Carne, Sir Edward

, an eminent civilian of the sixteenth century, was of a Glamorganshire family, and educated at Oxford. Here he chiefly studied the civil law, of which he took the degree of doctor in June 1524, being about that time principal of Greek-hall in St. Edward’s parish. He was admitted at Doctors’ Commons Nov. 13, 1625, and his talents being known at court, he was sent abroad on public affairs, and received the honour of knighthood from the emperor Charles V. In 1530 he was joined in a commission with archbishop Cranmer and others, the purpose of which was to argue the matter of king Henry VIII.'s memorable divorce at the courts of France, Italy, and Germany. Sir Edward Carne afterwards remained at Rome as “a sort of standing agent for Henry, and appears likewise to have continued there during the reign of Edward VI. and had no concern in the reformation. During queen Mary’s reign, he was her agent in the same situation; but on the accession of Elizabeth, the pope ordered him to relinquish that employment. When he was recalled by the queen, with offers of preferment, he thought proper to remain at Rome, and was employed by the pope as director of the English hospital in that city. He was so far a patriot as to inform Elizabeth of the machinations of the catholic powers against her, but he continued inflexible in his attachment to popery, and died in that communion Jan. 18, 1561. Several of his letters relating to the divorce are in Burnet’s” History of the Reformation." Wood remarks that sir Edward Carne was accounted the last ambassador of the kings of England to the pope, until Roger earl of Castlemain was sent to him by king James II. ²