¹ Addressed to Norfolk as ‘Lieutenant general pour le Royne d’Angleterre ès marches du nort’.

² See the complaint of the ambassador of 16 March 1560, Appendix II, no. 1.

³ The text could read Plancy or Planey. If Plancy, it might indicate Nicolas Aleaume, sieur de Plancy en Brie, procureur de l’élection for Rozay en Brie and father of Nicolas, conseiller in the Grand Conseil, 1579 (see Camille Trani, Les Magistrats du grand conseil au XVIe siècle (1547–1610), Mémoires publiés par la Féderation des Sociétés historiques et archéologiques de Paris et de l’Île-de-France, 42 (Paris, 1991), p. 97). However, a ‘sieur de Plannoy’ was in de Seure's service as a gentleman of his suite in Portugal and acted as his messenger to the court of France (see Matos, appendix, p. 275), and Planoy is a parish of Seine-et-Marne with a farm not far from Lumigny.

⁴ Norfolk wrote to William Cecil on 6 March that he had received instructions from the Privy Council dated 17 February that he should assist de Plannoy/Plancie, sent by the French ambassador to ‘tunderstand the state of certen French shippes driven thither by tempest and to see the same further ordered as ye shoulde thinke good’, and forwarded de Seure's letter to him (TNA, SP 59/2, fo. 163).

⁵ Sir Willliam Winter (c.1528–1589), experienced in the Scottish seas since 1544; Master of the Navy Ordnance, 1557; later vice-admiral of England. Norfolk sent Cecil a copy of the French's ambassador's letter against Winter on 21 March 1560 (Calendar, Hatfield, p. 191).

⁶ The island of Inchkeith in the Firth of Forth off Leith, which had first been fortified by the English in 1547, captured by the French in June 1549, and then further fortified. Winter reported it in April 1560 as having a garrison of 140 Frenchmen. They were commanded by Captain Lucinet and the island remained in French control even after the Treaty of Edinburgh (see Winter's answers to Norfolk's articles, 17 April 1560, TNA, SP 52/3, fo. 72: ‘I think it takable what victuals so ever they have, if we might be suffered to laye at it with vjC men and iij demi cannons, iij culverins or skers, ij fawcons with CL shott for everie pece’).

⁷ On 6 February 1560, the regent of Scotland applied to Norfolk for a safe conduct for Jean de Montaignac, gentleman of France, going to London on her business with Islay Herald (TNA, SP 52/2, fo. 45, in CSFP, II, no. 695). Marie de Lorraine also mentions Montaignac's mission in her letter to the cardinal de Lorraine of 27 March 1560 (CSPF, II, no. 906, p. 480) in response to her brothers’ letter of 12 March (TNA, SP 52/3, fo. 82). (These letters are reproduced in Appendix I, nos 7 and 9.) On his possible identification, see B. Chérin, Généalogie de la maison de Montaignac (Sedan, 1856). However, it is more likely that he was Jean de Montaignac, captain of fifty hommes d’armes, who married Jeanne de Beynac; his brother Balthazar, sieur de Tranchelion, was a Guise adherent.

⁸ Elisabeth de Valois had made her entry into Guadalajara on 4 February (some authorities give the date as 2 February), when her marriage to the king of Spain was celebrated.

⁹ Coligny informed Jacques d’Humières of this on 20 January 1560 (BnF, fr. 3128, fo. 162). Catherine de Medici informed Brissac of his appointment in Coligny's place on 28 January but Brissac's letters of provision are not dated until 31 March (Potter, D., War and Government in the French Provinces: Picardy 1470–1560 (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 86–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

¹⁰ Jean de Monluc (d. 1579), brother of the famous Blaise de Monluc; experienced diplomat and moyenneur in religion, shortly to be sent to Scotland via England.

¹¹ The regent had written to Gilles de Noailles on 28 January 1560 (AE, MD Angleterre 15, fo. 59) on the actions of the English fleet under Winter in the Firth of Forth and, à propos Châtellerault, that ‘Il m’a semblé que ferez fort bien de faire jouer ce personnaige à Monsr de Candalle qui scaura s’y conduire bien dextrement comme de luy mesmes, apres que aurez parlé à la Royne ou devant comme adviserez pour le mieulx, avecques toutes les protestations qu’il faudra faire à la Royne devant qu’il monstre les lettres missives et le blanc seellé de son seau, pour se remettre en la misericorde du Roy, et que si elle veult secrettement il luy monstrera, qui est pour luy faire cognoistre combien il y a peu de fiance ausd. rebelles.’ From Elizabeth's response, the French king ‘par cela entendra bien la fin sans que pource on face autre estat du duc pour le moien qu’on a de le bien chastier’. Frédéric de Foix, comte de Candalle, was, of course, one of the French hostages in England. The regent wished him to protest his regret at the start of a war and his wish not to be blamed for the unveiling of the ‘desloyaulté et double trayson du duc’. From the tenor of this letter it is clear that de Seure was under instruction to ensure that the duke be won back rather than exposed as a double-dealer.

¹² Nicholas Throckmorton was licensed to return to England for ‘personal’ reasons connected with his wife's illness on 11 October 1559, leaving Henry Killigrew to stand in for him (CSPF, II, no. 63). He left Paris on 4 November (ibid., II, no. 227). Noailles reported that he arrived on 7 November (impossibly quickly) and that his wife had known nothing of his departure. As a result, war was expected (Teulet, I, p. 377). From Noailles's report of 20 December (Teulet, I, pp. 382–392), there is no evidence that Throckmorton had made any favourable reports on France, so it seems likely that this statement was a ploy on de Seure's part.

¹³ The use of the English arms by Francis II and Mary Stuart was one of the most overt manifestations of discord throughout 1559–1560. Their joint great seal was inscribed on the obverse: FRANCISCUS ET MARIA D G RR FRANCOR. SCOT. ANGL. ET HYBER. (AN, SC/D100; pressing in wax of an original seal). On 19 June 1560 in Edinburgh, Monluc proposed a settlement of this, refusing the compensation demanded but offering instead that Francis II and Mary ‘se deporteront doresenavant d’user à porter led. tiltre et armoiries’ (BL, Cotton, Calig. B X, fo. 104).

