Elizabethan Diplomatic Compensation: Its Nature and Variety

Abstract

In view of the large number of financial complaints in Tudor diplomatic correspondence, it is entirely understandable why compensation might be considered a central problem of sixteenth-century foreign service. The feeling conveyed by the diplomats is that their pay was haphazard in its conception, irregular in its distribution, and utterly insufficient in its magnitude; that is, it was thoroughly unsatisfactory in every respect. So consistent and so forceful did these envoys make their case that today it is virtually axiomatic for historians to assume that compensation was chaotic, and that service abroad was always financially debilitating. “Upon none of the royal servants did the disorder of sixteenth century fiscal administration bear harder [than upon the ambassadors],” Professor Mattingly notes. Moreover, “for an ambassador, the chance of financial embarrassment was almost a certainty.” Sir John Neale, another of only a few who have addressed this issue directly, is persuaded that, “it was not exceptional for an Elizabethan ambassador to get into financial straits … generally ambassadors had to face making inroads into their private estates.” Or: “His [the ambassador's] was not a happy lot. His profit and loss account was a statement in two terms of which one was never operative …. Their pay was often irregular and never adequate, and they were lucky if their private estates were not hopelessly mortgaged at the end of an embassy.” Other historians, making only passing reference to diplomatic compensation, simply assume the worst.Yet the diplomats of Elizabeth served, frequently for extended periods, and often repeatedly as well.

Masculinity, ambassadorial handbooks, and early modern English diplomacy

“…145 Gary Bell rightly argued that the situation improved in the last three decades of the century, when resident ambassadors were more regularly paid in a timely manner; he also downplayed any short-term pecuniary distress experienced by Tudor ambassadors because, when their overseas service ended, the individuals concerned often acquired higher office domestically that came with large monetary rewards. 146 But the promise of future financial reward did not help pay the bills and we would be wise not to overlook the cultural codes of early modern courts. Inadequate financial resources damaged the honour of the individual diplomat and, by casting into question his ability to manage his household, threatened his status as a patriarchal householder.…”