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The Relations of William III with the Swiss Protestants, 1689–1697
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 February 2009
Extract
Diplomatic relations between England and Switzerland have their beginning in the second decade of the sixteenth century. Henry VIII, chagrined at the success of the French at Marignano, sent Richard Pace as his ambassador to the Cantons, with instructions to secure the participation of the Swiss in an invasion of the Milanese to be undertaken by Imperialists and Swiss mercenaries in the pay of England. Pace had little difficulty in recruiting some 12,000 men from the V Cantons of Uri, Schwyz, Zürich, Basel and Schaffhausen, and 2,000 from the Grisons, and in March 1516 a Swiss-Imperial army descended into the Lombard plain under the joint leadership of the Emperor Maximilian and Galeazzo Visconti. The expedition proved a dismal failure, and all efforts made by Pace to induce the Swiss to take part in a second invasion of Italy failed signally. The conclusion of peace between France and the XIII Cantons on 29 November 1516, deprived the English mission of its essential purpose—the utilisation of anti-French sentiment in Switzerland—and in the autumn of 1517 Pace was recalled. The diplomatic intercourse between England and Switzerland in the years 1515–1517 was occasioned purely by the political exigencies of the moment and was founded upon no permanent basis of common interest, political or religious. Hence the mission of Pace has little significance for the development of Anglo-Swiss relations in later centuries.
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References
page 140 note 1 have not been able in this Paper to touch upon the subject of the Vaudois clergy and the historical pension paid by the English Treasury until recent times. This subject has been dealt with by DrShaw, W. A. in an article entitled “The English Government and the Relief of Protestant Refugees” in the English Historical Review, Vol. IX (1894), pp. 662–80 and especially pp. 675–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
page 145 note 1 Coxe's instructions. All Souls College Library, Oxford. MS. 264, f. 394.
page 146 note 1 A “capitulation” was a contract between the Cantons and a foreign prince, regulating the conditions of service of Swiss mercenaries in the employment of that prince.
page 146 note 2 Coxe's instructions. All Souls College Library, Oxford. MS. 264, f. 394.
page 146 note 3 The term “transgression” denoted the employment of Swiss mercenaries for offensive service, contrary to the capitulations, which invariably provided that the mercenaries should be employed for defensive service only.
page 147 note 1 Coxe to — 5/15 January 1690; Coxe to — 9/19 January 1689/1690; Coxe to Shrewsbury 13/23 January 1690; R.O. State Papers Foreign, Switzerland, 7.
page 147 note 2 Précis de la Négotiation de Mr. Coxe en Suisse. Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 38013, f. 9.
page 147 note 3 Amtliche Sammlung der ältern Eidgenössischen Abschiede, VI, 2, i. pp. 317–18 (Einsiedeln, 1882)Google Scholar.
page 148 note 1 Amtliche Sammlung der ältern Eidgenössischen Abschiede, VI, 2, i. p. 322.
page 148 note 2 “Project d'un Traitté d'Union entre Sa Majesté Britanique et Les Cantons Evangeliques.” Short title, “Suisse-Project.” Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 38013, ff. 35–49.
page 148 note 3 Basel, Schafihausen and Appenzell, according to the terms of their original alliances with the other Cantons composing the entire Confederation, were debarred from making new alliances on their own account, and could not therefore enter into an alliance with England.
page 149 note 1 It was quite permissible for Schafihausen, Appenzell Ausser-Rhoden and the town of St. Gall to take part in levies made by foreign powers, although they were not at liberty to enter into new alliances with such.
page 150 note 1 Monsr. Gautier's Project. R.O. State Papers Foreign, Switzerland, 7.
page 150 note 2 Coxe to Shrewsbury, 2 June 1690. R.O. State Papers Foreign, Switzerland, 7.
page 151 note 1 Nottingham to Coxe, 1 July 1690. R.O. Foreign Entry Book 157. Another copy of this letter in Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 9740, ff. 26–27.
page 151 note 2 Nottingham to Coxe, 26 August 1690. R.O. Foreign Entry Book 157.
page 151 note 3 “Project d'Union auec Sa Majesté de la Grande Bretagne.” Short title, “K's Project.” Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 14, 416, ff. 50–53.
page 152 note 1 Coxe to Nottingham, 10/20 September 1690. R.O. State Papers Foreign, Switzerland, 7.
page 153 note 1 Article VII of the second draft was numbered XVIII in the third.
page 153 note 2 “Traité D'Union Entre Sa Majesté Britannique et Les Cantons Evangeliques du Corps Helvetique.” Short title, “Original Treaty.” R.O. State Papers Foreign, Treaties, etc., 538.