¹⁴ Montaignac was presumably accompanied by Islay Herald, who had been sent by the regent to negotiate with Winter.

¹⁵ Norfolk wrote to Cecil on 14 March that he had ordered Winter ‘willing him to use none hostilitie in the Frithe against the Frenche nowe being in Scotland, except they provoque him therto, and yet to doo as he hathe doon to staye and impeche all newe succours that maye come unto them’ (TNA, SP 52/2, fo. 83).

¹⁶ ‘Deschiffrement d’une lettre du ch^lr de Seure à la Royne’. The opening word is a puzzle unless it was used to allay suspicion that the letter, in cipher, was to someone else.

¹⁷ Sic for ‘freres’. It seems likely that this letter was started as a letter to someone else, since it is unclear who could have been addressed as the nephew/niece of the Guise brothers at this point other than Mary Stuart. The tenor of the letter makes it certain that it was addressed to the regent, especially as the marquis d’Elbeuf is described as ‘vostre frere’.

¹⁸ William Maitland of Lethington (c.1525–1573), as an astute politician, was trying to convince both the regent and the Lords of the Congregation (to whom he defected in October 1559) that he supported them. From December 1559 until February 1560 he was in London (M. Loughlin, ‘Maitland, William, of Lethington’, in ODNB). He served in Mary's government from August 1561 and then supported the regency after Mary's flight.

¹⁹ Presumably 4.

²⁰ Matthew Stewart, 4th earl of Lennox (1516–1571). Living in Yorkshire at this time, having married Lady Margaret Douglas (with a claim to the English throne), he was the father of Lord Darnley. The Lennox couple were deeply under suspicion in the first years of Elizabeth's reign.

²¹ René, marquis d’Elbeuf (1536–1566).

²² Headed: ‘Dechiffrement d’une lettre du ch^lr de Seure à la Royne’.

²³ Guillaume Chaperon (see Norfolk to Cecil, 21 March 1560: ‘yesterday in the morninge arrived here out of Scotland the F. called Guillaume Chaperon, who passed lately from de Ceure the F. ambassador ther with the Scottishe harauld and now the said Qwilliam being depeched hens retourneth this daye towardes London to the said embassadour’ (Hatfield, Cecil Papers, 138, no. 25; Calendar, Hatfield, p. 195)). Possibly related to André Chaperon, commissaire ordinaire de l’artillerie at La Rochelle in 1537 (Généalogie de la famille Chaperon (Brest, 1873), pp. 27–28), correspondent of Lord Lisle based at La Rochelle in November 1537 (Brewer, J.S., Gairdner, J., and Brodie, R.H. (eds), Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII, 21 vols (London, 1862–1910)Google Scholar, XII, pt. II, no. 1131, 26 November 1537), and ‘le capitaine Chaperon’, ‘gentilhomme de l’Aunis’, in 1569, when he was maître d’hôtel to the maréchal de Brissac (Généalogie de la famille Chaperon, p. 28).

²⁴ Letters 4 and 5.

²⁵ The duke, former governor of Scotland, had broken with the queen regent and joined the Lords of the Congregation on 19 September 1559. He remained open to French offers, however, and had signed the blank document concerning his loyalty. When de Seure affected to treat this as a request for pardon, this caused immense offence (see the Introduction, p. 18).

²⁶ From a copy endorsed by Cecil at Hatfield House. Norfolk reported to Cecil on 19 March that he had written to Châtellerault about the report of de Seure ‘touching his submission to the F. Kinge’ (Hatfield, Cecil Papers, 138, no. 25), so he had evidently stirred up the duke's anger.

²⁷ Original with autograph signature, probably sent to Cecil as a duplicate. Formally addressed in the same hand: ‘Lre de monsieur de Seure conseiller du Roy Treschrestien et son ambassadeur, à monsieur le duc de Chastellerault.’ Passages in square brackets are now illegible in the MS.

²⁸ Jean de Monluc, bishop of Valence, sent via London to Scotland (see the Introduction, p. 19).

²⁹ William Honnyng (1520–1569), clerk of the Privy Council; later clerk of the signet and client of the Earl of Sussex.

³⁰ This was in the process of disarmament under the terms of the Treaty of Edinburgh (Nicholas Throckmorton to Elizabeth I, 9 August 1560, in CSPF, III, no. 411, p. 222, TNA, SP 70/17, fo. 43).

³¹ The queen's progress in the summer of 1560 began on 29 July via Richmond to Winchester and back to Windsor at the start of September (Nichols, J., The Progresses and Public Processions of Queen Elizabeth, 3 vols (London, 1823), I, pp. 86–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

³² Portsmouth.

³³ Southampton.

³⁴ Gillingham?

³⁵ 19 September 1560.

³⁶ Nicholas Wotton, former English ambassador in France (1546–1549, 1553–1557) and experienced in French affairs and culture (see B. Ficaro, ‘Nicholas Wotton: dean and diplomat’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Kent, 1981)). Wotton was a frequent interlocutor with de Seure during his stay in England. This meeting seems to have taken place on 20 September, according to an English declaration of 25 September on dealings with Scotland (CSPF, III, no. 553, p. 316).

³⁷ Presumably 21 September.

³⁸ Jean de Monluc, bishop of Valence (see p. 51, n. 28), and Charles de La Rochefoucauld, comte de Randan (c.1525–1562), brother of the later Protestant leader François III, comte de La Rochefaucauld et de Roucy (1521–1572).

³⁹ Ratification of the Treaty of Edinburgh had been specified by 6 September 1560. The French government was delaying this ratification by arguing that ambassadors could receive the necessary instruments, which would be sent to de Seure for delivery in London rather than given to Throckmorton in Paris. The cardinal de Lorraine was also arguing that the norm was for treaty ratifications to be delivered by special envoys (Throckmorton to Elizabeth I, Paris, 8 September 1560, in CSPF, III, no. 502, pp. 284–285). Throckmorton was told on 15 September at Saint-Germain that the line the French were taking was that the Scots had to fulfil their obligation before the treaty could be ratified and that Elizabeth was responsible for this (see Appendix I, no. 33). On 27 September, Wotton and Ambrose Cave reported to the Privy Council on their consultation with the Spanish ambassador on what the French chancellor had told Throckmorton about this (CSPF, III, no. 564, pp. 318–319).

