Early Modern Literature in History General Editors: Cedric C. Brown, Professor of English and Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Reading; Andrew Hadfield, Professor of English, University of Sussex, Brighton Advisory Board: Donna Hamilton, University of Maryland; Jean Howard, University of Columbia; John Kerrigan, University of Cambridge; Richard McCoy, CUNY; Sharon Achinstein, University of Oxford Within the period 1520 1740 this series discusses many kinds of writing, both within and outside the established canon. The volumes may employ different theoretical perspectives, but they share a historical awareness and an interest in seeing their texts in lively negotiation with their own and successive cultures. Titles include: Robyn Adams and Rosanna Cox DIPLOMACY AND EARLY MODERN CULTURE Andrea Brady ENGLISH FUNERARY ELEGY IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY Laws in Mourning Mark Thornton Burnett CONSTRUCTING MONSTERS IN SHAKESPEAREAN DRAMA AND EARLY MODERN CULTURE Jocelyn Catty WRITING RAPE, WRITING WOMAN IN EARLY MODERN ENDLAND Unbridled Speech Dermot Cavanagh LANGUAGE AND POLITICS IN THE SIXTEENTH-CENTURY HISTORY PLAY Patrick Cheney MARLOWE S REPUBLICAN AUTHORSHIP Lucan, Liberty, and the Sublime Danielle Clarke and Elizabeth Clarke (editors) THIS DOUBLE VOICE Gendered Writing in Early Modern England David Coleman DRAMA AND THE SACRAMENTS IN SIXTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLAND Indelible Characters Katharine A. Craik READING SENSATIONS IN EARLY MODERN ENGLAND James Daybell (editor) EARLY MODERN WOMEN S LETTER-WRITING, 1450 1700 James Daybell and Peter Hinds (editors) MATERIAL READINGS OF EARLY MODERN CULTURE Texts and Social Practices, 1580 1730 Matthew Dimmock and Andrew Hadfield (editors) THE RELIGIONS OF THE BOOK Christian Perceptions, 1400 1660 Tobias Doring PERFORMANCES OF MOURNING IN SHAKESPEAREAN THEATRE AND EARLY MODERN CULTURE Sarah M. Dunnigan EROS AND POETRY AT THE COURTS OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS AND JAMES VI
Mary Floyd-Wilson and Garrett A. Sullivan Jr. (editors) ENVIRONMENT AND EMBODIMENT IN EARLY MODERN ENGLAND Kenneth J.E. Graham and Philip D. Collington (editors) SHAKESPEARE AND RELIGIOUS CHANGE Teresa Grant and Barbara Ravelhofer ENGLISH HISTORICAL DRAMA,1500 1660 Forms Outside the Canon Andrew Hadfield SHAKESPEARE, SPENSER AND THE MATTER OF BRITAIN William M. Hamlin TRAGEDY AND SCEPTICISM IN SHAKESPEARE S ENGLAND Johanna Harris and Elizabeth Scott-Baumann (editors) THE INTELLECTUAL CULTURE OF PURITAN WOMEN, 1558 1680 Elizabeth Heale AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND AUTHORSHIP IN RENAISSANCE VERSE Chronicles of the Self Constance Jordan and Karen Cunningham (editors) THE LAW IN SHAKESPEARE Claire Jowitt (editor) PIRATES? THE POLITICS OF PLUNDER, 1550 1650 Gregory Kneidel RETHINKING THE TURN TO RELIGION IN EARLY MODERN ENGLISH LITERATURE Edel Lamp PERFORMING CHILDHOOD IN THE EARLY MODERN THEATRE The Children s Playing Companies (1599 1613) Jean-Christopher Mayer SHAKESPEARE S HYBRID FAITH History, Religion and the Stage Scott L. Newstok QUOTING DEATH IN EARLY MODERN ENGLAND The Poetics of Epitaphs Beyond the Tomb Jennifer Richards (editor) EARLY MODERN CIVIL DISCOURSES Marion Wynne-Davies WOMEN WRITERS AND FAMILIAL DISCOURSE ON THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE Relative Values The series Early Modern Literature in History is published in association with the Renaissance Texts Research Centre at the University of Reading. Early Modern Literature in History Series Standing Order ISBN 978 0 333 71472 0 (Hardback) 978 0 333 80321 9 (Paperback) (outside North America only) You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series and the ISBN quotes above. Customer Services Department Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England
Diplomacy and Early Modern Culture Edited by Robyn Adams Senior Research Officer, Centre for Editing Lives and Letters Queen Mary, University of London and Rosanna Cox Lecturer in English Literature, University of Kent Foreword by Lisa Jardine
