arrested between Mechlin and Antwerp, transferred to England, and imprisoned in the Tower. Bishop Ponet subsequently accused Mason of treacherously inviting them to Antwerp with a view to their arrest (Strype)—an act which Mason's friendly private relations with Cheke and Cheke's family would certainly render especially discreditable to him (Harington, Nugæ Antiquæ, pp. 49–51). But the charge is not proven (cf. Cal. State Papers, Venetian, vol. vi. pt. i. p. 486).
In September 1556 Mason's repeated requests for recall were granted. He regularly attended the council from November 1556 until the end of the reign, and with his colleagues retained his position at the accession of Elizabeth. In addition to his other offices, he was now restored to the deanery of Winchester, and on 20 June 1559 was re-elected chancellor of Oxford University. On 22 Nov. 1558 he was appointed, with Paget, Petre, and Heath, to transact any important business that might arise before the queen's arrival in London; he used his influence in favour of peace with France, and was described by the Spanish envoy as a friend to the French king (ib. Spanish, 1558–67, p. 34), but before 1560 he had become an advocate of the Spanish marriage, in which he was supported by Paget (Froude, vi. 356 note). On 7 March 1558–9 he was despatched to Cateau-Cambrésis to correct and supplement the action of the commissioners whose conduct in the negotiations for peace had given offence to the queen (ib. For. Ser. passim). He returned on 3 April. Thenceforth he remained in London, directing in great measure the foreign policy of England, and actively engaging in all the ordinary work of the council (cf. ib. Foreign, Spanish, and Venetian Ser. passim). In 1564 he was commissioned to settle a treaty of commerce with France. On 26 Dec. he re-resigned his chancellorship of Oxford, and he was present at the council, apparently for the last time, on 4 June 1565. He died on 20 or 21 April 1566, aged 63, and was buried in St. Paul's Cathedral, where a monument was erected by his widow on the north wall of the choir, with an inscription in verse by his adopted son, Anthony Wyckes. Owen Rogers obtained a license to print an epitaph upon him (Ames, Typogr. Antiq. ed. Herbert, p. 887). He is sometimes stated to have been chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, but on insufficient evidence.
Mason married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Thomas Isley of Sundridge, Kent, by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Richard Guildford [q. v.]; Lady Mason was widow of Richard Hill, sergeant of the wine-cellar to Henry VIII, and had had several children by him, including Margaret, married to Sir John Cheke, and Mary to Francis Spelman, who was clerk of the parliament with Mason. Spelman's daughter, Catherine, married William Davison [q. v.], secretary to Queen Elizabeth. Lady Mason's cousin, Jane Guildford, married John Dudley, duke of Northumberland [q. v.], with whom Mason was thus distantly connected by marriage (see pedigree in Sir Harris Nicolas's Life of W. Davison, p. 213). Apparently Mason had no issue; but Corser (Collectanea, iv. 213, 219) conjectures that Jasper Heywood [q. v.] refers to a deceased son in some lines in his translation of Seneca's ‘Thyestes,’ dedicated to Mason. His principal heir was Anthony Wyckes, a grandson of Mason's mother by a second marriage. Anthony was adopted by Mason, assumed his name, and in 1574 was appointed to the post of clerk of the parliament, which Sir John had held before. He married and had a numerous progeny.
Mason, a typical statesman of the age, ‘had more of the willow than the oak’ in him; his success he attributed to his keeping on intimate terms with ‘the exactest lawyer and ablest favourite’ for the time being, to speaking little and writing less, to being of service to all parties, and observing such moderation that all thought him their own. He is said to have been a catholic, but his religious feelings were conveniently pliant; his invectives against ‘men's wicked devotion to Rome,’ when Edward VI was on the throne, become sneers at the ‘new gospellers’ after his sister's accession. As a diplomatist he was ‘a paragon of caution, coldness, and craft,’ but in society his manner was genial if not jovial (cf. Hoby to Cecil, in Burgon, Life of Gresham, i. 226–8).
