriage, and suggested that their ‘railing’Footnote ⁶³ tone was ‘farre unsemely for a sober Bishoppe’.Footnote ⁶⁴ In 1555, Philip's servant, Richard Scudamore, informed him that his ‘kepyng of companye’ with Marian malcontents on the continent was ‘much myslyked here at home’.Footnote ⁶⁵ When Thomas returned to live ‘at home’, his position was understandably somewhat delicate. His reference to an anonymous translator would have allowed him to acknowledge William Thomas obliquely to members of their mutual circle, who would recognize and appreciate the allusion.

The Marian regime's suspicion of the Hoby brothers also helps to explain Hoby's strategy of dedicating his completed translation to Henry Hastings in 1556. Hastings was the son and heir of Francis Hastings, the second earl of Huntingdon. The latter had been a Protestant stalwart of Northumberland's government, and had participated in the abortive attempt to enthrone Lady Jane Grey in 1553. He had been condemned to death, but pardoned. In November 1553, Renard reported that Huntingdon and the duke of Suffolk (who had also been pardoned) ‘are professing undying loyalty [to Mary] and saying that she may marry whom she pleases, for they will maintain, honour and obey her choice’.Footnote ⁶⁶ Suffolk, however, revised his intentions and attempted to orchestrate rebellion in Leicestershire in January 1554. Doubtless eager to rehabilitate himself in the eyes of the government, Huntingdon ‘implored the Queen to be allowed to go forth against him and put a stop to his proceedings’.Footnote ⁶⁷ The expedition was authorized, and when it culminated in the capture of Suffolk, ‘that same day was Te Deum songe in the qwenes chapelle for joye of it’.Footnote ⁶⁸

Hastings was a young man who shared Hoby's intellectual background and religious inclinations. He was educated by Cheke, Cooke, and Ascham as a schoolroom companion of Edward VI, and attended Cambridge University. He was later renowned for his puritan sympathies. We should, however, be wary of attributing the dedication to a sense of spiritual solidarity. Like his father, Hastings conformed to the Catholic regime after being pardoned for his role in the Jane Grey debacle. Evidence of the family's resolute orthodoxy can be found in a dispensation granted to the earl and countess of Huntingdon in 1555, allowing them to eat meat during Lent ‘because of nobility and zeal for the holy see’.Footnote ⁶⁹ Hastings's reputation as a hot Protestant was established only after the Elizabethan accession.Footnote ⁷⁰

Hoby probably chose Hastings as his dedicatee, primarily because the latter was generally recognized as a youth of considerable promise. What could be more natural than to bracket Hastings's name with a treatise on the acquisition of accomplishments and the pursuit of a successful court career? Hoby was also likely to have been aware of his young friend's Italophilia; in 1556, Hastings described Italy as ‘the country which I most desire to see’.Footnote ⁷¹ Indeed, Hastings may have asked for the translation, since Hoby subsequently described ‘the continuall requestes and often perswasions of many yong gentlemen’ as the encouragement that prompted him to produce the work.Footnote ⁷² We know from Hoby's journal that he encountered Hastings in Brussels in the autumn of 1555,Footnote ⁷³ at which point the latter could have petitioned Hoby to undertake the enterprise, or expressed interest in a work that was already underway.Footnote ⁷⁴

Another explanation for Hoby's dedication to Hastings can be proposed. Hoby returned to England late in 1555, after over a year of semi-official exile. The fact that he chose to do so suggests a willingness to make his peace with the Marian regime. After all, Hoby could hardly have predicted that the regime would collapse within three years. The death of Gardiner – which coincided with Hoby's return – may also have encouraged him to contemplate reconciliation. With an old adversary out of the way, Hoby may have identified an opportunity to rehabilitate himself in England. Consequently, he finished translating Il cortegiano, prepared it for publication as a self-promotional bid, and dedicated it to a young man who, as well as being a sympathetic friend, was also the nephew and protégé of Cardinal Pole. Pole was a close friend and kinsman of the queen, Archbishop Cranmer's successor to the see of Canterbury, and the architect of England's restoration to the Catholic fold.Footnote ⁷⁵

