Hoby was born in 1530. He was the second son of William Hoby of Leominster, Herefordshire, by his second wife, Katherine, daughter of John Forden. He was a cousin of Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury, who succeeded his father as the Queen's principal minister. Among his siblings was brother Sir William Hoby of Hayles. He matriculated at St. John's College, Cambridge in 1546. Encouraged by his sophisticated half-brother, Sir Philip Hoby, he subsequently visited France, Italy, and other foreign countries, and, as Roger Ascham states, "was many wayes well furnished with learning, and very expert in knowledge of divers tongues." His tour of Italy, which included visits to Calabria and Sicily and which he documented in his autobiography, is the most extensive known to have been undertaken by an Englishman in the 16th century. In this and other respects, it may be regarded as a pioneering Grand Tour.
Career
Hoby translated Martin Bucer's Gratulation to the Church of England, and Baldassare Castiglione's Il Cortegiano. The latter translation of The Courtier, entitled The Courtyer of Count Baldessar Castilio, had great popularity and was one of the key books of the English Renaissance. It provided a philosophy of life for the Elizabethan era gentleman. A reading of its pages fitted him for the full assimilation of the elaborate refinements of the new Renaissance society. It furnished his imagination with the symbol of a completely developed individual, an individual who united ethical theory with spontaneity and richness of character. On 9 March 1566 he was knighted at Greenwich, and was sent as Ambassador to France at the end of the month. At the time of his landing in Calais, on 9 April, a soldier at the town gate shot through the English flag in two places. Hoby demanded redress for the insult, and obtained it after some delay, but he was not permitted to view the new fortifications.
He died at Paris on 13 July 1566, and was buried at Bisham, Berkshire, where his widow erected a monument to his memory and to that of his half-brother Sir Philip Hoby. His widow remarried in 1574, to John, Lord Russell, eldest surviving son and heir to Francis Russell, 2nd Earl of Bedford, but John died in 1584 before acceding to the Earldom of Bedford.
Descendants
His eldest son Edward did not produce any children from his two marriages, however, he had a natural son, whom he recognized as his own and made him his heir, Peregrine Hoby with Katherine Pinckney, a favourite of James I. Peregrine was himself the father of Sir Edward Hoby, 1st Baronet, whose baronetcy continued until the fifth Baronet died in 1766, and Thomas Hoby, an MP for Great Marlow and Salisbury As his second son Thomas died without issue, he left his manor of Hackness to John Sydenham of Brympton in Somerset, the son of his first cousin Alice Hoby, daughter of Sir William Hoby of Hayles, who was Hoby's uncle. He made further bequests to other members of the Sydenham family, and he also left each of his servants three years' wages.
