Frans van der Dilft

Frans van der Dilft also François van der Delft (* around 1500 in Antwerp , † 14 June 1550 in Antwerp) was Charles V's ambassador to Henry VIII and Edward VI from 1544 to 1550 . in England.

Life

His parents were wealthy. He was enrolled at the University of Leuven on October 30, 1514 and studied with Conrad Goclenius (Gockelen † 1539), who at that time was professor of Latin in the humanistic Collegium Trilingue , with which Erasmus of Rotterdam had close ties. Dilft came to Basel and was matriculated at the University of Basel at the beginning of the winter semester 1524–1525.

Erasmus introduced Frans van der Dilft, who lived with him in his household on February 10, 1525 in Basel and served him as a courier to Franciscus van Cranevelt (1485–1564) in Mechelen, as a canon from Antwerp. He brought a letter from Erasmus to Johann von Vlatten next to him he worked for Erasmus as a secretary and paying boarder .

At Christmas 1525 Erasmus wrote him a letter of recommendation to Nicolaas Everaerts , and Frans van Dilft returned to Antwerp.

In 1527, 1528 van Dilft lived again for a few months in Erasmus's household. In early 1528 Frans van der Dilft carried a letter from Erasmus to Philipp Melanchthon . In 1528 van Dilft traveled to the court of Charles V in Spain with a number of letters of recommendation from Erasmus , but received no employment. He returned to Erasmus, who had moved to Freiburg im Breisgau in 1529 . A second application attempt with further letters of recommendation from Erasmus at the court of Charles V brought him a job in 1530 with Alonso de Fonseca y Ulloa , the archbishop of Toledo . He received a manor that was set up in Barcelona in 1533 in the presence of Charles V. In 1534 he returned to the Spanish Netherlands to marry a wealthy bride, for whom his family had secured an option right through preliminary contracts to the marriage contract. In 1536 he was again in the imperial service.

In 1537 he was mayor of Antwerp with Nikolaas van der Meeren.

Charles V sent him from 1544 as Ambassador to the Court of St James’s to Henry VIII in England.

He was recalled to the Spanish Netherlands in 1550. Then he was involved in a failed attempt to marry Maria I. Tudor , (a cousin of Charles V) in the Netherlands.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Desiderius Erasmus, Alexander Dalzell, The Correspondence of Erasmus: Letters 1658 to 1801, January 1526-March 1527 , p. 110
2. ↑ cf. Erasmus Private Papers p. 1963 introduction and Franz Bierlaire, La Familia D'Erasme: Contribution a l'histoire de l'hu- manisme. 64-7 after Alexander Dalzell, Collected works of Erasmus , 1994, 476 p. 94
3. ↑ Dalzell, p.394
4. ↑ Peter G. Bietenholz, Thomas B. Deutscher, Contemporaries of Erasmus: A Biographical Register of the Renaissance and Reformation, Volumes 1-3 , p. 136

predecessor	Office	successor
Cornelis van Spangen with Nikolaas van der Meeren	Mayor of Antwerp 1537	Cornelis van Spangen with Lancelot van Ursel
Beltrán II. De la Cueva y Toledo	Spanish ambassador to England 1544–1550	Baudouin de Lannoy, Seigneur de Maubeuge et de Solre