Geoffrey Fenton

Sir Geoffrey Fenton (c. 1539 – 19 October 1608) was an English writer, Privy Councillor, and Principal Secretary of State in Ireland.

Geoffrey (spelt Jeffrey by Lodge) was born in 1539, the son of Henry Fenton from Nottinghamshire, England and was the brother of Edward Fenton the navigator.

Geoffrey is said to have visited Spain and Italy in his youth; possibly he went to Paris in Sir Thomas Hoby's train in 1566, for he was living there in 1567, when he wrote Certaine tragicall discourses written oute of Frenche and Latin. This book is a free translation of François de Belleforest's French rendering of Matteo Bandello's Novelle.

Until 1579 Fenton continued his literary labors, publishing Monophylo in 1572, Golden epistles gathered out of Guevaraes workes as other authors ... 1575, and various religious tracts of strong Protestant tendencies. In 1579 appeared the Historie of Guicciardini, translated out of French by Fenton and dedicated to Queen Elizabeth.

Through Lord Burghley he obtained, in 1580, the post of secretary to the new Lord Deputy of Ireland, Lord Grey de Wilton, and thus became a fellow worker with the poet, Edmund Spenser. Fenton thereafter abandoned literature for service to the Crown in Ireland. He proved himself a zealous Protestant, who worked against the "diabolicall secte" of Rome, and urged the assassination of the Crown's most dangerous subjects. He secured the Queen's confidence with his written reports, but was arrested at Dublin in 1587 by the authority of the sitting governor, Sir John Perrot, on account of his debts, and was paraded in chains through the city. He was soon released, and made himself an instrument in Perrot's downfall in the following years.

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