chosen ambassador resident in Flanders (ib. For. 1547–53, pp. 272, 281). One of the few state papers issued during the nine days' reign of Queen Jane (Lady Jane Grey) was addressed to Hoby, and continued him and Morysine in their posts as ambassadors with the emperor at Brussels (12 July 1553). Hoby and Morysine, in reply to the council, termed Lady Jane's husband, Lord Guilford Dudley, king. When Mary acceded to the throne, the council recalled Hoby and Morysine (ib. For. 1553–8, p. 8; Dom. 1547–65, pp. 423, 429).
Hoby, despite his protestantism, soon regained his offices and the royal favour. In June 1554 he was again sent to Brussels on a diplomatic mission (ib. For. 1553–8, p. 99). Owing to failing health he obtained leave of absence to try the water at Liège and the baths of Pau. By June 1555 he was staying with Sir John Cheke [q. v.], also an invalid, at Padua (ib. For. 1553–1558, pp. 173–4). In November following he visited his friend Sir John Masone, the English ambassador at Antwerp, and a few days later had a long interview with Philip at Brussels, who assured him that he might firmly rely on his favour, Hoby having supposed that the king hated him ‘for the profession he made of being at heart exclusively English’ (ib. Venetian, 1555–6, pp. 253–4, 258). He returned home in January 1555–6, bearing with him a consolatory message from Philip to Mary (ib. Venetian, 1555–6, p. 308).
Hoby died at his house in Blackfriars on 31 May 1558, and was buried at Bisham. His body was removed several years after to a chapel then newly erected in another part of the church as a burying-place for the family, by Elizabeth, widow of his half-brother, Sir Thomas Hoby [q. v.] A superb monument to the memory of the two brothers remains there, with epitaphs written by Lady Hoby in English and Latin verse (Hearne, Collections, Oxf. Hist. Soc., iii. 239, 255). Hoby married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Walter Stonor, and having no issue, left Bisham to his half-brother, Sir Thomas Hoby. From his private letters to Lord Burghley he appears to have been an amiable, cultured man (cf. letters cited in Burgon, vol. i., and Lansdowne MS. iii. 53). He was the friend of Titian and Pietro Aretino (Ticozzi, Life of Titian, 1817, p. 311), and when the latter dedicated, in 1546, one of his books to Henry VIII, Hoby presented Aretino with a gratuity from the king (Acts of Privy Council, ed. Dasent, i. 552). His portrait, engraved by Bartolozzi after the drawing by Hans Holbein is in ‘Imitations of Original Drawings by Holbein’ (1792 and 1812); the engraving was also published separately.
[Authorities in the text; Evans's Cat. of Engraved Portraits, i. 172; Lysons's Magna Britannia, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 243; Ayscough's Cat. of MSS. pp. 125, 377; Howard's Lady Jane Grey; Chronicle of Queen Jane and Queen Mary (Camd. Soc.).]
HOBY, Sir THOMAS (1530–1566), diplomatist and translator, born in 1530, was second son of William Hoby of Leominster, Herefordshire, by his second wife, Katherine, daughter of John Forden (Howard, Miscellanea Genealogica, i. 143). He matriculated at Cambridge from St. John's College in 1545. Wood, in his ‘Athenæ’ (ed. Bliss, i. 352), asserts without authority that he also spent some time at Oxford. He subsequently visited France, Italy, and other foreign countries, and, as Roger Ascham states, ‘was many wayes well furnished with learning, and very expert in knowledge of divers tongues’ (Schole Master in English Works, ed. Bennet, p. 240). On 9 March 1565–6 he was knighted at Greenwich (Metcalfe, Book of Knights, p. 119), and was sent as ambassador to France at the end of the month (Cal. State Papers, Foreign, 1566–8, p. 32). At the time of his landing in Calais haven, on 9 April, a soldier at the town gate shot through the English flag in two places. Hoby demanded redress for the insult, and obtained it after some delay, but he was not permitted to view the new fortifications (ib. Foreign, 1566–8, pp. 47–8). He died at Paris on 13 July 1566, and was buried at Bisham, Berkshire, where his widow erected a monument to his memory and to that of his half-brother Sir Philip Hoby [q. v.] Thereon are their statues in white marble in complete armour. By his marriage, on 27 June 1558, to Elizabeth, third daughter of Sir Anthony Cooke, of Gidea Hall, Essex (see below), he had two sons, Edward and Thomas Posthumus (both subsequently knighted), and two daughters, Elizabeth and Anne, who died within a few days of each other in February 1570–1. Their deaths were commemorated in Latin verse by their mother on the family tomb.
Hoby was author of the following translations:
- ‘The Gratulation of … M. Martin Bucer … vnto the churche of Englande for the restitucion of Christes religion, and hys Answere vnto the two raylinge epistles of Steuẽ, Bisshoppe of Winchester [i.e. Stephen Gardiner], concerning the vnmaried state of preestes and cloysterars,’ &c., 8vo, London [1549].
- ‘The Courtyer of Count Baldessar Castilio, divided into foure bookes,’ 4to, London, 1561 (other editions, 1565, 1577, 1588, and 1603). The book was very