There were many reasons for Hoby to suppose that a translation of the Covrtyer would recommend him to Pole. Pole was an Italophile who had studied in Padua in the 1520s. Whilst at Padua, he had formed friendships with many of Castiglione's close acquaintances, including Vittoria Colonna, who featured in the preface to Il cortegiano, and Pietro Bembo, who was allocated crucial speeches within the dialogues themselves.Footnote ⁷⁶ Hoby may also have felt that his unorthodox religious background would be less distasteful to Pole than to many other Marian politicians. Pole was not a great persecutor of heretics, as John Foxe acknowledged:

Foxe depicted the Cardinal as a fundamentally tolerant and intelligent man, ‘notwithstanding the pomp and glory of the world afterward carried him away to play the papist as he did’.Footnote ⁷⁷ A treatise begun by Walter Haddon and completed by Foxe similarly commended Pole as one ‘whom although Rome had maruailously disguised’ still retained his discernment and humanity.Footnote ⁷⁸

Foxe also hinted that Pole's own spiritual affinities were by no means as Catholic as many supposed. ‘[I]t is thought of him’, he wrote:

Hoby was well aware of these allegations. He had been in Rome for the papal election of 1550, at which point he noted that Pole's chances of securing the papacy were sabotaged by a smear campaign that branded him ‘a verie Lutherian’.Footnote ⁸⁰ Accusations of unorthodoxy dogged Pole throughout the latter years of his career. As a young man in Italy, he had formed part of an evangelical circle that included the radical theologians Peter Martyr and Bernardino Ochino.Footnote ⁸¹ In the early 1540s, Pole had been involved in the production of the Beneficio di Cristo; indeed, Thomas Mayer asserts that he ‘deserves more credit for the work than he has usually received’.Footnote ⁸² This text stressed the necessity of justification by faith, and was translated from Italian into English by Edward Courtenay in the 1540s.Footnote ⁸³ In 1555, it was reissued on the continent in a volume containing several explicitly Protestant tracts, which led to Pole being portrayed by his enemies as a closet nonconformist.Footnote ⁸⁴ Hoby, who was presumably looking for a patron for the Covrtyer at precisely the same time as the controversy arose, may well have observed these developments with interest.

Hoby was not the only Athenian Protestant to make overtures to Pole at this juncture. William Cecil formed part of the delegation that accompanied the cardinal on his journey back to England from the Imperial court in November 1554. As Pauline Croft has noted, ‘Pole was … the personal embodiment of Mary's project to return England to Roman obedience, so Cecil's journey to Brussels carried an unmistakable religious freight.’ Furthermore, Cecil solicited and procured employment as Pole's secretary on a diplomatic mission in the spring of 1555. He formed what Croft has described as ‘a successful working relationship’ with Pole – to the extent that when the latter died, he bequeathed a silver inkstand to Cecil.Footnote ⁸⁵

Other Athenians identified the cardinal as a potential source of patronage. In 1555, Roger Ascham sent him a presentation copy of De nobilitate civili libri II. Eiusdem de nobilitate Christiana libri III, by the Portuguese scholar Jeronimo Osorio. Pole evidently passed Ascham's gift on to the Hastings family, as Francis Hastings inscribed his name on the title page and annotated the text.Footnote ⁸⁶ It would seem that Pole subsequently asked Henry Hastings to translate the work into English; on 3 July 1555, he wrote to Hastings's mother, Katherine, that he ‘Woulde be glad to see your son's translation of the “booke written of nobilitie” that I showed him.’Footnote ⁸⁷

As this request indicates, Pole's interest in Hastings was keen and benevolent. On returning to England, he was anxious to re-establish cordial relations with his family. In 1554, he had written wistfully to the countess of Huntingdon that a letter she had recently sent him ‘was the first from any member of my family for many years'.Footnote ⁸⁸ Henry Hastings was among the vanguard of well-wishers who greeted Pole at Dover in November 1554.Footnote ⁸⁹ Uncle and nephew subsequently exchanged letters, visits, and even, on one occasion, venison pasties.Footnote ⁹⁰ Hastings was therefore both a neo-Athenian and the cherished kinsman of Queen Mary's close friend and adviser. He provided a link between men such as Hoby and the government under which they lived, and was thus ideally situated to effect their rehabilitation.