page 153 note 3 Coxe to Nottingham 10/20 September 1690, 22 October o.s. 1690, and 25 October o.s. 1690. R.O. State Papers Foreign, Switzerland, 7.
page 154 note 1 Coxe to Nottingham, 20 September 1690. R.O. State Papers Foreign, Switzerland, 7.
page 154 note 2 Hervart to Nottingham, 30 December 1690. R.O. State Papers Foreign, Switzerland, 7.
page 154 note 3 The constituent elements of which Switzerland was composed at the end of the seventeenth century may be thus classified: 1. the XIII Cantons, full members of the Confederation; 2. the “Associates” (Zugewandte) recognised by all XIII Cantons as members of the Corpus Helveticum, but of secondary status; 3. the “Allies” (Verbiindete) attached to either the Catholic or the Protestant group of Cantons, but not recognised as constituent parts of the Confederation except by the particular group to which they were attached, e.g. Geneva was the “Ally” of Bern and Zürich, and as such was considered an integral part of Switzerland by all the Protestant Cantons, but not by the Catholic.
page 154 note 4 Coxe to Nottingham, 10/20 September 1690. R.O. State Papers Foreign, Switzerland, 7.
page 155 note 1 Coxe to Nottingham, 20 September 1690. R.O. State Papers Foreign, Switzerland, 7.
page 155 note 2 Philibert d'Hervart, Baron d'Huningue, one of the most famous of Huguenot refugees, was the youngest son of Barthelemy d'Hervart, Comptroller of the Finances under Mazarin.
page 155 note 3 Coxe to Nottingham 10/20 September 1690. R.O. State Papers Foreign, Switzerland, 7.
page 156 note 1 Hervart's “Additional Instructions,” 23 October 1690. R.O. Foreign Entry Book, 157.
page 156 note 2 Hervart to Nottingham, 17/27 December 1690. R.O. State Papers Foreign, Switzerland, 7.
page 156 note 3 Oberkan to Coxe, 19 November 1690. R.O. State Papers Foreign, Switzerland, 7. Oberkan was a Swiss officer recommended to William by Coxe for the command of the Zürich Regiment of the English levies. Coxe had persuaded the authorities of Zürich to allow him to go to Geneva to inspect the fortifications there.
page 156 note 4 Hervart to Nottingham, 30 December 1690. R.O. State Papers Foreign, 7.
page 156 note 5 Hervart to Coxe, 6 January 1691. R.O. State Papers Foreign, Switzerland, 8.
page 157 note 1 Hervart to Nottingham, 2/12 January 1691. R.O. State Papers Foreign, Switzerland, 8.
page 157 note 2 “Traitté d'Union Entre Sa Majesté Britannique et les Cantons Evangeliques du Corps Helvetique.” R.O. State Papers Foreign, Treaties, etc., 538. Another copy in Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 38013, ff. 52–57.
page 157 note 3 Nottingham to Coxe, 25 November 1690. R.O. Foreign Entry Book, 157.
page 159 note 1 Coxe to Nottingham, 17/27 December 1690. R.O. State Papers Foreign, Switzerland, 7.
page 159 note 2 Nottingham to Coxe, 25 November 1690. R.O. Foreign Entry Book, 157.
page 159 note 3 Abschiede VI, 2, i, p. 382.
page 160 note 1 “Copie du memoire presenté à Messr. du Conseil de Geneue 9/19 Jenuier: 91.” R.O. State Papers Foreign, Switzerland, 8.
page 160 note 2 Hervart to Nottingham, 17 January 1691: cf. R.O. Coxe to Nottingham, 7/17 January 1691. R.O. State Papers Foreign, Switzerland, 8.
page 160 note 3 “Memoire presente au Sr. D. Hervart le 9 Jenuier 1691.” R.O. State Papers Foreign, Switzerland, 8.
page 160 note 4 Hervart to Nottingham, 14 January 1691. R.O. State Papers Foreign, Switzerland, 8.
page 161 note 1 Précis de la Négotiation de Mr. Coxe en Suisse. Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 38013, f. 10.
page 162 note 1 Dumont Corps Univ. Dipl. VII. pp. 383, 398, 405, 427, 411.
page 162 note 2 d'Arzeliers to — 17/11 November 1697. R.O. State Papers Foreign, Switzerland, 9. The Marquis d'Arzeliers, a Huguenot refugee, had been since 1695 William's agent in Geneva, but without title.