Sir William Temple

Sir William Temple (1628-99), English statesman and writer, born in London, and educated at the University of Cambridge. In 1655 he married Dorothy Osborne, daughter of the governor of Guernsey; the letters she wrote to him during their courtship were posthumously published in 1888 and are regarded as among the finest in English literature. After his marriage Temple moved to Ireland, where he was a member of the Irish Parliament from 1661 to 1663. He then returned to England and embarked upon a diplomatic career. In 1666 he became a baronet.

Temple's most important diplomatic accomplishment was the negotiation, in 1668, that led to the second Triple Alliance, by which England, the Netherlands, and Sweden united against France. In the same year Temple was appointed ambassador to The Hague. In 1677 he helped to bring about the marriage of the prince of Orange, later William III, king of England, to Princess Mary of England, later Queen Mary II. In his later years Temple devoted himself to political writings and essays. For a time his secretary was the Anglo-Irish writer Jonathan Swift, who edited The Works of Sir William Temple, posthumously published in 1720 and 1731.