If we accept that the Covrtyer was a product designed for Marian consumption, one curiosity about the text can perhaps be explained. Hoby's translation contains several explicitly Catholic references, which might have been expected to grate upon the sensibilities of an Athenian Protestant. In Book iii, for example, one speaker observes ‘how much in dignitie all creatures of mankinde be inferiour to the virgin our Lady’. Queen Isabella of Spain is also commended for her religion.Footnote ⁹¹ These remarks are not refuted or qualified by any marginal commentary; indeed, the piety of Queen Isabella is highlighted by the annotation ‘Isabel Queene of Spaine. Praise of her.’Footnote ⁹² A tribute to the religious zeal of Mary's grandmother could only have facilitated Hoby's negotiation of a truce with the establishment.

A translation of Il cortegiano would have been a cultural asset to any court, regardless of its religious complexion. The text was celebrated throughout Europe as a delightfully sophisticated analysis of elite manners and morals, which offered an excitingly expansive vision of what a Renaissance courtier could, and should, be.Footnote ⁹³ It was the perfect vehicle for an ambitious translator to advertise his cultural credentials and political savoir faire.

By 1556, Hoby was clearly preparing for publication. Before sending his manuscript to the press, it would appear that he circulated it among his friends to ascertain their opinions. The paratext to the 1561 edition included a letter from Cheke (who had since died) ‘To his loving frind Mayster Thomas Hoby’, in which he wrote that he had

Since the letter is signed ‘From my house in Woodstreete the 16 of July, 1557’,Footnote ⁹⁵ we can deduce that Hoby spent the first half of 1557 informally soliciting comments from his friends, before proceeding to the printers.

The printer in question was William Seres, a Protestant who had been involved in the publication of works by John Bale, William Tyndale, and John Cheke. After the regime change of July 1553, Seres's patent for the production of primers and psalters was withdrawn, and he was briefly imprisoned.Footnote ⁹⁶ He was apparently allowed to resume his trade – on probation, as it were – in 1556. This can be inferred from the fact that his name does not appear on a register of stationers taken in 1555.Footnote ⁹⁷ However, on 21 May 1556, he presented an apprentice to the Company.Footnote ⁹⁸ He was mentioned in the Stationers' Charter of 1557 as one of Mary's ‘beloved and faithful lieges’. This does not, of course, denote that the authorities had overcome their mistrust of him; John Foxe was also listed as a ‘beloved and faithful liege’.Footnote ⁹⁹ Seres would have needed to tread carefully to protect his recently restored professional status and freedom.

As well as being a printer, Seres was a household servant of William Cecil.Footnote ¹⁰⁰ It is unclear if the latter was in any way responsible for his servant's commission to publish the Covrtyer. Cecil visited Hoby at Bisham in the summer of 1557. We know that Hoby was circulating the manuscript among friends at this juncture, and it seems probable that he showed it to his guest. Moreover, Hoby spent the following summer at Burghley House in Northamptonshire.Footnote ¹⁰¹ On either occasion, Cecil may have agreed to facilitate the Covrtyer's publication if possible, offering Hoby the services of his attendant printer. It is worth noting that the Covrtyer was, generically, quite different from the type of text that Seres usually handled. Devotional works always had been, and continued to be, his staple fare. This lends credence to the theory that his production of Hoby's book owed more to some personal connection with the author, than to his professional reputation.

The text issued in 1561 was prefaced by a letter from Seres, explaining that it would have been released earlier

The phrase ‘of late years’ is probably a pointed reference to the Marian era; this is implied by the suggestion that Hoby was put under pressure ‘to serve the time’. Seres did not specify which passages were deemed offensive. Il cortegiano was, however, treated as a risqué text by many Catholic authorities in Europe. Anti-clerical jokes, allusions to Fate, and Castiglione's secular approach to political analysis all seem to have caused consternation, and the text was placed on the Vatican's Index of Prohibited Books in 1590.Footnote ¹⁰³

Neither Seres nor Hoby was in any position to promote a contentious work in 1557–8. The chartering of the Stationers' Company in 1557 facilitated greater regulation of the book trade; the Charter permitted the master and wardens of the Company to search for, seize, and destroy unlicensed works, and to imprison their printers.Footnote ¹⁰⁴ In March 1557, the privy council arrested six individuals for involvement in the production of unauthorized books. Six months later, the printer, John Cawood, had his premises searched after the council suspected him of handling dubious texts.Footnote ¹⁰⁵ Other printers were subjected to similar treatment in 1558.Footnote ¹⁰⁶ Five months before Mary's death, the government prescribed draconian penalties for ownership of ‘bokes filled bothe with heresye, sedityon and treason’.Footnote ¹⁰⁷ Although Il cortegiano was never explicitly mentioned in royal proclamations that listed prohibited works,Footnote ¹⁰⁸ some authoritative figure ‘mislyked’ its contents, which was sufficient reason for Hoby and Seres to refrain from publishing it.

