George Carew (diplomat)


Sir George Carew was an English diplomat, historian and Member of Parliament.

Life

He was the second son of Thomas Carew of Antony and brother of Richard Carew. He was educated at Oxford and entered the Middle Temple before travelling abroad. At the recommendation of Queen Elizabeth I, who conferred on him the honour of a knighthood, he was appointed secretary to Sir Christopher Hatton. Later, having been promoted to a Mastership in Chancery, he was sent as ambassador to the King of Poland.
He sat in Parliament for St. Germans in 1584, for Saltash in 1586, 1588, 1593, and for St. Germans in 1597 and 1601. The honour of knighthood was conferred upon him at Whitehall 23 July 1603.

Family

He married Thomazine, the daughter of Sir Francis Godolphin and his first wife Margaret Killigrew. They had two sons and three daughters, including:
During the reign of James I he was employed in negotiations with Scotland and for several years was ambassador to the court of France.
On his return he wrote a Relation of the State of France, written in the classical style of the Elizabethan age and featuring sketches of the leading persons at the court of Henry IV.
It appears as an appendix to Thomas Birch's Historical View of the Negotiations between the Courts of England, France and Brussels, from 1592 to 1617, 1749. The work A Relation of the State of Polonia, produced between 1598 and 1603, used to be attributed to Carew, but in 2014 Sobecki definitively identified John Peyton as the author and the coronation of James VI and I in 1603 as the date of completion. Sobecki's identification is based on Peyton's letters about this work and the finding of a second copy of A Relation of the State of Polonia written in Peyton's hand and dated and signed by Peyton himself.

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