Stowe MS 166-177

COLLECTION of State Papers and correspondence of Sir Thomas Edmondes, Knt.; 1592-1633. A few earlier and later papers are included in the last volume. Edmondes was English Agent at Paris, 1592-1599; Ambassador at the Archduke Albert's court at Brussels, 1605-1609; Ambassador to France, 1610-1617; Comptroller of the Household, 1616 ; Treasurer of the Household, 1618; and died in 1639. Twelve volumes. Paper. Folio. The collection includes original letters of English ambassadors to France and Spain, and at Brussels, the Hague, Venice, etc., the correspondence of Edmondes with statesmen and others at home, the instructions of Elizabeth and James I. to their ambassadors. reports of negotiations, etc. The letters of Edmondes himself are all either drafts or copies, partly in his own hand, and are chiefly addressed to successive Secretaries of State, and, on the death of the Earl of Salisbury in 1612, to the King in person. Except in a few instances, they do not appear in the following descriptions, but all the other letters and papers are noticed, preceded by a summary of the events which the contents of each volume illustrate. The collection has been successively in the possession of Secretary John Thurloe (ob. 1648); Lord Chancellor Somers (ob. 1716); and Hon. Philip Yorke (2nd Earl of Hardwicke, 1764, ob. 1790), in whose hands it was when Thomas Birch used it for his Historical View of the Negotiations between the Courts of England, France, and Brussels from the year 1592 to 1617, London, 1749.