Venice: July 1570

Calendar of State Papers Relating To English Affairs in the Archives of Venice, Volume 7, 1558-1580. Originally published by Her Majesty's Stationery Office, London, 1890.

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'Venice: July 1570', in Calendar of State Papers Relating To English Affairs in the Archives of Venice, Volume 7, 1558-1580, (London, 1890) pp. 456-457. British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/cal-state-papers/venice/vol7/pp456-457 [accessed 25 April 2024]

July 1570

July 17. Original Despatch, Venetian Archives. 484. Alvise Contarini, Venetian Ambassador in France, to the Signory.
Advices from England state that Commissioners from Scotland were expected at the Court to negotiate some agreement concerning the existing disturbances and the release of the Queen of Scotland, and it would appear that the conditions proposed on the part of the English were that the infant King, the sole heir of that kingdom, should be delivered to them; that in matters of religion the edicts of the late Regent [the Earl of Murray] should be confirmed, and also that two fortresses were to be surrendered to the English for a term of years. These conditions appeared to the Scotch so hard that, although the Queen of Scotland, as may be well imagined, desires her freedom, nevertheless she will not give her consent, believing that these proposals have been made to gain time, and to prevent the Scotch arming, or assistance being rendered by a foreign Prince, such, for instance, as their Majesties might be disposed to afford if they succeeded in preserving peace with the Huguenots.
Paris, 17th July 1570.
[Italian.]
July 20. Original Despatch, Venetian Archives. 485. Alvise Contarini, Venetian Ambassador at the Court of France, to the Doge and Signory.
The Nuncio of the Pope and the Ambassador of Spain are making strenuous efforts to prevent a peace being made with the Huguenots, and are even offering, in the name of their Sovereigns, assistance in the shape both of money and of men. But a circumstance which occurred the day before yesterday will show the great desire which prevails universally throughout the Court for peace. For the Ambassador of Spain, being then in the King's chamber, in audience with his Majesty, Mons. de Tavannes, a gentleman highly esteemed, arrived there, and he, seeing that the Ambassador was present, and being himself rather deaf and accustomed, as is usual with deaf persons, to speak loudly, said in a voice so audible as to be not only heard by the Ambassador's gentlemen who were near him, but by the Ambassador himself, who was near the King, “These Spaniards would do better to govern their own homes, and not interfere by trying to govern other people's countries; for I well know that the Spaniards have no wish but to foment civil wars, so that both one party and the other may be weakened, and they themselves become stronger than both; and for my own part I would rather see a hundred white cassocks (which is the costume of the Huguenots) than one red cross (which is the badge the Spaniards wear), because, after all, the first are our brethren and our kindred, while the latter are the natural enemies of our country.
Poissy, 20th July 1570.
[Italian.]
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