auayle … After these Orations ended, Demosthenes lyfe is set foorth;’ it also contains a description of Athens and various panegyrics on Demosthenes. The translation had been begun at Padua in 1556 with Cheke, and Wilson seems to have resumed it in November 1569 (Lansd. MS. xiii. art. 15; Letters of Eminent Lit. Men, pp. 28–9), but the preface was not dated till 10 June 1570, in which year the book was published with a dedication to Cecil (London, 4to). The preface contains ‘a remarkable comparison of England with Athens in the time of Demosthenes,’ the part of Philip of Macedon being filled by Philip of Spain (Seeley, British Policy, 1894, i. 156); it is similar to the ‘Latin treatise on the Dangerous State of England,’ on which Wilson speaks of being engaged on 13 Aug. 1569 (Lansd. MS. xiii. art. 9), and which is now extant in the Record Office (State Papers, Dom. Eliz. cxxiii. 17), being dated 2 April 1578, and entitled ‘A Discourse touching the Kingdom's Perils with their Remedies.’ To this is to be attributed the curious story contributed probably by Dr. Johnson to the ‘Literary Magazine’ (1758, p. 151), to the effect that Wilson was employed by the government to translate Demosthenes with a view to rousing a national resistance to Spanish invasion (Addit. MS. 5815, f. 42). Apart from its political significance, Wilson's translation is notable as the earliest English version of Demosthenes, and attains a high level of scholarship; no second edition, however, appears to have been called for, though a Latin version by Nicholas Carr [q. v.], who died in 1568, was published in 1571. At the same time Wilson was engaged upon his ‘Discourse uppon usurye by waye of Dialogue and Oracions,’ which he dedicated to Leicester. The preface is dated 20 July 1569, but the book was not published until 1572 (London, 8vo; 2nd edit. 1584). It was one of the numerous sixteenth-century attacks upon interest based mainly on biblical texts which proved absolutely unavailing against the economic tendencies of the time, but it is of some value as illustrating various phases of contemporary opinion on the subject (Ashley, Econ. Hist. ii. 467–9); Jewel bestowed upon it his warm commendation, and on Jewel's death Wilson contributed a copy of verses to the collection published in his memory (London, 1573, 4to).
Less congenial work occupied Wilson during the autumn of 1571; on 7 Sept. he conveyed the Duke of Norfolk to the Tower, and for the next few weeks he did ‘nothing else but examine prisoners’ (Cal. Simancas MSS. 1568–79, p. 339). On the 15th he received a warrant to put two of Norfolk's servants to the rack (Ellis, Orig. Letters, i. ii. 261), and so engrossing was this occupation that he took up his residence, and wrote letters ‘from prison in the Bloody Tower’ (Cotton. MS. Calig. C. iii. f. 260; Hatfield MSS. i. 571 sqq.). He also conducted many of the examinations in connection with the Ridolfi plot, and in June 1572 was sent with Sir Ralph Sadler [q. v.] to Mary Queen of Scots ‘to expostulate with her by way of accusation’ (ib. ii. 19; instructions in Egerton MS. 2124, f. 4). He was returned for Lincoln city to the parliament that was summoned to meet on 8 May 1572 and was not dissolved till after his death, and on 8 July he was commissioned to provide for the better regulation of commerce (Lansd. MS. xiv. art. 21). In the summer of 1573 he had many conferences with the Portuguese ambassadors (Harl. MS. 6991, arts. 24, 26, and 27).
In the autumn of 1574 Wilson was sent on the first of his important embassies to the Netherlands; he left London on 7 Nov. (Walsingham's Diary ap. Camden Soc. Misc. iv. 22; his instructions, abstracted in Cal. State Papers, For. 1572–4, No. 1587, are printed in full in Relations Politiques des Pays-Bas et d'Angleterre, vii. 349–52; there are others in Cotton. MS. Galba C. v. ff. 51–216, and Harl. MS. 6991). While at Brussels he is said to have instigated a plot for seizing Don John and handing him over to the insurgents (Cal. Simancas MSS. 1568–1579, pp. 543–4). He remained in the Low Countries until 27 March 1575, when he sailed from Dunkirk (Act P. C. 1571–5, p. 361). His second embassy to the Netherlands followed in the autumn of 1576; he left London on 25 Oct. (Camden Soc. Misc. iv. 28), and spent nearly nine months in Flanders, mainly at Brussels, Bruges, Antwerp, or Ghent. His despatches are printed in ‘Relations Politiques’ (ix. 1–414; see also Cal. State Papers, For. 1575–77; Hatfield MSS. vol. ii. passim; Cotton. MS. Galba C. v. ff. 272–358; Harl. MSS. 36 art. 34, and 6992 arts. 36, 37; and Lansd. MSS. clv. art. 67). The ostensible purpose of his mission was to negotiate some modus vivendi between Don John, with whom he had various interviews (e.g. on 1 May 1577, Cotton. MS. Galba C. v. f. 306), and the Dutch insurgents; but he soon came to the conclusion that such schemes were impracticable, and urged a complete understanding between England and William of Orange (Hatfield MSS. ii. 150–4; cf. Putnam, William the Silent, ii. 172–212). He also took part in the negotiations for a marriage between Elizabeth and
