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'Diplomats, Agents, Adventurers and Spies: 1500 - 1700' 17th - 19th September 2008
To be held at the University of Kent, Canterbury
The Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies (University of Kent) and the Centre for Editing Lives and Letters (QMUL) are pleased to co-sponsor a 3-day conference to be held at the University of Kent on 17-19th September 2008. Speakers from across the disciplines will consider early modern agency and the transfer of knowledge between states, agents, travellers and spies in the period 1500-1700. Whilst recent scholarship in this area has focussed on early modern interactions and questions of policy, polity and politics, the negotiations and encounters of intelligencers, diplomats and spies remain relatively unexplored. Considering the relationship between agents and information we seek to address some of the following questions: how did intelligencers retrieve, transmit, and present information? What was the value of this information and how was it received? How were networks of influence constructed and maintained?
For further information or to register, please contact Rosanna Cox (R.Cox@kent.ac.uk) or Robyn Adams (r.adams@qmul.ac.uk). Registration forms are available from our website: http://www.livesandletters.ac.uk/events/2008/09/17/diplomats-agents-adventurers-and-spies-1500-1700-conference
Programme
Day 1
12.00pm - 12.30pm Registration and coffee
12.30pm - 2pm Session 1
Bibliographical Trails (Chair: TBC)
-Pete Langman (CELL), ‘Open Secrets in Francis Bacon’
-Jason Powell (St Joseph’s University), ‘Dialogue, Travel and the Embassy in More’s Utopia’
-Hannah Crawforth (Princeton University), ‘A Restitution of Decayed Intelligence: The Use of Ciphers in Richard Verstegan’s Letters’
2pm - 2.30pm Coffee
2.30pm - 4pm Session 2
Spies, Intelligence and Information-gathering (Chair: Roberta Anderson, Bath Spa University)
-Samuli Kaislaniemi (University of Helsinki), ‘“Aduertisements from spayne”: Richard Cocks and other English intelligencers on the Spanish border, 1600–1610’
-Paul Dover (Kennesaw State University), ‘The papal court as information exchange in the second half of the fifteenth century’
-Stephen Alford (University of Cambridge), ‘Charles Sledd’s secret intelligence’
4.00pm Presentation by State Papers Online project
‘Diplomats, Spies - the documents. A presentation of State Papers Online, 1509-1714’
-Julia de Mowbray (Gale/Cengage Learning)
-Stephen Alford (University of Cambridge)
5pm Visit to Canterbury Cathedral (TBC), followed by the conference dinner at
The Goods Shed, Canterbury (6 for 6.30pm)
Day 2
9.15am - 10.45am Session 3
Patronage and Agency (Chair: Robyn Adams, Centre for Editing Lives and Letters, Queen Mary, University of London)
-Peter Redford (University of Sheffield), ‘Intercepting the Burley Letters’
-Mark Netzloff (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee), ‘The Ambassador’s Household: Sir Henry Wotton and the Traffic in News and Boys’
-Jo Eastwood (University of Cambridge), ‘Diplomats as agents of book exchange’
10.45am - 11.00am Coffee
11.00am - 12.30pm Session 4
Networks of Influence (Chair: Rosanna Cox, University of Kent)
-Katrien De Guelder & Jean Pierre Van der Motton (University of Ghent), ‘An honest alliance’ forged in exile (1657-1663): Charles II, Thomas Killigrew and Willem Frederik of Nassau-Dietz.
-Robin Eagles (History of Parliament), ‘Preparing for Revolution: William of Orange's English contacts 1685-88’
-Michelle Howell (University of Cambridge), ‘The “Queen’s Party”: Henrietta Maria, Political Intrigue, and Diplomatic Agents’
12.30pm - 1.30pm Lunch
1.30pm - 3.00pm Session 5
Travel, Navigation and the Transmission of Information (Chair: James Kelly, Worcester College, University of Oxford)
-Catherine Fletcher, ‘Diplomacy on the road: The post route as political space in the early sixteenth century’
-Hugh Adlington (University of Birmingham), "The Character of Holland": Manuscript Circulation of Anti-Dutch Writing in England, 1620-1650'
-Nadine Akkerman (University of Leiden), ‘The Postmistress of Brussels: Alexandrine of Taxis and the Power of Postal Control’
3.00pm - 3.30pm Coffee
3.30pm - 5.00pm Session 6
Protocol and Spectacle (Chair: Nadine Akkerman, Leiden University)
-Mark Hutchings and Berta Cano Echevarria (University of Reading), ‘Anglo-Spanish Diplomacy, the First Stuart Masque, and the Road to Peace: A New Document’
-Chloe Houston (University of Reading), ‘Diplomatic Gift-Giving in Seventeenth-Century Persia, or, Why Not To Look a Gift-Horse in the Mouth’
-Gerald Maclean (University of Exeter), ‘Courting the Porte: Early Anglo-Ottoman Diplomacy’
5.00pm - 5.30pm Coffee
5.30pm - 6.45pm Session 7
Material Culture (Chair: Chloë Houston, University of Reading)
-David Humphrey (Royal College of Art, London), ‘An extraordinary history and a murky tale: The Three Brothers Jewel during the reign of King Charles I’
-Maartje Van Gelder (University of Amsterdam), ‘Daniel Nijs: merchant, art agent and intelligencer in early modern Venice’
-Peter Barber (British Library, London), ‘“Procure as many as you can and send them over”: cartographic espionage and cartographic gifts in international relations, 1460-1760’
7pm Drinks Reception, Eliot Cloister Gardens
Day 3
9.00am - 10.30am Session 8
Secret Networks and Ciphers (Chair: Bernard Klein, University of Kent)
-Robyn Adams (CELL, Queen Mary, University of London), ‘William Herle and the Circulation of Intelligence’
-Alan Stewart (Columbia University/CELL), ‘Bacon’s Ciphers’
-Simone Testa (Royal Holloway, University of London/British Library, London), ‘The Duke of Nevers and his Informers’
10.30am - 10.45am Coffee
10.45am - 11.30am Session 9
Endnote Paper (Chair: Alan Stewart, Columbia University/CELL)
-William Sherman (University of York), ‘Scholar, Statesman, Soldier, Spy: Renaissance Intelligence and its Legacies
11.30am - 12.45pm Session 10
Round table discussion