Philip Hoby, who was born in 1505, was the son of William Hoby, of Leominster. His zeal for the Reformation commended him to Henry VIII and Cromwell, by whom he was constantly employed from 1538 onwards in diplomatic services at the courts of Spain and Portugal, and on special missions elsewhere. He was one of the gentlemen ushers of the King’s Privy Chamber, and took part in the siege of Boulogne, being rewarded with knighthood immediately after the conquest of that town in the autumn of 1544. He was made Master of the Ordnance and admitted to the Privy Council in 1552, and died in 1558. From his correspondence he appears to have been a man of culture and refinement. Holbein made two, if not three, journeys abroad in his company, and painted his portrait, though its whereabouts is not now known, but the drawing for it, in which he is shown with a scanty beard and long thin moustache, is in the Windsor Collection.[260] Footnote 260: Woltmann, 302; Wornum, ii. 7; Holmes, i. 40. Cromwell’s instructions to Hoby were as follows: “Instructions given by the L. Cromwell to Philip Hoby sent over by him to the duchess of Lorraine then [to the] duchess of Milan. “To repair to Mr. Hutton and tarry secretly at his lodging until he shall have been with the Regent. Then upon Hutton’s advertisement to go to the Duchess, present Cromwell’s commendations and say that no doubt she had heard from the Lady Regent and by the relation of the King’s ambassador there, the cause of his coming and Cromwell’s inclination to the advancement of the same as is declared ‘in the letter.’ He shall then beg her to take the pain to sit that a servant of the King, who is come thither for that purpose, may take her physiognomy; and shall ask when Mr. Hanns shall come to her to do so. The said Philip shall as of himself express a wish that both for my Lord’s reports of her virtues and for his own view of them, it might please the King, being now without a wife, to advance her to the honour of a queen of England. ‘And he shall well note her answers, her gesture and countenance with her inclination, that he may at his return declare the same to the King’s Majesty.’ Her picture taken, he and Hanns shall return immediately.”[261] Hoby was also supplied with a second document, in which all that he was to say to the Duchess was carefully drawn up for his guidance. Footnote 261: _C.L.P._, vol. xiii. pt. i. 380(2).