Geoffrey Fenton

Sir Geoffrey Fenton (* around 1539; † October 19, 1608 in Dublin ) was an English statesman (Privy Council), Secretary of State for Ireland and translator.

Life

Fenton came from a noble family (his father Henry Fenton was from Nottinghamshire) and traveled to France , Spain and Italy in his youth . 1580 Fenton was on the mediation of Lord Burghley secretary of Arthur Gray, 14th Baron Gray de Wilton (1536-1593), the Lord Deputy of Ireland , which he remained until his death. At Gray in Ireland he was a colleague of Edmund Spenser . He gave up his literary activity and was a staunch opponent of Catholicism.

In 1587 he was briefly arrested by the Governor of Dublin John Perrot because of his debts and previously chained through the city. Fenton then worked on his overthrow and was involved in the 1590/91 trial against him in London, which ended with his execution. On January 5, 1589 he was knighted as a Knight Bachelor ("Sir"). In 1603 he became Privy Councilor for Ireland, which he remained even after the accession of James I thanks to the protection of Burghley despite poor relations with the new king, but he had to share his office with someone else. He is buried in St. Patrick's Cathedral .

In 1585 Fenton married Alice, daughter of the lawyer Robert Weston , the former Regius Professor of Civil Law at Oxford University and Lord Chancellor of Ireland. and had with her a son and a daughter. His daughter was the mother of Robert Boyle . His brother Edward Fenton († 1603) was a captain who u. a. sailed with Martin Frobisher .

Literary activity

In 1567, when he was in Paris, Fenton translated Matteo Bandello's novella (on a French translation by François de Belleforest ) entitled Certaine tragicall discourses written oute of Frenche and Latin , which became extremely popular in the Elizabethan era . Fenton also translated Antonio de Guevaras and Francesco Guicciardini's “History of Italy” (Storia d'Italia) (published in 1579 and dedicated to Queen Elizabeth).

Fenton's A Forme of Christian Pollici (1574) condemned theater using narrow-minded religious arguments.

literature

Fenton, Sir Geoffrey . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . 11th edition. tape 10 : Evangelical Church - Francis Joseph I . London 1910, p. 260 (English, full text [ Wikisource ]).

Individual evidence

^ William Arthur Shaw: The Knights of England. Volume 2. Sherratt and Hughes, London 1906, p. 87.
^ Andrew Lyall: Weston, Robert (b. In or before 1522, d. 1573), lord chancellor of Ireland. In: Henry Colin Gray Matthew, Brian Harrison (Eds.): Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , from the earliest times to the year 2000 (ODNB). Volume 58: Wellesley-Wilkinson. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0-19-861408-X , ( oxforddnb.com license required ), Last updated: 2004, accessed May 6, 2019.

personal data
SURNAME	Fenton, Geoffrey
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Fenton, Sir Geoffrey
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	English translator
DATE OF BIRTH	around 1539
DATE OF DEATH	October 19, 1608
Place of death	Dublin

[1] William Arthur Shaw: The Knights of England. Volume 2. Sherratt and Hughes, London 1906, p. 87.

[ODNB2004Weston-2] Andrew Lyall: Weston, Robert (b. In or before 1522, d. 1573), lord chancellor of Ireland. In: Henry Colin Gray Matthew, Brian Harrison (Eds.): Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , from the earliest times to the year 2000 (ODNB). Volume 58: Wellesley-Wilkinson. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0-19-861408-X , ( oxforddnb.com license required ), Last updated: 2004, accessed May 6, 2019.