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International Diplomacy in the Reign of Henry VIII
From: Cambridge University Press
| By:
Retha M. Warnicke |
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION |
Whether used for the purposes of building good relations with other countries or for seeking the means to subvert a foreign regime, diplomats play an important role in international relations. The Tudors were the first to formalise the art of international diplomacy, setting the framework for the modern role of the resident ambassador. Retha Warnicke here recounts some of the events and incidents that punctuated the development of international relations when Henry VIII was king of England. |
 enry VII began the English practice of employing resident ambassadors. The first identifiable ones are John Stile, who resided in Spain from 1505 to 1510 and from 1512 to 1517, and John Spinelly, whose origins are somewhat obscure but who was certainly employed in the Netherlands early in the reign of Henry VIII. The development of a permanent corps for the management of foreign relations was, according to Charles Carter, "the most significant mark of modern diplomacy" (C. Carter, ed., From the Renaissance to the Counter Reformation, 1966, p. 270). One major disadvantage of the system was, however, that, in an age when communications were slow, the resident's information about his homeland became somewhat dated. |
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| Edward VI and the Pope: a representation of Henry VIII on his deathbed, with his son and his council. | |
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Levels of diplomacy
A ruler might decide to appoint two residents to important courts, one of higher status to handle discussions with the monarch and one of lesser status to collect news and to witness his official acts. An occasional ad hoc ambassador might also be sent on a special assignment to these same courts. This was how England often conducted French diplomacy. When, for example, Winchester first arrived at Paris in September 1535, he worked with Sir John Wallop, already there as the English resident. It was the duty of Wallop, also a member of Henry's privy chamber, to acquaint Winchester with recent events in the kingdom and to instruct him concerning matters of protocol that were relevant to his mission. In the spring of 1537 when Wallop returned home, Winchester carried on alone as resident but was later joined by Sir Francis Bryan of the privy chamber and Thomas Thirlby, future bishop of Westminster. In 1538 Edmund Bonner, future bishop of London, and a series of ad hoc diplomats replaced Winchester and his two colleagues. Bonner had actually expected to be joined in his residency by a member of the privy chamber but that appointment was never made. |
As noted, some of the above named ambassadors were also gentlemen of the privy chamber. Their appointments are interesting because they served Henry in England in a personal rather than in a public capacity. David Starkey has pointed out that the privy chamber, which emerged as the third household department in the reign of Henry VII, gained a new hierarchical staff in 1518-19 that included gentlemen at the highest levels. The purpose of this restructuring seems to have been to provide Henry's personal servants "parity of status" with those of the French king. David Potter has claimed that it was the use of these "second-rate" men as ambassadors that made it possible for France to outwit England in foreign relations, especially in Germany (D. Potter, "Diplomacy in the Mid-Sixteenth Century," Ph.D. Thesis, Cambridge University, 1973, pp. 273, 342). Ministers at courts abroad clearly understood what their domestic capacity was; in 1537 Gian Matheo Giberti, bishop of Verona, referred to Bryan as one of Henry's "principal mignons." From the later Tudor period, the duties of these men were limited to domestic matters. |
News gathering
"Trafficking in news," according to David Queller, was the resident's prime duty, although he could also possess full powers to negotiate and conclude treaties (D. Queller, The Office of Ambassador in the Middle Ages, 1967, pp. 84-140). Governments demanded frequent letters from their ambassadors, who were, as Lope de Soria wrote to the emperor from Venice in 1539, "duty bound to report all they hear and learn." Sometimes they obtained information so sensitive that it had to be communicated to their governments in cipher. In England a favorite place to gather news was at St. Paul's Cathedral, where gentry, lords, courtiers, and professional men walked up and down the center aisle conversing with each other between 11:00 a.m. and noon and again between 3:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. The expectation that they should collect information was so great that ambassadors sometimes felt it necessary to apologize for their lack of it, as did Richard Pate, ambassador to the Netherlands in 1540, who lamented to Henry: "This court is the closest in the world, I think, for news." |
