| George Carew | |
| Death Date: | 13 November 1612 |
| Nationality: | English |
| Other Names: | Earl of Totnes |
| Occupation: | Diplomat |
Sir George Carew (died 13 November 1612) was an English diplomat, historian and Member of Parliament.[1]
He was the second son of Thomas Carew of Antony and brother of Richard Carew. He was educated at Oxford and entered the Middle Temple before travelling abroad. At the recommendation of Queen Elizabeth I, who conferred on him the honour of a knighthood, he was appointed secretary to Sir Christopher Hatton. Later, having been promoted to a Mastership in Chancery, he was sent as ambassador to the King of Poland.
He sat in Parliament for St. Germans in 1584, for Saltash in 1586, 1588, 1593, and for St. Germans in 1597 and 1601.
The honour of knighthood was conferred upon him at the Palace of Whitehall on 23 July 1603. According to John Chamberlain, "Mr Carew, a master in chancery" rode north to Edinburgh to meet James VI and I in March 1603 at the Union of the Crowns, in an unsuccessful attempt to gain an office. He rode to Scotland again in June 1603 to meet Anne of Denmark, but did not get his desired "special place about her".[2]
He married Thomazine Carew, the daughter of Sir Francis Godolphin and his first wife Margaret Killigrew. They had two sons and three daughters, including:[1]
Thomazine, or Thomasine, Lady Carew, was a lady-in-waiting to Anne of Denmark.[6] The queen gave her gifts of clothes she had worn, including in February 1610 at Whitehall Palace, a black satin gown in a plain bias cut, and another black gown with blue "galloons" or lace strips.[7]
George Carew, 1st Earl of Totnes, a distant relation of her husband, was the queen's receiver-general and vice-chamberlain, which be a source of confusion.[8]
Lady Carew was influential by her proximity to Anne of Denmark, and was able to forward her husband's plans. Thomas Edmondes wrote that she had intervened in his diplomatic appointments against his wishes, but the Lord Treasurer Robert Cecil's decision had prevailed.[9] She walked in the procession at Anne of Denmark's funeral in 1619 as a lady of the Privy Chamber.[10]
During the reign of James I he was employed in negotiations with Scotland and for several years was ambassador to the court of France. On his return, he wrote a Relation of the State of France, written in the classical style of the Elizabethan age and featuring sketches of the leading persons at the court of Henry IV. It appears as an appendix to Thomas Birch's Historical View of the Negotiations between the Courts of England, France and Brussels, from 1592 to 1617, 1749.[11] The work A Relation of the State of Polonia, produced between 1598 and 1603, used to be attributed to Carew, but in 2014 Sobecki definitively identified John Peyton as the author and the coronation of James VI and I in 1603 as the date of completion.[12] Sobecki's identification is based on Peyton's letters about this work and the finding of a second copy of A Relation of the State of Polonia written in Peyton's hand and dated and signed by Peyton himself.