⁴⁰ This again concerns the delayed business of the ratification of the Treaty of Edinburgh (Throckmorton to Elizabeth I, 8 September 1560, in CSPF, III, no. 502, p. 284, TNA, SP 70/18, fo. 18; also Throckmorton to Elizabeth, 17 September 1560, in CSPF, III, no. 534, TNA, SP 70/18, fo. 51).

⁴¹ 22 September 1560.

⁴² Alvaro de Quadra, bishop of Aquila (d. 1564). His only despatch in the period, 11 September 1560, reports the queen's conviction that the French had not lost the will to harm her, only the power, and had not dismissed their troops (CSP Spain, I, no. 119).

⁴³ i.e. 23 September.

⁴⁴ This must refer to Throckmorton's interview with Francis II, Mary Stuart, and Catherine de Medici, along with the members of the Grand Conseil, on 15 September at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, though Throckmorton's own account of this was not written until 17 September (CSPF, III, no. 534).

⁴⁵ Amy Robsart, wife of Robert Dudley, master of the Horse, whose death took place on 8 September 1560. De Quadra's despatch of 11 September is very full on both this and Dudley's prospects (CSP Spain, I, no. 119).

⁴⁶ The disturbances following the Conspiracy of Amboise, the disturbances at Lyon in the summer, and the subsequent suspicion under which the prince of Condé and king of Navarre had fallen.

⁴⁷ Nicolas de Pellevé (1518–1594), bishop of Amiens 1552–1562; previously sent to Scotland to negotiate on peace with England and the rebels in 1560 and to dispute, with some doctors of the Sorbonne, on matters of faith. He was appointed papal legate a latere to Scotland in January 1560 (see Pollen, J.H., Papal Negotiations with Mary Queen of Scots (Edinburgh, 1901), pp. 31–39Google Scholar).

⁴⁸ William Lord Grey de Wilton (1508–1562), captured at Calais in 1558, was a prisoner in France and then appointed governor of Berwick after the siege of Leith. He was summoned to court by the queen on 6 August 1560 in order to consult with Norfolk and others about the state of Berwick (CSPF, III, no. 403, TNA, SP 59/3, fo. 5).

⁴⁹ There had been a national synod in France in 1559 but this seems to refer to a synod in England, where the French church already had a consistory.

⁵⁰ The manuscript begins on fo. 13r, with the heading ‘Lettres en Angleterre du Chevalier de Seure Ambassadeur en Angleterre durant les annees soixante et soixante et ung’.

⁵¹ 15 December.

⁵² Throckmorton had written in some detail of Francis II's illness on 28 November and 1 December (CSPF, III, nos 738, 758).

⁵³ News of Francis II's illness was current at the end of November (Michele Suriano, 22 November 1560, in Layard, H., Despatches of Michele Suriano and Marc’Antonio Barbaro, Venetian Ambassadors at the Court of France, 1560–63 (London, 1891)Google Scholar, p. vi). He fell ill on 17 November and died on 6 December. There is no surviving letter from Lorraine to de Seure in Cuisiat. De Seure received Lorraine's letter on 15 December, so its passage must have taken more than a week.

⁵⁴ Catherine de Medici's letter to de Seure has not survived, though it must have taken the same form as that to the bishop of Rennes, ambassador to the emperor, dated 6 December (LCM, I, p. 155). George, 7th Lord Seton (1531–1586), had fought with the French at Leith and left after the evacuation of the French garrison. He returned to Scotland in November with a passport obtained from Throckmorton, whom he convinced of his alienation from Mary's cause. But he remained a partisan of Mary and later served as her envoy to the Spanish Netherlands and James VI's ambassador in France (1581–1584).

⁵⁵ Francis II had appointed de Seure a gentilhomme de la chambre.

⁵⁶ Elizabeth had told de Quadra in September that the French still had the will to injure her but not the means and had retained their troops in being (CSP Spain, I, no. 119).

⁵⁷ The Scottish Parliament's envoys, including Maitland of Lethington and the earls of Morton and Glencairn, who arrived in London early in December with proposals for marriage between Elizabeth and the earl of Arran, Châtellerault's son.

⁵⁸ Elizabeth I to the Scottish Lords, 8 December 1560, in CSPF, III, no. 786; 15 December 1560, BL, Cotton, Calig. B V, fo. 326, declining the marriage proposal, though sure of the continuing amity between them ‘wherof we doubt not but the Almightie God will give assistance of his grace as longe as the gospel of his sonne Jesus Christ shalbe tought, preached and expressed in life and manners through bothe these relmes’.

⁵⁹ 16 December.

⁶⁰ 14 December.

⁶¹ Chevalier de Saint Jean: probably Sir James Sandiland of Calder, knight prior of Saint John, sent to France in August 1560 to explain the secularization of the order in Scotland (see Brown, K.M.et al. (eds), The Records of the Parliaments of Scotland to 1707 (St Andrews, 2007–2012), 15 August 1560Google Scholar). On 6 October, the queen reported his arrival in London, with apologies for his late departure because of difficulties in getting his instructions (Killigrew to Throckmorton, 15 October, in CSPF, III, no. 636; Elizabeth I to Throckmorton, 19 October 1560, in ibid., no. 651).

⁶² The king of France.

⁶³ All other ambassadors regularly accompanied their despatches to the king with others to Catherine de Medici from December 1560 onwards. Most of de Seure's to Catherine are not preserved, though the pattern for others (e.g. Sébastien de L’Aubespine in Spain) was to write their longer and more confidential despatches to Catherine. De Seure, on the other hand, seems to have written his more informative despatches to the king. This, of course, was a fiction, since Charles IX was ten years old at his accession and the queen mother handled all diplomatic correspondence.

⁶⁴ This despatch of 19 January has not been found.

⁶⁵ Henry Killigrew and Robert Jones had reported a year before that the galley fleet at Marseilles had been partly discharged and that other ships in it had been sent to the Narrow Seas (Blois, 18 January 1559/1560, in CSPF, II, no. 590).

