Abstract for the News and the Shape of Europe, 1500-1750 conference, 26-28 July 2013, London, England.
Samuli Kaislaniemi
University of Helsinki
In late 1603, Juan de Tassis, the new Spanish ambassador to England, was planning the creation of a postal connection between the English and Spanish courts which would enable letters sent between them to reach their destination within a week. This showed a level of optimism some centuries ahead of its time, and such a fast method never materialised. Between 1605-1609, the letters of the first post-peace English ambassador to Spain, Sir Charles Cornwallis, usually took between one and two months to reach England, although the rare missive got delivered in just over two weeks, and sometimes the journey could take a full three months. Cornwallis’s letters were sent along long-established routes – or rather, by long-established methods: using any and all conveyances possible. These included the “ordinary” post, as postal networks already stretched across Europe, and they also included special couriers dedicated to travelling back and forth between England and Spain. But the most important and numerous routes and means were by using the intertwining networks of English merchants and intelligencers, which had always been passing news and information about Spain into England.
This paper describes the transmission of news between Spain and England c. 1600-1610. The focus is on the mechanics of the postal system built on the merchant and intelligence networks, on the routes and manners of conveying letters and packets, but some comments will also be made regarding the contents of the information transmitted.