Introduction, selection and editorial matter Robyn Adams and Rosanna Cox 2011 Individual chapters Contributors 2011 Foreword Lisa Jardine 2011 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2011 978-0-230-23976-0 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6 10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2011 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave and Macmillan are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-31626-7 ISBN 978-0-230-29812-5 (ebook) DOI 10.1057/9780230298125 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11
Contents Foreword by Lisa Jardine Acknowledgements Notes on the Contributors vii viii ix Introduction 1 Robyn Adams and Rosanna Cox 1 Procure as many as you can and send them over : Cartographic Espionage and Cartographic Gifts in International Relations, 1460 1760 13 Peter Barber 2 Scholars, Servants, Spies: William Weldon and William Swerder in England and Abroad 30 Jason Powell 3 Some Elizabethan Spies in the Office of Sir Francis Walsingham 46 Stephen Alford 4 A Most Secret Service: William Herle and the Circulation of Intelligence 63 Robyn Adams 5 Sidney, Gentili, and the Poetics of Embassy 82 Joanna Craigwood 6 Gender, Politics and Diplomacy: Women, News and Intelligence Networks in Elizabethan England 101 James Daybell 7 Francis Bacon s Bi-literal Cipher and the Materiality of Early Modern Diplomatic Writing 120 Alan Stewart 8 Court Hieroglyphics: the Idea of the Cipher in Ben Jonson s Masques 138 Hannah J. Crawforth v
vi Contents 9 The Ambassador s Household: Sir Henry Wotton, Domesticity, and Diplomatic Writing 155 Mark Netzloff 10 The Postmistress, the Diplomat, and a Black Chamber?: Alexandrine of Taxis, Sir Balthazar Gerbier and the Power of Postal Control 172 Nadine Akkerman Index 189
Foreword This volume of essays is that rare thing, a scholarly, academic collection of essays which sets the reader s pulse racing. Its subject matter does, of course, give it an advantage. Spies, intelligencers, knowledge gatherers and diplomats are the stuff of which romantic historical fiction and Tudor conspiracy theory investigations are made. What is so remarkable about the accessibility and easy reading of the present work, largely by academics in the early stages of their career, is that the studies it presents are scrupulously based upon archival evidence, painstakingly researched in manuscript collections around the world. The skills the authors of these essays bring to their topics are those of the trained archivist and interpreter of the manuscript remains of the past: above all, palaeography, the ability to decipher and transcribe difficult sixteenth- and seventeenth-century handwriting, so as to make sense of long-inaccessible and forgotten written materials. These traces of early modern men and women are the more tantalizing for being, inevitably, fragmentary, chance survivals from an age which attached great importance to committing everything regarded as significant to writing. These researchers also possess the ability painstakingly to reconstruct coherent narratives from the shards and fragments they have unearthed in the library. Each of them has a commanding understanding of the context within which their particular sample of material was produced, the milieu for which it was written. They stamp their interpretations with an easy authority which gives the reader confidence that their tale is to be trusted. As someone who has worked in adjacent fields, on similar materials for much of my own academic career, reading this collection of essays has informed me, and deepened my knowledge of the intricate world of the early modern diplomat and intelligencer. I have also learned a great deal from the strategies for seeing an existing field with fresh eyes and exploring its complexity in original and often unexpected ways. The study of Renaissance diplomacy is very much richer for their efforts. Lisa Jardine May 2010 vii
Acknowledgements This volume began life after a three-day conference held at the University of Kent in collaboration with the Centre for Editing Lives and Letters, Queen Mary, University of London in 2008. The exciting discussions generated by our dynamic group of delegates inspired us to put together this collection, and we are grateful to those who spoke, who attended, and who supported the proceedings. We owe a debt of gratitude to our respective colleagues at the Centre for Editing Lives and Letters and at the University of Kent, who freely gave their valuable advice and time, and made us tea when it counted. A special note of thanks must go to Lisa Jardine. At every stage of both our academic careers she has unfailingly supported us. Without her invaluable and magnificent guidance and friendship our world would be a dull and quiet place. Our thanks also to Bernhard Klein, Catherine Richardson, and Helena Torres; Matt Symonds, Jan Broadway, Susan North, Elizabeth Williamson and Will Tosh. Thank you also to David, Ed and Barney. viii
