Thomas Wilkes

Sir Thomas Wilkes (c.1545 – 2 March 1598 (N.S in Rouen)) was an English civil servant and diplomat during the reign of Elizabeth I of England. He served as Clerk of the Privy Council, Member of Parliament for Downton and Southampton, and English member of the Council of State of the Netherlands, and on many diplomatic missions for the English government.

Little is known of Wilkes' early years. He may have been a native of Sussex. Apparently he spent eight years in Continental Europe on the Grand Tour after 1564, before he became a probationer-fellow at All Souls College, Oxford in 1572, where he graduated B.A. in February 1573 (N.S.). Wilkes married Margaret Smith, daughter of Ambrose Smith (a London Mercer) and Joan Coe, about 1578, with whom he had a daughter. After her death in 1596 he remarried with Frances Savage, daughter of Sir John Savage.

Shortly after graduation, and still a probationer of All Souls, he joined the embassy of dr. Valentine Dale to France as Dale's secretary. (This caused some difficulty with the College that had to be resolved by Sir Francis Walsingham). In 1574 Queen Elizabeth instructed him to secretly contact the Prince de Condé and the Duke d'Alençon, who had been arrested by the French Queen-mother, Catherine de Medici, to reassure them of her support. Catherine found out and tried to apprehend Wilkes. When he managed to escape to England Queen Elizabeth ordered him to resolve the diplomatic incident or never come back. He returned to France and managed to convince Catherine of his innocence which allowed him to remain in France as an English diplomat.

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