⁶⁶ The sending of Francis Russell, 2nd earl of Bedford.

⁶⁷ François d’Ailly, vidame d’Amiens and baron de Picquigny (married to Françoise de Batarnay), died in England in January 1561 (Moréri, L., Grand dictionnaire historique, 10 vols (Paris, 1759), VIII, p. 186Google Scholar). In September 1560 it was reported that de Seure and the comte de Roussy ‘have made reporte from hense to the Cardinal and duke of Guise that the Vidasme is as greate a protestant as may be; and so accordingly dothe give evill example bothe by muche going to sermons and by absenting himself from suche service as they use, which reporte being com to the visdams hearing by meanes of his frendes in the Courte there hathe caused certain evill will to growe between them here, wherby the vidasme will use in no matter the ayde nor worde of the ambassador and therefore hathe secretly wrought meanes by my m^r for the Q majesties letter to you for obteyning his licence to retourne’ (Thomas Windebank to Throckmorton, 6 September 1560, TNA, SP 70/18, fo. 18).

⁶⁸ Antoine de Bourbon, duc de Vendôme and king of Navarre (d. 1562), had, after the death of Francis II, assumed the role of lieutenant-general of the kingdom, a position finally agreed in a compromise with the queen mother in March.

⁶⁹ Anne de Montmorency, the former minister-favourite under Francis I and Henri II, had been sidelined under Francis II but had now returned to the inner council.

⁷⁰ The question of the use of the arms of England by Francis II and Mary Stuart, so hotly debated in 1559–1560 (see Appendix I).

⁷¹ De Seure was treading very carefully here in suggesting that Philip II's envoys in England would be glad to mediate in order to ensure the eventual return of Calais and thus strengthen the security of the Low Countries. It was clear from later negotiations in 1562 (for example, the despatches of Saint-Sulpice to France) that Philip II regarded Calais as a political matter, not a religious one, and therefore favoured its return to the English. See Saint-Sulpice's despatches from Spain in 1562, BnF, fr. 3161, fos 57r, 60v, 67r–71r, 74v–75v; and, for example, 26 October 1562, fos 58v–59r: ‘il ne voit estre de se declarer et prendre de son chef les armes contre les Angloix et Allemans parce qu’ilz peuvent beaucoup incommoder ses pays bas’; 12 November 1562, fo. 70r: ‘toute la commodité de ses pays bas deppendoient de l’Angleterre et de l’Allemaigne, mesme que l’intelligence d’entre ses royaulmes d’Hespaigne avec iceulx pays bas ne se pouvoit aulcunement conduire que par le moyen dud. pays d’Angleterre’. See also Chantonnay to Philip II, 23 September 1562, in Real Academia de Historia, Archivo Documental Español, Negociaciones con Francia, 11 vols (Madrid, 1950–1960), IV, pp. 322–323. On de Seure’s views in 1560, see also Kervyn, II, pp. 449–454.

⁷² John Dymock (c.1493–1585), a London merchant draper involved in diplomatic negotiations in Sweden (Ramsay, G.D., The City of London in International Politics at the Accession of Elizabeth Tudor (London, 1975), p. 106Google Scholar), sent to King Eric XIV. He probably brought back a painting of the king by Steven van Herwijck (for his report, see the examination of 6 August 1562, in CSPF, V, no. 439, p. 221; also Grosvenor, B., ‘The identity of “the famous painter Steven”’, British Art Journal, 9, no. 3 (2009), pp. 12–17Google Scholar). He was also much involved in English troop recruitment in Germany during the 1540s and early 1550s (see Potter, D., ‘The international mercenary market in the sixteenth century: Anglo-French competition in Germany, 1543–1550’, English Historical Review, 111, no. 440 (1996), pp. 24–58Google Scholar). As he reported himself in 1562: ‘In king Henry the viijth his tyme, I was gentleman ussher extraordinary and served also for muster mr of the Almaynes all king Edwardes’ (TNA, SP 70/40, fo. 81). No other source seems to indicate that he had worked for France in Germany under Henri II. He had been imprisoned in the Tower in February 1551, but released in March (Dasent, J.R. (ed.), Acts of the Privy Council. Vol. 3: a.d. 1550–1552 (London, 1891), pp. 473Google Scholar, 501).

⁷³ Adolf, duke of Holstein-Gottorp, brother of the king of Denmark and uncle of Frederick II (see ‘Journal of matters of state’, in Archer, I.et al. (eds), Religion, Politics, and Society in Sixteenth-century England, Camden 5th series 22 (Cambridge, 2003) p. 65Google Scholar). He wrote to the queen and to Cecil on 20 December 1560 (TNA, SP 70/21, fo. 87; BL, Cotton, Nero B III, fo. 126), and Elizabeth replied on 20 January 1561 (TNA, SP 70/22, fo. 113). The exchange was partly a matter of his suit for the queen's hand in marriage.

⁷⁴ Volrad, count of Mansfelt, had written to the queen on 8 December 1560 with news of French dealings in Germany (TNA, SP 70/21, fo. 51).

⁷⁵ Thomas Ratcliffe, 3rd earl of Sussex, was Elizabeth I's second cousin through their descent from two daughters of Thomas Howard, 2nd duke of Norfolk.

⁷⁶ Possibly the commission to Henry Carey, 1st Baron Hunsdon, as lieutenant of Berwick, as the queen informed Sussex in November 1560 (Haynes, p. 374), but the repetition of this report in the next despatch makes clear that Sussex was recalled to London early in 1561.

⁷⁷ Possibly Nicolas de Seure, sieur de Goretz, later a member of de Seure's gendarmerie company. Perhaps chevaucheur de l’écurie.

⁷⁸ Perhaps Louis Revol, later secretary of state under Henri III (see the Introduction, p. 31).

⁷⁹ Gilles de Noailles, abbé de l’Isle, sent to Scotland by Catherine de Medici with instructions dated 23 January 1561 (Teulet, II, pp. 159–163). However, though this document refers to ‘M. de l’Isle’, all other references are to ‘M. de Noailles’, which would not have been the appellation of Gilles de Noailles. Moreover, Gilles de Noailles was certainly en route to Rome in June, while ‘Noailles’ was still in Scotland. See further below, pp. 87–88, n. 110. The credentials of Charles IX are dated 22 January 1561 (CSPF, III, no. 917).

