Robert Ashley (1565 – October 1641) was an English lawyer and translator during the reigns of

Elizabeth I Elizabeth I (7 September 153324 March 1603) was List of English monarchs, Queen of England and List of Irish monarchs, Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. She was the last and longest reigning monarch of the House of Tudo ...

and James I, and a member of parliament for Dorchester.

Biography

Ashley was the son of Anthony Ashley of Damerham,

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Berkshire to the north, Surrey and West Sussex to the east, the Isle of Wight across the Solent to the south, ...

, and Dorothy Lyte, daughter of John Lyte, Esq., of Lytes Cary of

Somerset Somerset ( , ), Archaism, archaically Somersetshire ( , , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel, Gloucestershire, and Bristol to the north, Wiltshire to the east ...

. He was the younger brother of Anthony Ashley, 1st Baronet of Wimborne St Giles, and the elder brother of Sir Francis Ashley of Dorchester. Ashley attended the Grammar School at

Southampton Southampton is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and unitary authority in Hampshire, England. It is located approximately southwest of London, west of Portsmouth, and southeast of Salisbury. Southampton had a population of 253, ...

under the headmaster Hadrian Saravia. At the age of 13 he continued his studies at Salisbury Cathedral School with Adam Hill. Anthony Wood says he became a fellow commoner of Hart Hall in 1580, and does not speak of his being a member of any other college in Oxford University, but according to Ashley's own autobiography he transferred first to Alban Hall, Oxford, and then to Magdalen Hall. Ashley was granted his BA degree in 1582 and was named fellow at Magdalen College, Oxford in 1583. He was made Master of Arts in 1587. In 1588 he entered New Inn and was admitted to

Middle Temple The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known simply as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court entitled to Call to the bar, call their members to the English Bar as barristers, the others being the Inner Temple (with whi ...

on 8 October 1588. He was called to the Bar on 24 October 1595 after travelling to France. His mind was too mercurial for law, and he gave himself to the study of Dutch, French, Spanish and Italian. "Finding the practice of law", says Wood, "to have ebbs and tides, he applied himself to the learning of the languages of our neighbours, to the end that he might be partaker of the wisdom of those nations, having been many years of this opinion, that as no one soil or territory yieldeth all fruits alike, so no one climate or region affordeth all kind of knowledge in full measure." Ashley was elected member of parliament for Dorchester in 1597. He lived for many years in the Middle Temple, dying in October 1641, leaving no descendants. He was buried in the Temple Church. l Ashley created a library of approximately 5000 volumes. He housed his book collection in his chambers at the

where he had to rent a second room to accommodate it. He bequeathed his entire collection to the Middle Temple with an additional £300 to fund a librarian's post.

Literary background and published works

Ashley, who translated works during the reigns of Elizabeth, James I, and Charles I of England is called by Wood in his ''Athenæ Oxonienses'' "an esquire's son and Wiltshire-man born". When Ashley was a boy he delighted in reading ''Bevis of Hampton'', ''Guy of Warwick'', ''Valentine and Orson'', ''Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table'', and later the ''Decameron of Boccace'' and the ''Heptameron of the Queen of Navarre''. His principal works are: *''Urania'', in Latin verse, London, 1589, quarto, translated from the French of Du Bartas *''The Interchangeable Course'', 1594, folio, translated from the French of Louis le Roy *''Almansor, the learned and victorious King that conquered Spain, his Life and Death'', London, 1627, quarto, translated from Spanish. (In the preface to ''Almansor'' he speaks of having been in the library of the Escorial, where, he says, he saw a glorious golden library of Arabian books.) *''Relation of the Kingdom of Cochin-China, containing many admirable rarities and singularities of that country'', London, 1633, quarto, translated from the Italian of Christoforo Borri *''David Persecuted'', translated from the Italian of Malvezzi, London, 1637 Ashley also translated Sebastián Fox Morcillo's De honore (Basel, 1556) into English as of Honour, but it was never published. Three manuscript copies of Honour exist: Trinity College Cambridge, R.14.20, Huntington Library, MS. Ellesmere 1117, and Bodleian Library Ashmole MS. 1148. Ashley is also credited as main author of an unpublished miscellany, the Book of Magical Charms, Newberry MS 5017, though only identified as such in 2017.

Notes

References

* * *
Robert Ashley, in ''Book Owners Online''
;Attribution *

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Ashley, Robert 1565 births 1641 deaths 16th-century English writers 16th-century English male writers 17th-century English writers 17th-century English male writers Writers from Wiltshire Alumni of Magdalen Hall, Oxford Members of the Parliament of England for Dorchester English MPs 1597–1598 16th-century English translators