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I. Gondomar: Ambassador to James I

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2010

Charles H. Carter
Charles H. Carter
Affiliation:
Tulane University
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Extract

Don Diego Sarmiento de Acuña, ennobled as Count of Gondomarin 1617, served as Spanish ambassador to England from 1613 to 1622 and continued thereafter in a sort of emeritus status as Spain's leading, almost only, expert on English affairs until his death in 1626.

In this tense, crisis-ridden time of uneasy peace prior to the Thirty Years' War and during the opening years of that war, when its course and its eventual extent were still much in doubt, what was going to happen in Europe, and to Europe, was very much in the hands of the relatively few men who guided or influenced affairs of state in a few key capitals. None were more important than such men in Spain and England, widely recognized as the heads of ‘the two protectorats’ over Catholic and Protestant Europe. Gondomar must certainly be counted among these few.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 7 , Issue 2 , June 1964 , pp. 189 - 208
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1964

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References

1 He was absent from England on a rather active ‘sick leave’ from July 1618 to May 1620.

2 The following article rests primarily on several years' work in the original manuscripts of Gondomar's own dispatches to kings, ministers, etc., letters and dispatches to him, and documents of the Council of State based upon or deriving from Gondomar's reports or otherwise relating to him. The main part of this material, in the Sección de Estado at Simancas, is too voluminous for a complete list to be attempted here, but some 37 legajos which can be cited succinctly (2560-63, 2571-73, 2590-2603, 2849, 7023-35, 7037-38) provide more than ample documentation for the more general statements made in this essay. There is a small amount of Gondomar correspondence at the Biblioteca National de Madrid, and a great deal in ‘State Papers, Spain’ at the Public Record Office (SP94, vols. 9-33 cover the reign of James I). In addition, use has been made of S. R. Gardiner's notes and transcripts (Add. 31,111-2), and corroborative evidence has been used in large quantities from the archives of the Spanish Netherlands at the Archives Générales du Royaume de Belgique. Whenever adequate documentation for a given point in the essay exists in published form, however, reference is made to the printed, rather than the manuscript, document, for the convenience of the reader who may wish to consult actual texts. Most frequent reference of this sort is to Documentos inéditos para la Mstoria de España (new series), vols. I-IV: Corres-Pondencia ofieial de Don Diego Sarmiento de Acuña, Conde de Gondomar, ed. Beretta, Antonio Ballesteros, Madrid, 1936–1945Google Scholar, hereafter referred to as DIE. Where specific manuscript sources are cited (in addition to the general references above) the following abbreviations are used: Add., Additional Manuscripts, British Museum; BNM, Biblioteca National de Madrid; Et., Sección de Estado, Archivo General de Simancas; PEA, Papiers d'État et de l'Audience, Archives Générales du Royaume de Belgique, Brussels.

3 See Thomas Middleton's play, ‘A Game at Chess’; Dugdale, Richard, ‘A narrative of the wicked plots carried on by Seignior Gondamore for advancing the Popish Religion and Spanish Faction. Heartily recommended to all Protestants’, reptd. Harleian Miscellany, III, 313–36Google Scholar; Prynne, William, Hidden works of darkness (London, 1645)Google Scholar; Scott, Thomas, Vox populi, or newes from Spayne (York?, 1620), andGoogle ScholarThe second part of vox populi (York, 1624)Google Scholar; Weldon, Anthony, History of the court and character of King James and of the intrigues and tragical events of his life…first published in 1615, London, 1817; andGoogle ScholarWilson, Arthur, The history of Great Britain, being the life and reign of King James the First (London, 1653). One finds touches of this contemporary tradition even in works sympathetic to James, such asGoogle ScholarGoodman, Godfrey, Gloucester, Bishop of, The court of James I, ed. Brewer, J. S., a vols. (London, 1839)Google Scholar.

