Sir Thomas Bodley (March 2, 1545 – January 28, 1613), was an English
diplomat and scholar, founder of the Bodleian
Library, Oxford.
Biography
Thomas Bodley was born at Exeter in the second last year of the reign of Henry VIII. His father, John Bodley, was a Protestant
merchant who went to live abroad rather than stay in England under the Catholic
regime of Mary. The family (and the ten year old Nicholas Hilliard, who had been attached to the household by his parents, friends of Bodley)
eventually settled in Geneva where Thomas received his early education. He attended lectures
given by John Calvin and Theodore Beza, and attended
services led by John Knox. He learned Greek from
Mattheus Beroaldus and Hebrew from
Antoine Chevallier. The study of these languages remained enduring passions for Bodley throughout
his life.
After Mary's death in 1558 and the accession of Elizabeth, the family returned
to England, and Bodley entered Magdalen College, Oxford to study under
Lawrence Humphrey. In 1563 he took his B.A.
degree, and was shortly afterwards admitted as a Fellow to Merton College. He
began lecturing at Merton and in April 1565 he was formally appointed as the college's first Lecturer in Ancient Greek, a post
that was subsequently made permanent. He served in many college offices and in 1569 was elected as one of the University's junior
proctors, and for some time after was deputy Public Orator.
Leaving Oxford in 1576 with a licence to study abroad and a grant from his college of £6. 13s. 4d., he toured France,
Italy, and Germany, visiting scholars and adding French, Italian, and Spanish to his range of languages.
On his return he was appointed gentleman-usher to Queen Elizabeth and he entered Parliament as member for Portsmouth, and represented
St Germans in 1586. In 1585 Bodley was entrusted with a mission
to form a league between Frederick II of Denmark and certain German princes to
assist Henry of Navarre, the future Henry IV of
France. He was next dispatched on a secret mission to France; and in 1588 he was sent to
the Hague as minister, a post which demanded great diplomatic skill, for it was in
the Netherlands that the power of Spain had to be fought. The
essential difficulties of his mission were complicated by the intrigues of the queen's ministers at home, and Bodley repeatedly
asked to be recalled. He was finally permitted to return to England in 1596, but finding his preferment obstructed by the
competing interests of Burghley and Essex, he retired from public life, and returned to Oxford.
As he had married Ann Ball in 1587 (a widow of considerable fortune and the daughter of a Mr Carew of Bristol) he had had to resign his fellowship at Merton, but he still had many friends there and the college gave
a dinner in his honour in the spring of 1598. G. H. Martin speculates that the inspiration to restore the old Duke Humfrey's
library may have come from the renewal of his contact with Henry Savile
and other former colleagues at this dinner. Once his proposal was accepted he spent the rest of his life devoted to the library
project. He was knighted on April 18, 1604. He died in 1613 and was buried in the choir of Merton College chapel. His
monument of black and white marble complete with pillars made from books and allegories of learning is placed on the western wall
of the north transept of the chapel.
The Bodleian Library
Bodley's greated achievement was the foundation of the Bodleian Library at Oxford.
He determined, he said, "to take his farewell of state employments and to set up his staff at the library door in Oxford." In
1598 his offer to restore the old library was accepted by the university. Bodley not only used his private fortune in this
undertaking, but induced many of his friends to make valuable gifts of books. In 1611 he began its permanent endowment, and at
his death, the greater part of his fortune was left to it.
Publications
Bodley wrote his autobiography up to the year 1609, which, with the first draft of the statutes drawn up for the library, and
his letters to the librarian, Thomas James, was published by Thomas Hearne, under the title of Reliquiae Bodleianae, or Authentic Remains of Sir Thomas Bodley,
(London, 1703, 8vo).
References
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