Reporting for a King: Valois France and Europe through the eyes of ambassador Dantas (1557-1568)

INTRODUCTION

João Pereira Dantas, the Portuguese ambassador to France between 1557 and 1568, is almost an unknown figure to scholars researching the period of the last Valois (1559-1589) and the French civil wars.¹In this article, I will use the expression civil wars to refer to the French wars of religion, according to the concept of Knecht, 1996. Dantas is also under-studied in British scholarship, even though he was also named ambassador to Elizabethan England in 1562. Still, his correspondence is of great value for the study of Anglo-Portuguese and French-Portuguese relations. Aware of this, in 1953, French scholar León Bourdon (1900-1994) announced that he was preparing a study on Dantas (Bourdon, 1956Bourdon, L. (1956) Francisco Dias Mimoso. Le “pilote portugais borgne” (1559-1569). Lisbon, offprint by Revista da Faculdade de Letras.). By that time, Bourdon already knew of a valuable codex, held at the Portuguese Library of Ajuda, containing copies of Dantas’s letters from 1562 to 1565. For reasons unclear, Bourdon seems not to have printed a study on Dantas, although he published important documents for the history of Dantas’s embassy.²I contacted colleagues in France and Bourdon’s family to confirm a possible study on Dantas, but no one knows of such a work. Still, León Bourdon made sound contributions to Dantas’s embassy in his studies about pilot Mimoso and other Portuguese technical expertise working in France: Bourdon, 1955. Other important contributions include those of Luís de Matos, who published documents from the French archives, some concerning Dantas’s embassy (Matos, 1952Matos, L. de (1952) Les Portugais en France au XVIe siècle: Études et documents. Coimbra: Imprensa da Universidade.). Later on, Maria Emília Madeira Santos, Ana Maria Pereira Ferreira and Maria do Rosário Sampaio Themudo Barata Azevedo Cruz also focused on Dantas (Santos, 1969Santos, M. E. M. (1969) O caracter experimental da Carreira da Índia. Um plano de João Pereira Dantas, com fortificação da África do Sul (1556). Lisbon: Junta de Investigações do Ultramar.; 1990Santos, M. E. M. (1990) João Pereira Dantas um homem da expansão europeia. Lisbon: IICT.; Ferreira, 1989Ferreira, A. M. P. (1989) “Da defesa do monopólio do «Mare Clausum»: Alguns Apontamentos na correspondência de João Pereira Dantas (1562-1565).” In: A Viagem de Bartolomeu Dias e a problemática dos Descobrimentos. Maia: Centro de Estudos Gaspar Frutuoso, pp. 159-166.; Cruz, 1992, vol. I, pp, 222-242 and vol. II, pp. 158-186Cruz, M. do R. S. T. B. A (1992) As regências na menoridade de D. Sebastião. Elementos para uma história estrutural, 2 vols. Lisbon: INCM.). More recently, Vladimir Chichkine also brought important contributions to the study of French-Portuguese relations, based on the documents held in Saint Petersburg (Chichkine, 2021Chichkine, V. (2021) “Mirage d’une alliance. Les relations franco-portugaises dans lescollections manuscrites de Saint-Pétersbourg (1557-1572).” Histoire, Economie et Société, (1/2021), pp. 38-55. doi: https://doi.org/10.3917/hes.211.0038 ). All these authors understood the significance of Dantas’s epistolary, but no systematic study on his embassy was produced. Aiming at writing such a study, I combined the contents in the Ajuda codex with other documents relating to Dantas’s embassy, mainly held at the Portuguese archive of Torre do Tombo, and tried to reconstruct his epistolary. In overall, I was able to gather around 150 missives written or addressed to Dantas. My first article in this framework detailed the maritime affairs impacting Dantas’s embassies in France and England (Vila-Santa, 2023aVila-Santa, N. (2023a) “Fighting for Mare Clausum and Secret Science: France, England and Spain in the strategies of ambassador Dantas (1557-1568).” Vegueta, 23 (2), in press. ). Dantas’s correspondence, however, is also rich in its description of other historical events.

