Sir Henry Wotton is remembered today primarily as a diplomat and letter writer during the reign of James I, as provost of Eton during the reign of Charles I, and as the author of two of the most frequently anthologized poems of the earlier seventeenth century, a characterization of the happy life and a tribute to Elizabeth Stuart, the ill-fated queen of Bohemia. Well known for his wit as well as for his political acumen, he once defined an ambassador as one "sent to lie abroad for his king," and he wished to be remembered as the author of the all-too-accurate warning, "Disputandi pruritus fit Ecclesiarum scabies" (The itch of disputation will prove the scab of the Church). Throughout his interesting and active life, Wotton wrote hundreds of letters (both official and personal) and several fine lyric poems; in his later years, he turned his considerable creative talents...