Notes on the Contributors Robyn Adams is the Senior Research Officer at the Centre for Editing Lives and Letters, Queen Mary, University of London. She is the editor of two online letter editions, The Letters of William Herle and The Diplomatic Letters of Thomas Bodley, and associate editor of Letters of a Stuart Princess: the Complete Correspondence of Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia, vol. II (with Nadine Akkerman). Her research focuses on intelligence and information networks of the sixteenth century. Nadine Akkerman is a Lecturer in English Literature at Leiden University, the Netherlands, and an Associate of the Centre of Editing Lives and Letters (CELL, QMUL) in London. She is editor of the forthcoming Letters of Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia (3 volumes), to be published by Oxford University Press. Stephen Alford was trained as a historian by John Guy at the University of St Andrews before moving to Cambridge in 1997 as a British Academy Post-doctoral Research Fellow. He was elected a Fellow of King s College in 1999 and appointed to a University Lectureship in Tudor history a year later. Also in 2000 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. His first and second books, The Early Elizabethan Polity (1998) and Kingship and Politics in the Reign of Edward VI (2002), were published by Cambridge University Press. His biography of Lord Burghley, Burghley: William Cecil at the Court of Elizabeth I, was published by Yale University Press last year. His next book is about intelligence, security, treason and loyalty in the reign of Elizabeth, and it will be published by Penguin in the UK and Bloomsbury Press in the US. Peter Barber studied international history at the London School of Economics before joining the British Library in 1975. After 12 years in the Department of Manuscripts, where he helped to catalogue the archive of the first Duke of Marlborough, he transferred to the Map Library where he has been Head of Map Collections since 2001. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He has curated several exhibitions, notably on Diplomacy (1979), the Glorious Revolution (1988), the mapping of London (2006), and Magnificent Maps: Power, Propaganda and Art (2010) and has published extensively on the history of cartography. Among his publications are ix
x Notes on the Contributors Diplomacy: the World of the Honest Spy (1979), The Map Book (2005), the chapter on mapmaking in England 1480 1650 in The History of Cartography iii (University of Chicago, 2007) and (with Tom Harper) Magnificent Maps: Power, Propaganda and Art (2010). Rosanna Cox is a Lecturer in Early Modern Literature at the University of Kent, UK. She works mainly on the politics, literature and thought of the civil war, commonwealth and restoration periods, and is particularly interested in the works of John Milton. She has published chapters and articles on Milton s politics, and on Paradise Lost and Samson Agonistes, and is currently working on her monograph on Milton and citizenship. Joanna Craigwood is a Research Fellow at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. She has recently completed a PhD on diplomacy and early modern English literature at Cambridge University. She works on crossovers between diplomatic and literary representation in the writings of Sidney, Shakespeare, Donne and Wroth, and in early modern diplomatic treatises and related historical documents. She also works on diplomatic agency in the international circulation of books, manuscripts, and literary news in the early modern period. Her publication on this subject (in Cultural Transfers: France and Britain in the Long Eighteenth Century, ed. Thomson et al., 2010) traces the intersection of national interest and international exchange in the circulation of books by the poet-diplomats Matthew Prior and George