⁸⁰ Noailles's instructions of 23 January 1561 ended with the clause: ‘Si la Royne d’Angleterre le veult veoir en passant, luy fera entendre l’occasion de son voyage, dextrement et doulcement ; et avec cette dextérité mettra peyne de descouvrir, s’il est possible, en quelle oppinion elle est desdicts Escossois et l’espérance qu’elle y a, pour en faire rapport au Roy. Et si elle entre en propos de ce qui luy avoit esté cy-devant mandé de la ratification du traicté dernièrement passé en Escosse pour le regard des affaires de deçà, dont elle a tousjours tant faict d’instance, pourra respondre que toutes choses estoient prestes pour envoyer par delà les deux députez que l’on luy avoit faict entendre ; mais que, estant survenu ce malheur si inopiné, par où toutes choses sont résolues, on a estimé icy que l’on n’a plus que faire avec elle, sinon continuer la bonne paix et amitié qui est entre nous, où il ne se trouvera jamais faulte de ce cousté, comme on n’estime qu’il n’y aura du sien. Faict à Orléans, xxxiii^e jour de janvier 1560. CHARLES, De Laubespine’ (Teulet, II, p. 162).

⁸¹ 14 March.

⁸² Further confirmation of Sussex's temporary recall to London.

⁸³ On negotiations with Eric XIV of Sweden, see Doran, S., Monarchy and Matrimony: the courtships of Elizabeth I (London, 1996), pp. 30–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁸⁴ Bedford, while in France, was under instructions to contact the German princes via Mundt to ensure that they did not attend a Council at Trent that was not free (Bedford to Elizabeth I, 12 February 1561, in CSPF, III, no. 998, p. 548). Those Catholics imprisoned in April 1561 were questioned on the design of calling a General Council by the Pope (TNA, SP 12/16, fo. 153, and SP 15/11, fo. 9). The arrival of the nuncio Martinengo in Brussels was debated by the Privy Council and refusal recommended if the General Council were to be under the Pope's jurisdiction (CSPF, IV, no. 162, pp. 93–95).

⁸⁵ James Stewart (1531/1532–1570), bastard son of James V, had been named lay prior of Saint Andrews in 1538, was promoted as earl of Moray in 1562, and was later regent of Scotland.

⁸⁶ François d’Agoult de Montauban, comte de Sault (killed 1567), a Protestant (see Potter, D. (ed.), Foreign Intelligence and Information in Elizabethan England: two English treatises on the state of France, 1579–1584, Camden 5th series 25 (Cambridge, 2004), p. 117Google Scholar). On 3 April he was given a gift of gilt basins and ewers amounting to 346½ ounces (Nichols, Progresses and Public Processions, I, p. 128).

⁸⁷ Le capitaine Seure: Jacques de Seure, sieur de Semessault, who succeded his uncle as gentilhomme de la chambre du roi in 1568 (order of Charles IX to the trésoriers de la maison to pay his salary, St Maur-des-Fossés, 26 September 1568, crs. De Laubespine (Arts et Autographes, Catalogue no. 64 (Winter 2012), no. 23877)).

⁸⁸ The interrogations of the prisoners, partly annotated by Cecil, indicate a close concern regarding contacts between the accused and the French: ‘Hadde ye never any talke off the French enterprise in Scotland and off our resytaunce, ye off what was your talke, ye off whiche oftene yow talkyd when and where. To what end dyd yow by discourse with your consseyence thynke the same wold come. Whatt communication have yow hadde off eny practises off ye French in Scotland this yere past or att eny tyme with whom when and how often. With whom when and how offtene have you discoursed off the marriage of ye Scottyshe qwene that now is with whom wold she marye who practised with her for maryage what maryage for her thowght yow best for the good con. off our state and that discourse’ (TNA, SP 12/16, fo. 158).

⁸⁹ Sir Edward Waldegrave (1516/1517–1561), staunchly Catholic councillor of Mary I and chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster in 1557. Indicted with his wife at Brentwood, Essex, for hearing mass; imprisoned in the Tower in April 1561, he died there on 1 September of that year.

⁹⁰ On these arrests for ‘unlawfull practises to the breach of good ordre and religion’, see Oxford to the Privy Council, 19 April 1561, TNA, SP 12/16, fo. 121, and William Seytlowe to Throckmorton, 26 April 1561, BL, Add. MS 35830, fo. 77. ‘Nicholas Walter’ is evidently a mistake for Thomas Wharton, 2nd Baron Wharton of Newhall (1520–1572). His father had been warden of the East and Middle Marches against Scotland under Mary. He submitted in July 1561.

⁹¹ The sending of a papal emissary, Martinengo, to persuade Elizabeth to participate in the Council of Trent. He was never admitted to England despite the pleadings of the papal nuncio in France to Throckmorton. See Robert Jones to Throckmorton, 8 May 1561, BL Add. MS 35380, fo. 107: ‘The coming of the Popis nuncio [the abbot of Martinengo] into y^e Low Countreis, y^e arriving of a like good fellow into Ireland, and the concurring of a nest of coniurers and masse-mongers here giveth men occasion to think that our men here had more in their myndis then their old mumpsimus.’

⁹² Edward Hastings, Baron Hastings of Loughborough (1512/1515–1572), son of George, 1st earl of Huntingdon. A partisan of Mary I, he was arrested in April 1561 for hearing mass but took the oath of supremacy and was released. According to de Quadra, in the disturbed period around Amy Robsart's death, Cecil had mentioned his brother Francis, earl of Huntingdon and a convinced Protestant, as the ‘next heir’ of England (CSP Spain, I, no. 119).

⁹³ De Seure was understandably vague here. Edward Hastings married Anne, sister of Henry Stafford, Baron Hastings, who had himself married Ursula, niece of Cardinal Pole. In addition, Hastings’ brothers, Francis and Thomas, had also married other nieces of Pole. The relations between the Hastings and Stafford–Pole connections were obviously very close but complex.

⁹⁴ James Stewart (see p. 78, n. 85).

