MASON, SIR JOHN (15031566)

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MASON, SIR JOHN (15031566) , English diplomatist, was born of humble parentage at Abingdon in 1503, and was educated at Oxford, where he became Fellow of All Souls in 1521. He was ordained before 1531. Most of his early years were spent on the Continent, where he witnessed the meeting between

Henry

. VIII. and Francis I. at Calais in 1532, and where he was employed in collecting information for the English government, gaining in this

work

WORK

the reputation of a capable diplomatist. By his never-failing caution, moderation and pliancy, Mason succeeded in keeping himself in favour with four successive sovereigns of the Tudor monarchy. In 1537 he became secretary to the English

ambassador

AMBASSADOR (also EMBASSADOR, the form sometimes still used in America; from the Fr. ambassadeur, with which compare Ital. ambasciatore and Span. embajador, all variants of the Med. Lat. ambassiator, ambassiator, ambasator, &c., derived from Med. Lat. amba

at Madrid, Sir

Thomas

Wyat; but when the latter was put on his trial for treason in 1541 Mason was unmolested, and soon afterwards was appointed clerk of the privy council, and procured for himself sundry other posts and privileges. Mason was knighted and made dean of Winchester by Edward VI. He was one of the commissioners to negotiate the treaty by which Boulogne was restored to France in 1550, and in the same year he became English

ambassador

AMBASSADOR (also EMBASSADOR, the form sometimes still used in America; from the Fr. ambassadeur, with which compare Ital. ambasciatore and Span. embajador, all variants of the Med. Lat. ambassiator, ambassiator, ambasator, &c., derived from Med. Lat. amba

in Paris, where he helped to arrange the bethrothal of Edward VI. to the princess Elizabeth of France. He returned to England at the end of 1551, became clerk of

parliament

PARLIAMENT (Anglo-Lat. parliamentum, Fr. parlement, from parler, to speak)

, received extensive grants of land, and in 1552 was made chancellor of Oxford University. Ile was elected member of

parliament

PARLIAMENT (Anglo-Lat. parliamentum, Fr. parlement, from parler, to speak)

in the same year. On the death of Edward VI., he at first joined the party of Northumberland and the Lady Jane Grey; but quickly perceiving his mistake he took an active part in procuring the proclamation of Mary as queen. Mason now received fresh tokens of royal favour, being confirmed in all his secular, though not in his ecclesiastical, offices; and in 1553 he was appointed English ambassador at the court of the emperor Charles V., of whose abdication at Brussels in October 1555 he wrote a vivid account. He took a prominent share in the
administrative business of the government in the first years of Elizabeth's reign, and largely influenced her foreign policy until his death, which occurred on the loth of April 1566. Sir John Mason married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir

Thomas

Isley of Sundridge, Kent, and widow of Richard Hill. He had no children, and his

heir

HEIR (Lat. heres, from a root meaning to grasp, seen in heres or erus, master of a
house
- HOUSE
- HOUSE (O. Eng. hiss, a word common to Teutonic languages, cf. Dut. huis, Ger. Haus; in
  Gothic
  - GOTHIC
  it is only found in gudhiss, a temple; it may be ultimately connected with the root of " hide," conceal)
, Gr. xeip, hand, Sans. hat ana, hand)

was Anthony Wyckes, whom he had adopted, and who assumed the name of Mason and left a large family.
See J. A. Froude, History of England (12 vols., London, 1856187o) ; Charles Wriothesley, Chronicle of England during the Reigns of the Tudors, edited by W. D. Hamilton (Camden Soc., 2 vols., London, 1875) ; P. F.

Tytler

TYTLER, WILLIAM (1711-1792)

, England under the Reigns of Edward VI. and Mary (2 vols., London, 1839) ; John Strype, Ecclesiastical Memorials (3 vols., Oxford, 1824) and Memorials of Thomas Crammer (3 vols., Oxford, 1848); Acts of the Privy Council of England (new

series

SERIES (a Latin word from serere, to join)

), edited by J. R. Dasent, vols. i.vii.

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