The Letters of Paul de Foix, French Ambassador at the Court of Elizabeth I, 1562–66

This volume presents the surviving correspondence of the French ambassador to the court of Elizabeth I from 1562–66, Paul de Foix. Paul de Foix was an intriguing figure: a liberal Catholic reformer suspected of heresy, a scholar and patron of scholars and a trusted agent of Catherine de Medici. All this was at a time of civil war in France, war between France and England and growing tension between England and Scotland over Mary Stuart's marriage. Taken from volumes preserved at the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris and the L'Aubespine archive, which was dispersed between the 1830s and the 1990s, de Foix's letters and reports throw light on many aspects of Elizabethan politics and society, notably on the Queen's demeanour as a negotiator, on the question of her marriage and on the role of an ambassador in a period of extreme instability both in France and England.