Sir William Boswell (died 1650) was an English diplomat and politician who sat in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of ...

in 1624 and 1625. He was a resident ambassador to the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

from 1632 to 1649.

Life

William Boswell was a native of

Suffolk Suffolk ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and East Anglia. It is bordered by Norfolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Essex to the south, and Cambridgeshire to the west. Ipswich is the largest settlement and the county ...

. He was educated at

Jesus College, Cambridge Jesus College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Jesus College was established in 1496 on the site of the twelfth-century Benedictine nunnery of St Radegund's Priory, Cambridge, St ...

, of which he was elected fellow in 1606. He was incorporated at

Oxford University The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the second-oldest continuously operating u ...

on 12 July 1608 and became proctor in 1624. He was one of the keepers of the state paper office and served as secretary to Baron Herbert. In 1624 he was elected Member of Parliament for

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

in a by-election to the

Happy Parliament The 4th Parliament of King James I was the fourth and last Parliament of England of the reign of James I of England, summoned on 30 December 1623, sitting from 19 February 1624 to 29 May 1624, and thereafter kept out of session with repeated pro ...

. He was re-elected MP for Boston in 1625.'Alumni Oxonienses, 1500-1714: Bludworth-Brakell', Alumni Oxonienses 1500-1714 (1891), pp. 142-170. Date accessed: 8 May 2012
/ref> Boswell subsequently entered the diplomatic service, and was appointed secretary to Sir Dudley Carleton, then ambassador at

The Hague The Hague ( ) is the capital city of the South Holland province of the Netherlands. With a population of over half a million, it is the third-largest city in the Netherlands. Situated on the west coast facing the North Sea, The Hague is the c ...

. Boswell eventually succeeded Carleton in 1632. He was knighted at Bockstal near Baldock on 25 July 1633. A large share of Sir William's attention while ambassador was taken up with the controversy between the Gomarists and the

Remonstrants The Remonstrants (or the Remonstrant Brotherhood) is a Protestant movement that split from the Dutch Reformed Church in the early 17th century. The early Remonstrants supported Jacobus Arminius, and after his death, continued to maintain his or ...

( Arminians). He continued the policy of Sir Dudley Carleton, and supported the rigidly Calvinist Gomarists against the Remonstrants. This was for political reasons, and otherwise Boswell was an ally of

William Laud William Laud (; 7 October 1573 – 10 January 1645) was a bishop in the Church of England. Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury by Charles I of England, Charles I in 1633, Laud was a key advocate of Caroline era#Religion, Charles I's religious re ...

. He took a close interest in the émigré English churches in the Netherlands, and in 1633-4 helped John Paget intrigue against John Davenport. Charles I ordered Boswell to back Edward Misselden, influential in the Merchant Adventurers, against John Forbes. In 1638 Boswell had a prosecution brought against John Canne. He was now poised against the Gomarists, and worked together with Remonstrants to combat Scottish Covenanter propaganda. When the

First English Civil War The First English Civil War took place in England and Wales from 1642 to 1646, and forms part of the 1639 to 1653 Wars of the Three Kingdoms. An estimated 15% to 20% of adult males in England and Wales served in the military at some point b ...

broke out, Boswell's efforts were directed towards preserving the neutrality of the Dutch. Despite the efforts of Walter Strickland, who was sent over by

Oliver Cromwell Oliver Cromwell (25 April 15993 September 1658) was an English statesman, politician and soldier, widely regarded as one of the most important figures in British history. He came to prominence during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, initially ...

to counteract his influence, he was quite successful in his political mission. He could not prevent Parliament appealing to Dutch public opinion, however. Despite Boswell's appeals to the Dutch authorities to ban Parliamentary propaganda, it circulated widely in the Republic, and Boswell found himself compelled to respond by publishing royalist pamphlets. Sir William was also a man of letters and a scholar, as is shown in his correspondence with John de Laet, which touches upon subjects ranging from Oriental literature and the compilation of an Arab dictionary to

Edward VI Edward VI (12 October 1537 – 6 July 1553) was King of England and King of Ireland, Ireland from 28 January 1547 until his death in 1553. He was crowned on 20 February 1547 at the age of nine. The only surviving son of Henry VIII by his thi ...

's treatise 'De Primatu Papae,' and Sir Simon d'Ewes's Saxon vocabulary. Another correspondent was the Laudian Stephen Goffe.

Notes and references

Citations

Sources

*Keith L. Sprunger (1982), ''Dutch Puritanism: a history of English and Scottish churches of the Netherlands in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries''

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Boswell, William 1650 deaths 17th-century English diplomats Ambassadors of England to the Dutch Republic English MPs 1624–1625 English MPs 1625 Year of birth missing Knights Bachelor