4 There is little modern literature written specifically about Gondomar. Lyon, F. H., El conde de Gondomar (in English) (Oxford, 1910)Google Scholar, is a compendium of silly traditions. Don Wenceslao Ramirez de Villa-Urrutia, marqués de Villa-Urrutia,‘La embajada del Conde de Gondomar’, a 1913 address to the Royal Academy of History in Spain, published in his Los embajadores de España en Paris de 1883 a 1889 (Madrid, 1927), is mostly a not-very-competent plagiarism of Lyon's unsatisfactory book, with some unacknowledged text taken almost verbatim from Gardiner as well, with frequent errors in translation, the whole twisted into a eulogy of Gondomar as untenable as the usual condemnations.Google ScholarBustamente, Ciriaco Pérez, Españoles e lngleses en América durante el sigh XVII. El Conde de Gondomar y su intervención en el proceso, prisión y muerte de sir Walter Raleigh (Santiago, 1928), provides a detailed and quite useful filling-in of the man's antecedents and early career, but is of little value on the subject of the title, this part being based almost entirely on a chance sequence of about 100 consecutive folios of documents (BNM 6949/99-190 v.) which are quite inadequate by themselves.Google ScholarCanton, Francisco Javier Sánchez, Don Diego Sarmiento de Acuña, Conde de Gondomar, 1567-1626 (Madrid, 1935), is a potentially excellent work whose form frustratingly precludes the fulfilling of its potential. Prepared as an inaugural address for the Academy of History, it paradoxically skips over Gondomar's English embassy—which is what makes the man historically ygniUmnt in the first place—because that subject had already been treated in Villa-Urrutia's address mentioned above. Sánchez Cantón seems not to accept that travesty but does not refute it before the same august body; instead he bows deeply (but one doubts sincerely) in the direction of Villa-Urrutia and diplomatically avoids Gondomar's diplomacy. The wont of the usual travesties are rather handily epitomized byGoogle ScholarHume, Martin A. S. in ‘Un gran diplomático español. El Conde de Gondomar en Inglaterra’, Nuestro Tiempo, II (1902), 397–414Google Scholar. Hume's other works (e.g. The Court of Philip IV, New York, 1927)Google Scholar carry on the same tradition. That this sort of thing is still with us is shown in such recent works as William McElwee, The Wisest Fool in Christendom (London, 1958)Google Scholar. Among modern works in English the present writer has seen nothing that comes even close to an accurate treatment except for the excellent chapter (entitled ‘A Game at Chess’ after Middleton's play) in Mattingly, Garrett, Renaissance Diplomacy (Boston, 1955).Google ScholarAkrigg's, G. P. V.Jacobean Pageant (Cambridge, Mass., 1962) appeared after the above was written but its chapter on Gondomar is no exception: he is even indexed wrongly under his maternal name, which is misspelledCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 See, for example, the scattered accounts in DIE, I-IV, passim. For Lewkinor see, for example, Lewkinor to Gondomar, 7 Jan. 1621, Est. 7031/24 and v.

6 Hoboken to Albert, London, 12 June 1606, PEA 365/73 v.; Arenberg to Albert, 18 June 1603, cited by Gardiner in Add. 31, III/I.

7 Gardiner, S. R., History of England…1603-1642, IO volt. (London, 1901), I, Gardiner's transcript of this memo (of 8/18 July 1605) is at Add. 31, III/6 ffGoogle Scholar.

8 For this first established list tee Add. 31, III/I0-II. Gardiner uses the same ratio of four ducats (including the felipe) to the pound applied here: the ducat was sometimes of II realet but generally of IO, while the pound sterling was generally considered worth 40 reales.

9 Arenberg to Albeit [London], 27 June 1603, in Lonchay, H., Cuvelier, J., Lefevre, J., eds., Correspondence de la Cow d'Espagne sur les affaires des Pays-Bos au XVII* siècle, 6 vols. (Brussels, 1923–1937), I, 298 (‘il faut y mettre le prix’)Google Scholar.

10 Simon Contarini, Relaxione, printed in translation in Córdoba, Luis Cabrera de, Relacitmes de las cosas sucedidas en la Corte de Etpaña desde 1599 hasta 1614 (Madrid, 1857), pp. 563–83, as ‘Relation que hizo á la Republica de Venecia Simon Contareni [sic], al fin del afio 1605, de la embajada que habia hecho en España’; p. 581Google Scholar.

11 See, for example, Add. 31, III/5; and Sarmiento to Lerma, London, 5 Oct. 1613, DIE, III, 125. For modern opinions in the same vein see J. Cuvelier, ‘Lea préliminaires du traité de Londres (29 aout 1604)’, Revue beige de philologie et d'histoire, II (1923), 294; and J. Willaert, ‘Négotiations politico-religieuses entre l'Angleterre et les Pays-Bas catholiques (1598-1625)’,Google ScholarRevue d'histoire ecclésiastique, VI-IX (1905–1908), vi, 572Google Scholar.

12 Somerset never actually saw the money, for by the time cash could be found to pay him he had fallen, was in prison, and seemed in danger of his life; Gondomar preferred paying his debts but withheld payment of this one, his concern transparently sincere, to avoid compromising Somerset further. Sarmiento to Lerma, London, 17 March 1614, DIE, IV, 33; same to Philip III, London, 15 Nov. 1617, DIE, I, 130.

13 Gondomar to Ciriza, London, 30 June 1619, DIE, II, 178.

14 , Gardiner, England, I, 214–15Google Scholar.

15 Add. 31, III/7.

16 Gondomar to Ciriza, London, 30 June 1619, DIE, II, 179.

17 Sarmiento's relation of his voyage to and his reception in England in 1613, DIE, III, 85.

18 See, for example, Gondomar's embassy account of I July 1619, DIE, II, 182-9; Sar-miento to Philip III, London, 5 Oct. 1613, ibid., III, 123; same to Ciriza, London, 3 Jan. 1618, ibid., I, 201. One who threatened him most frequently, interestingly enough, was Lady Suffolk, wife of a leader of the ‘Spanish party’. Regarding the general practice of pensions the king of Spain was in fact in an odd position: he had many obligations of this sort in many countries, but even when he ‘paid’ them, no matter how late, it was often not in cash but by a warrant drawn on his generally empty treasury. Rather than go through the long, expensive process of collecting these in full die recipients would sell them at their discounted market rate, usually 4 to I; the long was blamed, with some justice, for having paid only a quarter of what he had promised; as a result many friends were lost and many enemies were made, but the greatest irony lies in the fact that the king's treasury would eventually have to pay off the notes at face value all the same. See, for example, Gondomar to Ciriza, London, 13 March 1619, ibid., II, 126-7.

