Kings MS 121-128

Depêches de Messire Christophe de Harlay, Comte de Beaumont, ecrites pendant son ambassade d'Angleterre au Roy [Henri IV] et à M^r de Villeroy [Nicolas de Neufville Seigneur-de Villeroi, Secrétaire d'Etat], avec les reponses de sa Majesté et dudit Sicur de Villeroy'; 1602- 1605. Eight volumes (originally only four). A list of contents is added to every second volume. Another copy, in four volumes, is in Add. MSS. 30638-30641. A copy in two in Bibl. Nat. fonds fr. 15982, 15983. A copy in eight is said to have been in the library of G. F. Joly de Fleury (d. 1756) ; see Lelong and Fevret, Bibl. Historique (1771), iii, P. 74. A summary account of the whole mission is published by P. Laffieur de Kermaingant, L'Ambassade de France en Angleterre, Mission de Christophe de Harlay, 1895 (2 vols.), the letters of Henri IV being printed in the second volume. Cf. also Berger de Xivrey, Recueil de Lettres Missives de Henri IV. The Comte de Beaumont was sent to London as Ambassador to replace Jean de Thumery de Boissise in Dec. 1601 and was recalled in Oct. 1605. His first business was to attend in company with the Sieur de Boissise the Conference with the English Commissioners concerning depredations, in settlement of which an act was passed 26 May, 1602 (vol. i, f. 223 b). Other subjects discussed in the dispatches are, the conspiracy, and execution on 31 July, 1602, of Maréchal de Biron; the suspected complicity of Henri de la Tour, Duc de Bouillon, in that conspiracy; the death of Queen Elizabeth and accession of James I ; the special missions into England of (a) Charles Cochon de Maupas, Baron du Tour (Apr. 1603), (b) Maximilien de Béthune, Marquis de Rosny (June, 1603), and (c) Louis de l'Hospital, Seigneur de Vitry (Aug. 1603); the negotiations with James I for a joint alliance to defend the Dutch against Spain, and the subsequent sending of English troops into the Netherlands, &c. In addition to the main dispatches the following papers and letters are included:-