⁹⁵ Not a session of Parliament, which did not meet between May 1559 and January 1563. What is implied by de Seure is a meeting of the Great Council, but there is no evidence of its meeting at this time (see Holmes, P.J., ‘The last Tudor Great Councils’, Historical Journal, 33, no. 1 (1990), pp. 1–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

⁹⁶ The despatch of 26 March has not been preserved.

⁹⁷ Sir Arthur Pole (1531–1570), son of Geoffrey Pole, the cardinal's brother; imprisoned with his brother Edmund and found guilty of treason in 1563; held in the Tower until his death.

⁹⁸ Pole married Mary Holland, whose mother had previously been married to Sir Thomas Percy (d. 1537), son of the 5th earl of Northumberland. But, according to the ‘Journal of matters of state’ in Archer, Religion, Politics, and Society, pp. 71–72, his projected marriage to the earl of Northumberland's sister was part of a general alignment of Catholic conspirators.

⁹⁹ This does not seem to have survived.

¹⁰⁰ Possibly Jean d’Avaugour, seigneur de Courtalain (1515–1573), from a Breton family unrelated to the comtes de Vertus. See Elizabeth I to Throckmorton, 19 April 1561, BL Add. MS 35830, fo. 75, on the reception of the baron de Courteillan without credentials from the French king. But it is François d’Avaugour, ‘comte de Châteauvilain’, who is recorded as taking the oath as hostage on 29 May 1561 (TNA, E30/1135; CSPF, IV, no. 216).

¹⁰¹ Louis III de Luxembourg (d. 1571), comte de Roussy, 1530; second son of Charles, comte de Roussy, Brienne, and Ligny; married to Antoinette d’Amboise, dame de Jaligny. Roussy was taking his leave as hostage, having taken the oath with the baron du Pont on 5 April 1560 (CSPF, II, no. 945, TNA, SP 70/13, fo. 21). He returned to England in April 1562, paying 250 lt. in travel costs ‘pour aucunes choses touchant et concernant les affaires et service dud. Sr’ (BnF, Clair. 232, p. 2322).

¹⁰² Charles de Moy, baron de Moy (in Picardy): see Rodière, R. and Vallée, E., La Maison de Moy, 3 vols (Le Mans, 1928)Google Scholar, II, pp. 235–236. Moy took the oath as hostage at Greenwich on 15 June 1561 (CSPF, IV, no. 249; TNA E30/1136; see also 20).

¹⁰³ An indication that this is only part of the despatch, which also refers to ‘ladicte dame’ as though Elizabeth had already been discussed.

¹⁰⁴ 15 June.

¹⁰⁵ Claude, 2nd comte de Maure, baron de Lohéac, and seigneur de Landal in Brittany (1517–1564), married first to Hélène de Rohan, and then to Françoise de Pompadour. He was a comte of Brittany rather than of France. He had taken the oath as a hostage on 20 May 1560 (CSPF, III, no. 119; TNA E30/1132).

¹⁰⁶ Charles de Quellenec, baron du Pons (1548–1572), son of Jean IV de Quellenec and Jeanne de Maure, daughter of François, 1st comte de Maure. Du Pons became a Protestant and married Catherine de Parthenay, whose name and succession to Soubise he took, though they later separated and he was killed in 1572. He had taken the oath as hostage with the comte de Roussy on 2 April 1560 (CSPF, II, no. 945, TNA, SP 70/13, fo. 21).

¹⁰⁷ The queen told Throckmorton on 17 June that de Maure was returning home because of his severe gout and that she had indicated that no further replacement hostages would be accepted without new commissions (CSPF, IV, no. 252, TNA, SP 70/27, fo. 25).

¹⁰⁸ This cryptic passage seems to refer to English Catholics who might have wished to return to England as spies for France.

¹⁰⁹ Fire at Old St Paul’s, 4 June 1561: see , Pollard (ed.), Tudor Tracts (London, 1903)Google Scholar, pp. 401–407, from the contemporary newsheet The True Report of the Burning of the Steeple and Church of St Pauls (London, 1561).

¹¹⁰ Gilles de Noailles was being talked of as envoy to Rome on the recommendation of the papal nuncios in April (Suriano, Paris, 17 April 1561, in Layard, Despatches of Michele Suriano, pp. 22–23), and had arrived in Rome by 26 June (BnF, fr. 3955, fo. 1). It seems improbable that he could have travelled directly from Scotland in that time and it is at least possible that the Noailles in question here was Gilles's brother Antoine, sieur de Noailles, former ambassador in England, whose movements in 1561 are unclear. Another of Gilles's brothers, François, bishop of Dax (former ambassador in England), was ambassador to Venice from 1559 (see Gabarra, J.B., Un évêque de Dax. François de Noailles (Dax, 1888)Google Scholar). Suriano clearly distinguished between the Noailles in Scotland and the bishop: ‘Et in Scotia al presente si trova Monsr. di Noalles, fratello dell’ambasciatore di questa Maestà che è appresso la Serenità Vostra, il quale per quello che ha detto l’ambasciator d’Inghilterra tenta una lea di quell regno con questo’ (Suriano, 18 April 1561, in Layard, Despatches of Michele Suriano, p. 24, text p. xxviii); he also distinguished between Noailles and his brother the abbé de L’Isle. Whichever Noailles was envoy to Scotland, he was back in France on 14 July, when he gave letters to Throckmorton (Throckmorton to Elizabeth I, 16 July 1561, in CSPF, IV, no. 321).

¹¹¹ See the letter of Elizabeth to Charles IX, 14 July 1561, Appendix I, no. 39; also de Quadra, 13 July 1561, in Kervyn, II, p. 582.

¹¹² François de Lorraine, Grand Prior of France of the Order of Malta (1534–1563), brother of François, 2nd duc de Guise. See the letter of the duc de Guise in March 1561/1562 thanking Elizabeth for her good treatment of his brothers (Appendix I, no. 42).

¹¹³ Henri de Montmorency, sieur de Damville and later 3rd duc de Montmorency.