The purpose of this article is thus to present Dantas’s missives to scholars interested in French and European history, both demonstrating their potential insights and inviting researchers to consider them as a new source for the study of this period. Were it not for the missing of several letters from the years 1557-1560 and 1566-1568, Dantas’s descriptions of French affairs could be deemed equally as precious as those of Nicholas Perrenot de Chantonnay (1559-1564) and D. Francés de Alava (1564-1570), the Spanish ambassadors to France in the 1560s. Given the volume of Dantas’s correspondence, this paper does not aim to present an exhaustive view of this epistolary corpus. Instead, it will focus on the most relevant issues. The study will start with a description of the main affairs that occupied Dantas during his French embassy and outline his relationships with the Queen Mother Catherine de Medici (1519-1589) and King Charles IX (r. 1560-1574). Later on, Dantas’ reports and political-religious commentary on the first French civil war, the Grand-Tour of France and the meeting of Bayonne will be approached. After this, a brief analysis on Dantas’s networks of informants, which stretched from Italy and Germany to the Netherlands and England, will be made in order to demonstrate how he used France as a sort of crossroads for Portuguese diplomacy in Europe. Finally, before offering conclusions on the legacy of his embassy, a comparison between Dantas and his Portuguese predecessors in France will be made.

DANTAS’S AFFAIRS AT THE VALOIS COURT

Dantas’s letters often start with the same, perhaps misleading, statement: there is nothing special to write about. In reality, however, Dantas composed extensive reports and sent important annexes (none of which survived). This is particularly the case for his description of French events, but even holds true concerning his reactions to the orders sent from Lisbon. Therefore, the analysis will start with the issues addressed during his embassy, working through them chronologically.

Dantas arrived in France in June 1557, having lately been named permanent ambassador by King John III of Portugal (1521-1557). He reached his destination in late June 1557, as his letter to the Portuguese secretary Pedro de Alcáçova Carneiro, in which he asks for his permission to assume the activities of his post, demonstrates.³Arquivo Nacional Torre to Tombo (ANTT), Corpo Cronológico (CC) I-101-70. By 1558, Dantas had already requested to be officially confirmed as permanent ambassador because, in the meantime, Lisbon had sent Gaspar Palha as an envoy to France.⁴ANTT, CC I-97-43, fl. 1v.-2. Very likely, Palha had come to lodge complaints on behalf of Regent Catherine of Austria (1507-1578) against Michel de Seure (?-1590), the French ambassador to Portugal between 1557 and 1559. Seure’s accusation that his diplomatic documents had been stolen by the Regent provoked a June 1558 letter from the Portuguese Regent demanding Seure’s recall from Lisbon (Serrão, 1969, pp. 127-129Serrão, J. V. (1969) A embaixada em França de Brás de Alvide (1548-1554). Paris: Centro Cultural Português/Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian.). Seure’s removal was achieved after King Henry II’s (r. 1547-1559) appointment of a replacement, Jean Nicot (1520-25?-1600), in April 1559.⁵For a more recent update on Seure’s embassy in Lisbon see: Chichkine, 2021, pp. 43-46. On Nicot see my article titled “Diplomacy and Humanism: ambassador Jean Nicot and the French-Portuguese maritime rivalry (1559-1561)” forthcoming at Anuario de Estudios Americanos. Meanwhile, still in 1558, Queen Eleonor of Austria (1498-1558), wife of King Francis I (r. 1515-1547), died. In response, the Portuguese court sent lawyer Brás de Alvide to France to negotiate Princess Mary’s (Queen Eleonor’s daughter) rights to her French inheritance (Serrão, 1969, pp. 45-49Serrão, J. V. (1969) A embaixada em França de Brás de Alvide (1548-1554). Paris: Centro Cultural Português/Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian.). But after Alvide passed away, the matter soon fell on Dantas’s shoulders. In a December 1558 letter, Dantas describes Alvide’s death and mentions that D. Teotónio de Braganza (1530-1602) had taken Alvide’s possessions and documents.⁶ANTT, CC I-96-100, fl. 1-3. At any rate, it is certain that in the year 1559 the Portuguese court ordered Braganza to hand over the documents,⁷ANTT, Colecção de São Vicente (CSV), vol. V, fls. 356-357. and likely entrusted Dantas with managing Princess Mary’s (1521-1577) affairs. Unfortunately, not many documents detailing Dantas’s involvement in the dealings survive. The negotiations continued for some years. It is, thus, unlikely that Dantas did not play an important role, given the importance of Princess Mary’s issues in the globality of French-Portuguese relations during the period.⁸For a full account of the Princess dealings in France see: Serrão, 1955. However, other pressing topics soon drifted Dantas’s attention.

