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Sir Thomas Smith Biography

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SMITH, Sir Thomas (1513- 77). An English statesman and scholar, born at Saffron Walden in Essex and educated at Queens’ College, Cambridge. He traveled and studied abroad, receiving honorary degrees from Padua, Cambridge, and Oxford. In 1544 he became regius professor of civil law in Cambridge and in 1548 was made Secretary of State. A zealous supporter of the Reformation, he lived in retirement under Mary, but in Elizabeth’s reign became eminent as a statesman and diplomatist. In 1564 he negotiated the peace of Troyes with France. While in Paris he wrote his De Republica Anglorum: The Maner of Government, or Policy of the Realme of England (London, 1583; new ed. by Leonard Alston, Cambridge, 1906). From this date diplomatic missions occupied much of his time. In 1572 he succeeded Burleigh as Secretary of State, but retired in 1576. His De Recta et Emendata Linguœ Anglicœ Scriptione Dialogus (Paris, 1568), a proposed reform in spelling, is interesting. Consult also John Strype, Life of Sir Thomas Smith (Oxford, 1820).

The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. XXI (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 203.