The Stationers' Company accounts reveal that at some point between 7 July 1560 and 8 July 1561, Seres paid twelve pence ‘for his lycense for pryntinge of a boke Called Curtyssye’,Footnote ¹⁰⁹ which can only be a reference to Hoby's Covrtyer. Il cortegiano finally became an Englishman. His apotheosis was a complex and protracted process. Thomas Hoby began translating a portion of Castiglione's text in 1551, when Italian culture was deemed radical and progressive. He undertook this commission to celebrate the status and success of the Protestant Parrs under King Edward VI, but ‘forbare’ from a complete translation out of deference to another Italian scholar, who can be identified with reasonable confidence as William Thomas. After Thomas's death in 1554, Hoby resumed work on the dialogues. This time, the text was apparently intended to effect a rapprochement between Hoby and the Catholic government under which he now lived. Despite Hoby's efforts, his translation was not actually published until his credibility, as well as that of his friends, was restored by the Elizabethan accession.

The history of the ‘Englished’ Covrtyer illuminates several important aspects of Tudor political culture. First, it offers valuable insights into the politics of literary patronage and publication. Texts were disseminated to advertise the abilities, allegiances, and aspirations of both patrons and authors.Footnote ¹¹⁰ In 1576, for example, the translator Robert Peterson dedicated his ‘Englished’ version of another Italian conduct book, Giovanni della Casa's Galateo, to the earl of Leicester. Peterson suggested that it was highly appropriate for Leicester's name to be associated with the Galateo, because the earl would be regarded as ‘the patterne to expresse any courtesie therin conteined’. Of course, Peterson's own interests would also be served: ‘your countenance will so credit the Author, as wil embolden him to presse amongst the thickest throng of Courtiers’.Footnote ¹¹¹ Peterson thus presented his translation as a work that would reflect creditably upon its patron, whilst publicizing the talents of its author and facilitating his quest for preferment. The Covrtyer was similarly conceived as a testimonial to Hoby's fitness for honourable employment. By dedicating it to the nephew of a powerful, and potentially sympathetic, politician, Hoby also provided a clear indication of his appetite for advancement.

The willingness of men such as Hoby, Ascham, and Cecil to work within, and for, the Marian regime also reminds us that religious controversy did not absolutely and irrevocably polarize the mid-sixteenth-century political scene. Foxe's interpretation of ‘the horrible and bloudy tyme of Qveene Mary’ has been enormously influential for centuries.Footnote ¹¹² Foxe deliberately depicted ‘the true and faythfull Congregation of Christes Vniversall Church’ as a people set apart from humanity in general, and from their Catholic oppressors in particular: ‘for asmuch as the true Church of God goeth not lightly, alone, but is accompanyed wyth some other Church or Chappel of the deuill to deface and maligne the same, necessary it is therefore the difference betweene them to be sene’.Footnote ¹¹³ The legacy of this dualistic cosmic perspective was an emphasis on the estrangement of ‘Protestants’ from ‘Catholics’. The history of the Marian era was dominated by narratives of exile and martyrdom, which reinforced the impression that unorthodox religious sympathies entailed utter alienation from the body politic.Footnote ¹¹⁴

The significance of doctrinal differences should not, of course, be underestimated. Since the heyday of Sir Geoffrey Elton, few historians have sought to expunge religion from their analyses of Tudor politics.Footnote ¹¹⁵ However, it would be misleading to suggest that politicians of various creeds could not negotiate and collaborate in the service of the commonwealth. Recent work has emphasized the capacity of personal relationships to bridge what we might otherwise be tempted to regard as gaping theological gulfs.Footnote ¹¹⁶ Hoby's translation of Il cortegiano should be considered in the context of this important insight. Literary projects could be used to establish and consolidate working relationships across the confessional spectrum. This suggests that in the mid-Tudor period, devotional politics were far more fluid and uncertain than has often been acknowledged.