Stepney. Hannah J. Crawforth is a Lecturer in Shakespeare Studies at King s College London. Her doctoral thesis, completed at Princeton, was entitled The Politics and Poetics of Etymology in Early Modern Literature. It reconsidered the poetry of Spenser, Jonson and Milton in the light of increased efforts to study the history of the English language in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England. She is currently working on a book about the relationship between literature and linguistics in the Renaissance. Previous publications include essays on topics from Richard Verstegan to Geoffrey Hill. James Daybell is a Reader in Early Modern History at the University of Plymouth and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He is author of Women Letter-Writers in Tudor England (Oxford University Press, 2006), editor of Early Modern Women s Letter-Writing, 1450 1700 (Palgrave, 2001; winner of the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women award for best collaborative project, 2002), Women and Politics in Early Modern England, 1450 1700 (Ashgate, 2004), and (along with Peter Hinds) Material Readings of Early Modern Culture (Palgrave Macmillan 2010).
Notes on the Contributors xi He has published more than twenty articles and essays on the subjects of early modern women and letters and is currently completing a monograph entitled The Material Letter in Early Modern England (Palgrave Macmillan 2011). Lisa Jardine CBE is Centenary Professor of Renaissance Studies at Queen Mary, University of London. She is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and an Honorary Fellow of King s College, Cambridge and Jesus College, Cambridge, and holds honorary doctorates from the University of St Andrews, Sheffield Hallam University and the Open University. She is a Trustee of the V&A Museum, a member of the Council of the Royal Institution, and sits on the Library Committee of the Royal Society. She is Patron of the National Council on Archives. For the academic year 2007 8 she was seconded to the Royal Society as Advisor to its Collections. In April 2008 she took up the post of Chair of the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority. Lisa Jardine has published over fifty scholarly articles in refereed journals and books, and seventeen full-length books, both for an academic and for a general readership, a number of them in coauthorship with others. She is the author of a number of best-selling general books, including Worldly Goods: A New History of the Renaissance, Ingenious Pursuits: Building the Scientific Revolution, and biographies of Sir Christopher Wren and Robert Hooke. Her most recent book on Anglo-Dutch reciprocal influence in the seventeenth century, entitled Going Dutch: How England Plundered Holland s Glory, was published by HarperCollins in April 2008, and won the 2009 Cundill International History prize. Mark Netzloff is Associate Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He is the author of England s Internal Colonies: Class, Capital, and the Literature of Early Modern Colonialism (2003) and the editor of John Norden s The Surveyor s Dialogue: A Critical Edition (2010). His current book project examines the writings of English state agents in early modern Europe. Jason Powell is Assistant Professor of English at St Joseph s University. His two-volume edition of Thomas Wyatt s complete works, now under contract with Oxford University Press, has been supported by a Fellowship from the US National Endowment for the Humanities and a Harrington Fellowship from the University of Texas at Austin. He is working toward a monograph on Tudor literature and diplomacy and co-editing, with William T. Rossiter, a collection of essays on Diplomacy
xii Notes on the Contributors and Authority from Dante to Shakespeare. His articles have appeared in Huntington Library Quarterly, The Sixteenth Century Journal, English Manuscript Studies, 1100 1700, The Oxford Handbook to Tudor Literature, and Poetica, among other places. Alan Stewart is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, and International Director of the Centre for Editing Lives and Letters in London. He is the author, most recently, of Shakespeare s Letters (Oxford University Press, 2008), and is currently editing volumes 1 and 2 of the Oxford Francis Bacon.