Georg Rudolf Weckherlin

Influenced by the French La Pléiade, his poetry introduced Renaissance forms and themes previously unknown in German verse.

Weckherlin would eventually come to be employed by the English crown as an expert on foreign languages and cryptography, and continued to serve in this position in the Commonwealth of England.

After studying law in Tübingen he settled at Stuttgart, and, as secretary to Duke Johann Friedrich of Württemberg, was employed on diplomatic missions to France and England.

He acted as a licenser of London foreign news publications for Charles I and in the mid-1630s he assisted with the negotiations for the development of an offensive and defensive treaty with France that would have brought Britain directly into the Thirty Years' War.

[2] Although employed by the English crown, when civil war came in 1642, Weckherlin chose to remain in London and serve the bureaucracy that supported the Long Parliament.