Diplomatic Ties: Luisa De Carvajal’s Relations with Three Spanish Ambassadors

Diplomatic relations between early modern England and Spain were established during the reign of Henry VII, when the Catholic monarchs, Isabel and Fernando, sent the formidable counselor, Rodrigo González de Puebla, to lay the foundations of what was to be the oldest and most significant Spanish embassy outside Rome. Initially established to maintain peace among allies, the resident embassies after England’s break with the Catholic church devolved into agencies of distrust and conspiracy. Bernardino de Mendoza, expelled in 1584 for his involvement in the Throckmorton plot against Elizabeth, was to be the last Spanish ambassador to England until the nomination, in 1605, of Pedro de Zúñiga, who accompanied the Spanish emissaries to sign the Treaty of London with James I.  Zúñiga’s arrival in England coincided with that of Luisa de Carvajal y Mendoza, a Spanish noblewoman with the self-appointed mission of converting the Anglicans to Catholicism. Carvajal, who resided at times at the Spanish embassy, dealt closely with its changing staff. Her correspondence vividly narrates her keen perceptions and criticism of how an ambassador should behave at an enemy court.  This paper will analyze her controversial relations with the three ambassadors with whom she dealt while in London: Zúñiga, Alonso de Velasco, and Diego Sarmiento de Acuña, future Count of Gondomar.