Sir John Smythe (soldier)
[5][2] Smythe never took a degree at the university, but "laid the foundation of literature" during his education, as Wood puts it;[5] in his later writings he is comfortable quoting classical authorities, such as the Greek historians Herodotus, Thucydides, and Diodorus Siculus, and the Roman authors Pliny the Elder and Plutarch, demonstrating some degree of conventional education.
[2] Smythe likely left this education after a short time, serving "armed in the field" against Kett's Rebellion and the Western Rising, both in 1549, while still a teenager.
Smythe joined with a group of Protestant volunteers to fight alongside Philip II of Spain in the Mediterranean front of these wars.
[b] Smythe was appointed at a critical time for Anglo-Spanish relations, during which he was to "make her Majestie privy to the whole state of Spayne", as he explained in a letter to William Cecil.
With the English-backed Dutch Revolt in 1576, and a large Spanish force in the Low Countries poised to attack, Smythe was to pose himself as a mediator of relations between the two nations.
According to Gause, Smythe "carried out his duties well in tense and difficult circumstances" during his incumbency; he succeeded in persuading Philip to maintain peace with Elizabeth, but was actively counterproductive in protecting her subjects from the Inquisition.
Quiroga remained implacable, with the Secretary of State, Gabriel de Zayas [es], reminding Smythe shortly after the clash that "the tribunal of the Holy Inquisition is simply and purely ecclesiastical [...] the King [...] does not interfere in any way with it or its proceedings [...] You will thus see easily what it will be proper to ask of his Catholic Majesty and what he is able to concede.
[2] In 1585, the eruption of the Anglo-Spanish War over the Dutch Revolt, and fear of a Spanish invasion of England, led to a division in the English court.
On the one side, the militant faction (led by Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester) argued for a direct military offensive in the Low Countries to prevent such a contingency, while, on the other side, the peaceful faction (led by William Cecil, Lord Burghley) contended war would be an expensive and risky resort, instead proposing diplomatic efforts to restore peace.
At this time, Smythe was appointed Elizabeth's ambassador to Spanish military leader, Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma.
He also criticised the then-common use of impressment by the English navy as a socially disruptive practice, an opinion which was unpopular among the court and detrimental to his reputation.
In some of these letters, Smythe gives a glimpse into his ongoing external strife, griping that he was forced to pawn his inheritance to pay off mounting debts, and found himself marginalised within Elizabethan politics after Dudley's death in 1588.
[10] Despite its brief print run, the Certain Discourses has come to be understood as the "most original and controversial of the Tudor military books" according to J. R. Hale, in the preface to the Folger edition.
In "such a heat", Smythe rode out to a field where "some fower score or a hundreth" of Lucas' men were training with his hated firearms, and began to deliver "franticke, disordered speeches" reprimanding them for wasting their lives in foreign wars.
[11] He ranted against the use of impressment, making reference to a previous conversation with jurist Roger Manwood, in which he had been assured of the practice's dubious legality.
Cecil argued "that the said attempte proceeded not of his meere rashenes [...] or sodaine overthrowe of his owne, but from some farther grounde and foundacion of practize and conspiracie", ordering a search of his house.
His punishment was now relaxed to house arrest in a newly purchased Little Baddow residence, and the 1-mile radius area around it, conditional on a public apology which was to be posted around Colchester.
His name is absent from records until 4 March 1600, when Cecil's son, Robert, 1st Earl of Salisbury, cordially requested documents on the Inquisition from his tenure as embassador.