¹¹⁴ Brantôme remarked, on this visit of the grand prior and his suite, that his dancing particularly pleased the queen, and that she said to him: ‘Monsieur mon prieur (ainsi usoit-elle de ce mot), je vous ayme fort, mais non pas M. vostre frère, qui m’a ravy ma ville de Calais’ (Pierre de Bourdeille, segnieur de Brantôme, Oeuvres complètes, ed. L. Lalanne, 11 vols (1864–1882), IV, p. 163).

¹¹⁵ William Brooke, 10th Baron Cobham (d. 1597), peer since the death of his father in 1558, had several brothers: George, Thomas, John, and Henry.

¹¹⁶ In his capacity as dean of Canterbury.

¹¹⁷ All French ambassadors seem to have been under orders to help track down these fugitive finance officials. On 1 October 1561, Sébastien de L’Aubespine at Madrid reported his raising of the matter with the duke of Alva, who forwarded it to the government of the Low Countries (BnF, fr. 3951, fo. 39r).

¹¹⁸ A passport from Scotland to France was requested from Elizabeth by Marie de Lorraine for James and John Livingston in September 1559 (TNA, SP 52/1, fo. 209). One of them was sent in January 1560, ‘under color to be an evil Frenchman and a protestant, to passe through England into Scotland, to practise more dangerously than any that hath done hitherto, and to make marvailous great offers to the earl of Arran’ (Throckmorton to Elizabeth I, 22 February 1560, in Forbes, I, p. 331).

¹¹⁹ James Stewart of Beith, lay commendator-abbot of St Colm's Inch (Inchcolm) from 1543, who was sent by Mary with Alexander Erskine from Calais to request letters of safe conduct. Elizabeth had at first not been inclined to provide these but relented when she read Mary's letters (see Nicholas Tremayne's account for Throckmorton, 19 August 1561, BL, Add. MS 35830, fo. 187). See also the ‘Memorial of the queen of Scotland to the lord of Saint-Cosme of what he is to negotiate in England’, August 1561, BL, Cotton, Calig. B V, fos 314v–315r, published in Labanoff, A. (ed.), Lettres, instructions et mémoires de Marie Stuart, Reine d’Ecosse, publiés sur les originaux et les manuscrits, 7 vols (London, 1844), I, pp. 99–102Google Scholar. Mary left Calais on 15 August and arrived at Leith on 19 August, bypassing England.

¹²⁰ As granddaughter to Henry VIII's sister Mary, Lady Katherine Grey (1540–1568) was a potential successor to Elizabeth. To the queen's displeasure she secretly married Edward Seymour, earl of Hertford, in December 1560. She was imprisoned in the Tower from August 1561. Her first son, Edward, was born there in the third week of September.

¹²¹ The queen's progress in the summer of 1561 took her into Essex, Suffolk, and Hertfordshire from early July to 22 September, when she returned to London (Nichols, Progresses and Public Processions, I, pp. 92–104).

¹²² Grand Master of Rhodes: the Grand Master of the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, at Rhodes but since 1522 at Malta. At this time the office was held by Jean Parisot de la Vallette, a member of a Provençal family long involved in the order, and who led the resistance to the Turkish siege of Malta in 1565. He died in 1568. His letter to Elizabeth I, Malta, 8 June 1561, asked for her reception of the knight: see BL, Add. MS 35830, fo. 125.

¹²³ The commanderie of Chanteraine (Meuse) was held by Christophe Le Coq, received into the order in 1534. The commanderie was shared between France and Habsburg territories and had been separated. See Devillers, L., Inventaire analytique des archives des commanderies belges de l’ordre de Saint-Jean de Jérusalem ou de Malte (Mons, 1876)Google Scholar, p. xvi.

¹²⁴ No reply by the ambassador in France seems to be recorded.

¹²⁵ Edward Seymour (1539–1621), earl of Hertford and son of the duke of Somerset. He had married Katherine Grey secretly in 1560 (see p. 94, n. 120). He was sent to France as a companion for Thomas Cecil in May 1561 but recalled in August, when news of his marriage leaked out. Hertford wrote to Throckmorton on 30 August 1561 protesting that he was being prevented from speaking to the queen (BL, Add. MS 35830, fo. 193) and Cecil also wrote to Throckmorton on 12 August informing him of the case (ibid., fo. 185) but Hertford was in the Tower by 5 September. Shortly afterwards, a son was born to Katherine; Hertford remained in the Tower until August 1563 and thereafter was under supervision. He slowly returned to favour in the early 1570s.

¹²⁶ Sir Peter Mewtas (d. 1562), of French descent, a courtier under Henry VIII who became a committed Protestant. Under suspicion during Mary's reign, he returned to favour under Elizabeth, and was sent to France to offer her condolences on the death of Henri II in 1559. He was sent to Scotland to pursue the ratification of the Treaty of Edinburgh. Again in France on a mission to Condé in 1562, he died of sickness at Dieppe in September.

¹²⁷ Word omitted: perhaps ‘soins’.

¹²⁸ Elizabeth I.

¹²⁹ Maitland of Lethington.

¹³⁰ James Stewart, lay prior of St Andrews, later earl of Moray (see p. 78, n. 85); John Stewart, 4th earl of Atholl (d. 1579), a Catholic who was a supporter of Mary until 1567; James Douglas, 4th earl of Morton (1516–1581); George Gordon, 4th earl of Huntley (1514–1562), who quarrelled with Moray and was outlawed before his death; James Hepburn, 4th earl of Bothwell (1534–1578), who later married Mary.

¹³¹ The duc de Châtellerault certainly did attend the Scottish council less frequently after Mary's return, but was not formally excluded. The feud between his son James, earl of Arran, and Bothwell had been sparked after Arran's return to Scotland from France in 1560 (aided by Throckmorton and English agents), when he raided Bothwell's castle at Crichton in revenge for the latter's seizure of money sent by Elizabeth to the Lords of the Congregation. See Hannay, R.K., ‘The earl of Arran and Queen Mary’, Scottish Historical Review, 18 (1920–1921), pp. 258–276Google Scholar; Durkan, J., ‘James, third earl of Arran: the hidden years’, Scottish Historical Review, 65 (1986), pp. 154–166Google Scholar; Wood, M., ‘The imprisonment of the earl of Arran’, Scottish Historical Review, 24 (1926–1927), pp. 116–122Google Scholar.