Their news was, as Joycelyne Russell reported, "an endlessly stirred whirlpool of information, misinformation, and ... disinformation" (J. Russell, Peacemaking in the Renaissance, 1986, p. 69). They sometimes bribed courtiers for information, although this practice did not, of course, ensure the transmission of accurate facts. These bribes, as Charles V noted in 1537, might be rich jewels, money, or even pensions. The diplomats were occasionally somewhat disingenuous. In 1538 Thomas Cromwell, who had received a pension from the French king, Francis, informed the English ambassadors in Paris that Louis de Perreau, sieur de Castillon, had offered to forward Henry's letters to them by the French courier. Since the king could not refuse this offer without displaying distrust, Cromwell had decided to send this message to them by the French courier as though it were actually Henry's packet of materials. |
Spying and counterintelligence
At the end of the seventeenth century, Abraham van Wicquefort, who wrote a "text-book of diplomatic practice," confirmed that it was "lawful" for diplomats "to corrupt" the ministers of the courts where they resided. By this time some countries, such as France and Spain, had succeeded in developing well-structured intelligence networks to supplement the work of their ambassadors. It was actually because residents functioned as intelligence gatherers that a few monarchs had at first been reluctant to admit them into their realms, and when they did, made attempts to isolate them in their embassies and to have them spied on in turn. A vague line existed between the job as fact gatherer and as spy. |
But as they were thus "suspected" of being spies, van Wicquefort warned them "to suspect every body," for as he noted, princes had "their agents, who make it their business to acquire the confidence of the ambassador" in the hope of passing off "false news" to him. In the 1530s Cromwell had certainly functioned as one of Henry's most successful councillors by ingratiating himself with diplomats, especially with Eustace Chapuys, to pass on "false news." Cromwell had also sent Vaughan, the future diplomat to the Netherlands, to spy on Chapuys when he visited with Catherine of Aragon shortly before her death in 1536. In addition, in his treatise that was translated into English in 1603, John Hotman warned diplomats against hiring servants from the country to which they were assigned for fear these hirelings would act as spies. He even recommended that ambassadors take their wives with them to supervise their households in order to prevent its members from revealing sensitive information to outsiders. It was far from unusual for the most high-ranking servants of the diplomat's staff to sell documents, even ciphered dispatches, as occurred in 1541 when Chapuys obtained a copy of a letter from Francis to his embassy in England. Governments were also concerned that the ambassador, himself, might accept bribes. According to Garrett Mattingly, this fear caused some monarchs to hesitate to appoint a resident, whose long tenure might make it possible for him to develop intimate relationships with the host prince and his ministers that might tempt him to accept bribes from them. |
The diplomats' service as spies meant that they also had to be careful not to reveal sensitive material inadvertently. In the spirit of the need for secrecy, they often had to pass on inaccurate facts and to prevaricate, duties that some found offensive. In 1539 Edmund Bonner complained to Cromwell that it was difficult for him to "dissemble" and speak graciously to the French king and his servants. Henry Wotton, the English ambassador to France in 1604, made the famous comment about this duty: Legatus est vir bonus peregre missus ad mentien dum reipublica causa [an ambassador is an honest man sent abroad to lie for the good of his country]. |
Despite the ubiquitous awareness that ambassadors acted as spies, many authors of treatises maintained that their persons were "sacred" and that they were, like friars and pilgrims, under special papal protection. Even the houses of ambassadors were considered "inviolable." This theory was seldom followed to the letter; rulers routinely sought to uncover evidence about the intelligence that ambassadors were gathering at their courts; sometimes they confiscated diplomatic pouches. Occasionally, they even imprisoned the ambassadors themselves, as occurred in England and Spain in 1528. After the English minister who was sent to escort the Imperial ambassador to an audience with Henry retained him in custody, Wolsey announced that the diplomatic prisoner would be released as soon as the English resident in Spain was freed. |
That these ambassadors operated as spies, and were widely known to be spies, was not a bizarre practice within the political culture. Many individuals, from military leaders to courtiers, were on the alert to uncover secret information about their countrymen for their rulers, who rewarded them for this intelligence with office, prestige, authority, and financial windfalls. Ambassadors also had to worry about the activities of fellow diplomats. In 1538, for example, Cromwell asked Bonner to spy on Winchester, whom he was replacing as resident in France. Thus, early modern sovereignty, defined by John Archer as "a system of political power organized around the court" of a ruler, was bound up with intelligence gathering and spying as well as with the better-known culture of display, that is the visible processions, ceremonies, and entertainments (J. Archer, Sovereignty and Intelligence, 1993, pp. 3-9). |
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