19 , Gardiner, England, II, 216 ffGoogle Scholar.

20 See , Mattingly, Renaissance Diplomacy, pp. 260–1Google Scholar.

21 Willson, D. H., King James VI and I (London, 1956), p. 365Google Scholar.

22 See Gondomar's correspondence in DIE from his arrival in London to c. 1616, passim.

23 Though Professor Willson independently derived the impression referred to above from the reports of the Venetian ambassadors.

24 ‘On certain letters of Diego Sarmiento de Acufia, Count of Gondomar, giving an account of the affair of the Earl of Somerset, with remarks on die career of Somerset as a public man’, Archaeologia, vol. XII (London, 1867)Google Scholar.

25 Prince Charles and the Spanish marriage, 2 vols. (London, 1869)Google Scholar.

26 England, II, 247, 250Google Scholar.

27 Among the documents appended to his edition, in both Spanish and English, of Father Jesús, Francisco de, Narrative of the Spanish marriage treaty (Camden Society, vol. 101) (Westminster, 1869), pp. 286–93Google Scholar.

28 See DIE, IV, 157 ff. Gondomar's reliability as a source of fact is of obvious importance to the question at hand. In support of his narrative Professor Willson frequently cites passages in Gardiner which are based mainly or entirely on Gondomar's dispatches or minutes of them, and he himself sometimes rests his account on Gondomar's own testimony (e.g. Ch. 18, note 9; Ch. 19, notes 5, 8, 10). Yet he says (p. 363): ‘There was a great deal of bombast about him, but it was bombast that carried conviction; and his boastings not only imposed upon James, but upon the ambassador himself, upon his government, and upon historians who have taken bis dispatches at their face value.’ The present writer has, to date, seen several thousand folios of his dispatches, minutes of them, constdtas on them, answers to them, etc., as well as parallel accounts of the same events, etc., written by independent observers. As with any source of information, it is necessary to make certain allowances: for example, Gondomar constantly refers to Prince Charles as ‘a pearl’ but this need not be judged for its accuracy as a description nor as a measure of Gondomar's enthusiasm for the lad; he was simply trying to sell Madrid on the marriage itself. Gondomar's dispatches are, in fact, much more reliable than the highly respected Venetian diplomatic correspondence because, among other things, (1) he had access to more and better information than the Venetian envoys, and (2) the Venetians got much of their information from him (directly or indirectly), which he falsified freely. A convenient sample of the quality of his dispatches may be had in his report on the Addled Parliament, DIE, IV, 143 ff.

29 , Gardiner, England, II, 222–3.Google Scholar On her background see ibid., pp. 221-2; and Ballesteros, DIE, III, 127-8 n. Fullerton, Lady Georgiana, The life of Luisa de Carvajal (London, 1873), which is based on Mufioz's eulogy, is useful for details but of little further value to political historyGoogle Scholar.

30 For the text of the ambassador's own reports of the episode, which were unavailable to Gardiner and provide the basis for correcting bis account, see DIE, III, 145 ff.

31 See F. H. Lyon, op. cit. pp. 22-3.

32 Villa-Urrutia, op. cit. p. 97.

33 See above, note 17.

34 E.g. CSP Venetian, XIII, 398, 566.

35 James to Buckingham (n.p., n.d.), Hallrwell, J. O., ed., Letters of the Kings of England, 2 vola. (London, 1848), II, 140–50Google Scholar.

36 , Mattingly, Renaissance Diplomacy, p. 262Google Scholar.

37 Relaxioni degti stati europa lette al senate dagli ambasciatori venanam net seeolo dedmotettimo, eds. Barozzi, N., Berchet, G., vol. 1 (England) (Venice, 1868), p. 172.Google ScholarSee also Goodman, Godfrey, The Court of King James I, I, 18Google Scholar.

38 See, for example, Sarmiento to Lerma, 25 Jan. 1614, DIE, III, 249.

39 Philip III to Gondomar, Madrid, I0 June 1620, Est. 2573.

40 See, for example, Bruneau to Philip IV, London, 28 November and 8 December 1624, Est. 2561 (unfoliated).

41 Gondomar to Philip III, London, 8 Feb. 1621, Est. 7031/43-44. Since this article was submitted for publication, the relationship between James and Gon -domar has been the subject of extensive discussion—one might say amicable debate—betwee D. H. Willson and myself. Though it does not involve fundamentals, an area o f honest disagreement remains—but I shall not attempt to state Professor Willson's position here, as he is preparing an essay on the subject himself. I look forward to its appearance, and expect to draw shamelessly on it in the preparation of my career biography of Gondomar, now in progress. Meanwhile, I have dealt with other of Gondomar's activities in The secret diplomacy of the Habsburgs, 1598-1625 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1964)Google Scholar.