¹³² Sir Thomas Chaloner (1521–1565), an experienced diplomat who had served as envoy in Flanders in 1559–1560 and was sent to Spain in November 1561 as successor to Thomas Chamberlain. He did journey through France and only arrived in Spain on 22 December, not reaching Madrid until 15 January 1562 (C.H. Miller, ‘Chaloner, Sir Thomas, the elder’, in ODNB).

¹³³ Paul de Foix de Carmain (1528–1584), protonotaire, and conseiller-clerc of the Parlement of Paris. The son of Jean de Foix Carmain (d. 1547), he descended in the male line from the vicomtes de Carmain but in the female line from Isabeau de Foix (early fifteenth century), daughter of Archambault, sieur de Navailles and first baron de Béarn. His relationship with the house of Foix and Navarre was thus very distant, despite Throckmorton's remark – a belief widely shared – in his despatch of 14 November that he was ‘kinsman’ to the queen of Navarre (see Moréri, Grand dictionnaire, X, p. 568). On his religious ideas, see Didier, N., ‘Paul de Foix et la mercuriale de 1559’, Mélanges d’archéologie et d’histoire, 56 (1939), pp. 396–435CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Though he was de Seure's designated successor in England and later served as ambassador in Venice and Rome, also becoming archbishop of Toulouse, he was not immediately sent as resident ambassador. Throckmorton reported de Foix's sending in November as a mission to Mary Stuart (Throckmorton to Elizabeth I, 14 November 1561, in CSPF, IV, no. 659, p. 356, TNA, SP 70/32, fo. 19) and he was reported as arriving at the English court on 17 November (Somers to Throckmorton, 23 November 1561, in CSPF, IV, no. 678, p. 411) around the same time as Morette (see below, p. 102, n. 134). De Foix then went on to Edinburgh (CSPF, IV, no. 1050). He returned to France and was acredited as ambassador to Elizabeth in January 1562. The decision to recall de Seure was made by 8 January (Throckmorton to Elizabeth I, 8 January 1562, in CSPF, IV, no. 789, p. 479) and he was intending to leave on 31 January, arriving at the French court by mid-February (Throckmorton to Elizabeth, 28 January and 7 February 1562, in CSPF, IV, no. 849, p. 509, and no. 872, p. 518).

¹³⁴ Obertino Solaro, signore de Moretta, sometimes called marquis/comte de Morette. French concern here was with the sending of M. de Morette, the envoy from the duke of Savoy to Elizabeth and Mary. He had passed through France and visited the queen mother and was formally supposed to announce the pregnancy of the duchess of Savoy, Henri II's sister. Catherine de Medici wrote to the duke thanking him effusively for his message (LCM, I, p. 244), despite the concerns which are evident from de Seure's despatch (see duke of Savoy to Throckmorton, 25 October 1561, in CSPF, IV, no. 629, p. 376). Cecil reported to Throckmorton that Morette had raised the question, on behalf of the cardinal of Ferrara, of the General Council, i.e. the Council of Trent (Cecil to Throckmorton, 27 November 1561, in CSPF, IV, no. 690, p. 420), much to Cecil's annoyance. Morette had also been given a mission to Mary Stuart. He returned to Savoy via France in April 1562 (Throckmorton, 25 April 1562, in CSPF, IV, p. 634). On 27 November 1561 de Quadra stressed that Morette's mission mainly concerned the General Council and was made on behalf of the cardinal of Ferrara, having been misled by remarks of Bedford when in France (CSP Spain, I, no. 144). Morette was also possibly charged with enquiring whether Isaac Morel, the son of the Parisian humanist Jean Morel, had taken refuge in Calvinist Scotland. Girolamo della Rovere, who was accompanying Morette, wrote to Morel from Rivoli on 10 October in a letter carried by Morette (BnF, Latin 8589, fo. 36r; Ford, P., ‘Carolus Utenhovius’, in De Landtsheer, J. and Nellen, H. (eds), Between Scylla and Charybdis (Leiden, 2011), p. 152Google Scholar). Morette also brought David Rizzio to Scotland as his secretary. See also Pollen, Papal Negotiations, p. xlix, n. 1, and p. 418. A Morette had been sent to England in November 1560, reported by Throckmorton to be the son of Charles du Solier, sieur de Morette, used as an envoy from Francis I to Henry VIII. Again, he was to convey congratulations from the duke of Savoy but also to open the marriage suit of the duc de Nemours (Throckmorton to Cecil, 18 November 1560, in CSPF, III, no. 724). Throckmorton may have been mistaken here.

¹³⁵ Nicholas Guildenstern (Nils Gyllenstierna), chancellor of Sweden, who had arrived in England in the summer of 1561 and was to stay until March 1562.

¹³⁶ Proclamation of 15 November 1561, in Hughes, P.L. and Larkin, J.F. (eds), Tudor Royal Proclamations, 3 vols (New Haven, CT, and London, 1964–1969), II, no. 487Google Scholar.

¹³⁷ This despatch has not been preserved.

¹³⁸ Latin scipio = ‘walking stick’ here, rather than the cognomen Scipio of the Cornelii.

¹³⁹ This refers to the restitution of fortresses in Piedmont and, of course, Calais, which were parallel cases under the Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis.

¹⁴⁰ The papal nuncio in France was Prospero Santa Croce. On his correspondence for this period, see Lettres du Cardinal di Santa Croce, écrites pendant sa nonciature en France (The Hague, 1717); ‘Lettres de Prosper de Sainte-Croix au cardinal Borromée’, in L. Cimber and F. Danjou (eds), Archives curieuses de l’histoire de France, series 1, vol. VI (Paris, 1835), pp. 1–170.

¹⁴¹ 22 November.

¹⁴² James Stewart, lay abbot of Inchcolm (see p. 93, n. 119), was later raised to the Scottish peerage as Lord Doune (1581).

¹⁴³ 24 November.

¹⁴⁴ On this, see de Quadra to Philip II, 27 November 1561, in CSP Spain, I, no. 144.

¹⁴⁵ De Seure’s last-known audience with Elizabeth took place just before 20 December; in it he pressed the case of the duc de Nemours as a husband for her. See Kervyn, II, p. 652.