English poet, courtier, and statesman, born at Allington Castle, in Kent, and educated at St. John's College, Cambridge; was a welcome presence at court, a friend of Anne Boleyn, in high favour with the king, and knighted in 1537; did a good deal of diplomatic work in Spain and the Netherlands, and died on his way to meet the Spanish ambassador and convoy him to London; he had travelled in Italy, had studied the lyric poets of Italy, especially Petrarch, and, along with Surrey, imported their sentiment into English verse, "amourist poetry," as it has been called, "a poetry extremely personal, and personal as English poetry had scarcely ever been before" (1503-1542).