, was the natural son of the lord of Bnsbec, or Boesbec, and born
, was
the natural son of the lord of Bnsbec, or Boesbec, and
born at Commines, a town in Flanders, 1522. The early
proofs he gave of extraordinary genius induced his father
to spare neither care nor expence to get him properly instructed, and to obtain his legitimation from the emperor
Charles V. He was sent to study at the universities of
Louvain, Paris, Venice, Bologna, and Padua, and was
some time at London* whither he attended the ambassador
of Ferdinand, king of the Romans, and was present at the
marriage of Philip and Mary. In 1554 he was appointed
ambassador at Constantinople; but made a very short stay
there. Being sent back the following year, his second
embassy proved longer and more fortunate; for it lasted
seven years, and ended in a beneficial treaty. He acquired
a perfect, knowledge of the state of the Ottoman empire,
and the true means of attacking it with success; on which
subject he composed a very judicious discourse, entitled
“De re militari contra Turcam instituenda consilium.
”
Without neglecting any thing that related to the business
of his embassy, he laboured successfully for the republic
of letters, collecting inscriptions, purchasing manuscripts,
searching after rare plants, and inquiring into the nature
of animals, and when he set out the second time to Constantinople, he carried with him a painter, to make drawings of the plants and animals that were unknown in the
west. The relation which he wrote of his two journies to
Turkey is much commended by Thuanus. He was desirous of passing the latter part of his life in privacy, but
the emperor Maximilian made choice of him to be governor to his sons; and when his daughter princess Elizabeth
was married to Charles IX. of France, Busbec was nominated to conduct her to Paris. This queen gave him the
whole superintendance of her houshold and her affairs, and,
when she quitted France, on her husband’s death, left him
there as her ambassador, in which station he was retained
by the emperor Rodolph until 1592, when, on a journey
to the Low Countries, he was attacked by a party of soldiers,
and so harshly treated as to bring on a fever which proved
fatal in October of that year. He was a man of great learning, and an able antiquary. The public is indebted to
him for the “Monumentum Anciranum,
” which would be
one of the most curious and instructive inscriptions of antiquity, if it was entire, as it contained a list of the actions
of Augustus. Passing through Ancyra, a city of Galatia,
Busbec caused all that remained legible of that inscription
to be copied from the marble of a ruined palace, and sent
it to Schottus the Jesuit. It may be seen in Gruevius’s
Suetonius. Gronovius published this Monumentum Anciranum at Leyden in 1695, with notes, from a more full
and correct copy than that of Busbec. Busbec also vyrote
“Letters from France to the emperor Rodolph,
” which
exhibit an interesting picture of the French court at that
period. An edition of all his letters was published by
Elzivir at Leyden, 1633, and at London in 1660, 12mo.
His “Itinera Constantinopolitanum et Amasianum
” was
printed at Antwerp, Legationis Turcicæ Epistolæ,
” Francfort,