NORTH, Sir THOMAS (1535?–1601?), translator, born about 1535, was second and youngest son of Edward, first baron North [q. v.], by his first wife Alice, daughter of Oliver Squyer. Roger, second baron North [q. v.], was his eldest brother. It is believed he was educated at Peterhouse, Cambridge. In 1557 he was entered a student of Lincoln's Inn, and appears soon afterwards to have turned his attention to literature. Notwithstanding the provision made for North by his father's will (20 March 1563), and the generous help of his brother Roger, lord North, he was always in need. He seems, however, to have maintained some position in Cambridgeshire, and in 1568 was presented with the freedom of the city of Cambridge. In 1574 Thomas accompanied his brother Roger when sent as ambassador-extraordinary to the court of Henri III of France. Two years later his brother made him a present of ‘a lease of a house and household stuff.’ Soon after the publication of his famous translation of ‘Plutarch’ in 1579, Leicester, in a letter to Burghley, asked his favour for the book. ‘He [North] is a very honest gentleman,’ wrote Leicester, ‘and hath many good things in him which are drowned only by poverty.’ His great-nephew Dudley, fourth baron North [q. v.], wrote of him as ‘a man of courage;’ and in the days of the Armada he took command, as captain, of three hundred men of Ely. About 1591 he was knighted, and must therefore have then possessed the qualification necessary in those days for a knight-bachelor—land to the value of 40l. a year.
Among the Additional MSS. in the British Museum is a paper by North, entitled ‘Exceptions against the Suit of [the] Surveyor of Gaugers of Beer and Ale,’ dated 9 Jan. 1591. In 1592 he was placed on the commission of the peace for the county of Cambridge, and his name (‘Thomas North, miles’) is again found on the roll of justices for 1597. In 1598 he received a grant of 20l. from the town of Cambridge, and in 1601 a pension of 40l. a year from the queen, ‘in consideration of the good and faithful service done unto us.’ He was then nearly seventy years of age, and doubtless died soon afterwards, although no record of his death is accessible. North was married: first, to Elizabeth, daughter of Mr. Colville of London, and widow of Robert Rich; and, secondly, to Judith, daughter of Henry Vesey of Isleham, Cambridgeshire, and widow of Robert Bridgwater. This lady was a third time married, to John Courthope, second son of John Courthope of Whiligh, Sussex. By his first wife he was father of Edward, who married Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Wren of Haddenham, Isle of Ely; and Elizabeth, married in June 1579 to Thomas Stuteville of Brinkley, Cambridgeshire. Cooper mentions a third child, Roger, but the boy's name is absent from the family records; and if he ever existed, it is probable that he died in infancy.
North's literary work consisted of translations; but he exerted a powerful influence on Elizabethan writers, and has been described as the first great master of English prose. In December 1557 he published in London, with a dedication to Queen Mary, his first book, which was translated from Guevara's ‘Libro Aureo,’ a Spanish adaptation of the ‘Meditations of Marcus Aurelius.’ North's book was entitled ‘The Diall of Princes, compiled by the reuerende Father in God, Don Anthony Gueuara, Byshop of Guadix, Preacher and Chronicler to Charles the Fift, late of that name Emperour. Englysshed oute of the Frenche by Thomas North, seconde sonne of the Lord North. Right necessarie and pleasaunt to all gentylmen and others whiche are louers of vertue.’ North's translation, although professedly from the French, was in fact made in large measure from the Spanish original. A briefer version by Guevara of the same work had already appeared in English as the ‘Golden Boke of Marcus Aurelius,’ in 1534, from the pen of John Bourchier, lord Berners, the translator of Froissart. Berners's work had reached its fifth edition by 1557. Recent critics have detected in Guevara's Spanish style a close resemblance to the euphuism which John Lyly [q. v.] rendered popular in Elizabeth's reign. Lyly was doubtless acquainted with the version of Guevara's ‘Marcus Aurelius’ by Berners and North respectively, and probably borrowed some of his sentiments from one or other of them. But it is very unlikely that he derived the peculiarities of his style from either work. ‘Euphuistic’ passages occur rarely in North's version, and the endeavours to fix either
