honourable and onerous, having much less to live on than before.’ He became immediately afterwards a commissioner to inquire into the possessions acquired in Cambridgeshire by his fallen patron, Wolsey, since 1523.
In 1531 Elyot came before the world as an author. He then published his ‘Boke called the Governour,’ with a dedication to Henry VIII. The work, a treatise on the education of statesmen, immediately acquired popularity at court, and it was doubtless to the increase of reputation which it brought that Elyot's appointment as ambassador to the court of Charles V was due. On 4 Sept. 1531, Chappuys, the imperial ambassador in England, described Elyot as ‘a gentleman of 700 or 800 ducats of rent, formerly in the cardinal's service, now in that of the lady (Anne Boleyn) who has promoted him to this charge.’ His instructions, dated 7 Oct. 1531, chiefly deal with the necessity of obtaining the emperor's assent to Henry VIII's divorce from Catherine of Arragon. He was also privately directed to assist Stephen Vaughan, the English agent at Antwerp, in his search for William Tyndale, who was in that city. Elyot remained abroad for a few months only, and his diplomatic efforts came to little. He complained bitterly that his letters home were unanswered, and that he received the inadequate allowance of twenty shillings a day when he was forced to spend at least forty shillings. On 5 June 1532 Chappuys saw Elyot in London, and reported to the imperial court that he was courting him as much as possible ‘for the better success of the queen's cause.’ There can be no doubt that Elyot's sympathies were at the time with Catherine, and that he strongly urged the English ministers to keep on peaceful terms with Charles V.
According to Burnet and Strype, Elyot was engaged on diplomatic business in Rome in September 1532, but this is proved to be an error (Crofts, xci–xciii.) On 18 Nov. 1532, and again on 8 Dec., Elyot made fruitless appeals to Cromwell to procure his release from the office of sheriff of Cambridgeshire, to which he had been appointed for a second time. Both in 1533 and 1534 Elyot was busy at literary work, and he announced his intention in the latter year of devoting himself to it exclusively. But in 1535 he again became ambassador to Charles V. In all probability he left England in May, and joined the emperor at Barcelona, whence he proceeded with him on the expedition to Tunis. He seems to have been in the emperor's suite at Naples at the end of the year, and there learned from the emperor himself the news of the execution of his friend Sir Thomas More, which took place on 6 July 1535 (William Roper, Life of Sir T. More). Elyot was home at Combe in 1536. A proclamation was then issued demanding the surrender of all papist publications, and of one of Fisher's sermons. Elyot wrote to Cromwell acknowledging that he had a large library, and that he had purchased a copy of the prohibited sermon, but he did not know where it was, and he denied that his books were of the character denounced in the proclamation. In a second letter to Cromwell of about the same date (July 1536), Elyot, while complaining that his religion was needlessly suspected, admitted that ‘the amity between me and Sir Thomas More’ was ‘usque ad aras,’ but he insisted that he had accepted the reformed doctrine. He entreats that adequate payment should be made him in consideration of his diplomatic and other official services, for which he had received no reward. In 1536 and 1537 he began his Latin-English dictionary; Henry VIII lent him books and encouraged him to persevere when doubts of his capacity made him anxious to relinquish it. It was issued in 1538. In 1540 Elyot took part in the reception of Anne of Cleves at Blackheath, and on 14 May of the same year bought of Cromwell the manors of Carleton and Willingham, Cambridgeshire. Cromwell was attainted before the purchase was complete, and the property reverted to the crown, but it was re-granted to Elyot 4 Aug. He was M.P. for Cambridge in 1542 (Willis, Not. Parl. i. 190), and sheriff of Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire November 1544. He died 20 March 1546, and was buried in Carleton church. A monument was erected to his memory, but it is now destroyed. Elyot left no will and no children. His heir was Richard Puttenham, elder son of his sister Marjory. A portrait by Holbein in the Windsor collection was engraved by Bartolozzi.
Elyot married, after 1522, Margaret, daughter of John Abarrow, of North Charford, Hampshire. A portrait of her by Holbein is now at Windsor Castle. After Elyot's death she married Sir James Dwyer. She was buried at Great Staughton, Huntingdonshire, 26 Aug. 1560.
Elyot's literary work, although it exhibits no striking originality, illustrates the wide culture and erudition of Henry VIII's court. Political philosophy and the theory of education chiefly interested him. His views were borrowed from the foreign writers of the Renaissance. Erasmus's influence is plainly discernible. Pico della Mirandola, Francesco Patrizi the elder, and other less-known
