Diplomatic Letters as Political Literature: Copying Sir Henry Unton’s Letters

Abstract

This essay examines the letter-books that record the correspondence of Sir Henry Unton, resident ambassador to Henry IV of France from 1591–92 and again in 1595–96. Several (different) copies of his letter-book survive, raising questions about their origin and their social, political, and antiquarian value. Evidence of textual elision in one copy suggests conscious editing, supporting a theory that diplomatic letters functioned as more than ephemeral carriers of information. The corpus of letters left by an embassy represented its lasting written record, and the compiling of select letters into a discrete collection was one of several reputation management techniques open to the vulnerable aspirant within the competitive political environment of the late sixteenth century.