In December 1561, Dantas had to deal with a serious issue. Following King Charles IX and Queen Catherine de Medici’s orders, issued in July 1561, for his return to France when ambassador Jean Nicot arrived, Dantas reports a dispute. As a result of this dispute, Nicot was so angry that he opposed the appointment of a new French ambassador to Portugal.⁹ANTT, Fragmentos, box 1, mç. 1, n.º 22, fl. 2. It is in an August 1562 letter that Dantas reveals what had happened. Before leaving Portugal, Nicot had requested the release of several Frenchmen jailed in Lisbon for various reasons. After returning to France, Nicot was so upset with his countrymen’s treatment in Lisbon that he convinced the Conseil Privé to press Dantas on the matter. At stake were the fates of 32 Frenchmen accused of heresy and piracy, as well as the execution, in an auto-de-fé, of Nicot’s cook. To defend himself, Dantas appeared at the Conseil Privé and presented documents, sent to him from Portugal. He started his rebuttal by alleging that the matter was so delicate to France’s interests that he had chosen previously not to mention it. Still, as required, Dantas presented documents which proved that out of the 32 Frenchmen, only 3 were considered French and the remaining were Portuguese. The 3 that were imprisoned were so poor that they were assisted by religious authorities. As for Nicot’s cook, Dantas explained that he was executed by the Portuguese Inquisition because he had been caught trying to proselytize Protestantism a second time. Dantas delivered the documents to the bishop of Orleans, who confirmed their veracity and declared the matter closed.¹⁰ANTT, CC I-106-4, fls. 1v.-3. Dantas’s victory over Nicot and his complaints could not have been more resounding. The Spanish ambassador Chantonnay even reported that Queen Medici attended the meeting, something very unusual. He also states that, in his speech, Dantas insinuated that France ought to be more careful with this kind of accusation, as King Henry II’s “tolerant” religious policy had clearly failed and Protestantism was growing.¹¹ Archivo, 1951, vol. III, pp. 216-217. Thus, Dantas used the difficult scenario that France was experiencing in 1562 (the upcoming first civil war) for his profit, and mobilized contemporary troubles to argue the need for a policy of repression against French Protestants in Portugal. It was not the first this would happen as Dantas was also very attentive to key-role political events that could influence French-Portuguese relations.

Due to the deaths of Kings Henry II, in 1559, and of Francis II (r. 1559-1560), in 1560, Dantas arranged for special envoys, appointed by Lisbon to offer condolences, to be welcomed at the Valois court. These envoys were D. Álvaro de Castro and D. Tomás de Noronha. The Portuguese envoys and Dantas were successful in impressing the Valois court on these occasions and also in tightening diplomatic bounds with France (Cruz, 1992, vol. II, p. 60Cruz, M. do R. S. T. B. A (1992) As regências na menoridade de D. Sebastião. Elementos para uma história estrutural, 2 vols. Lisbon: INCM.). The success is directly related to the letters that Queen Catherine of Austria, Cardinal Henry and King Sebastian (r. 1557-1578) addressed on those occasions to the Valois court (Chichkine, 2021, p. 42Chichkine, V. (2021) “Mirage d’une alliance. Les relations franco-portugaises dans lescollections manuscrites de Saint-Pétersbourg (1557-1572).” Histoire, Economie et Société, (1/2021), pp. 38-55. doi: https://doi.org/10.3917/hes.211.0038 ). In 1562, when Dantas went on his embassy to England, the renowned commendator D. Afonso de Lencastre, who had been ambassador in Rome (and belonged to one of Portugal’s most important noble houses), came to Paris to represent Dantas. Lencastre’s letter of accreditation is also known (Chichkine, 2021, p. 42Chichkine, V. (2021) “Mirage d’une alliance. Les relations franco-portugaises dans lescollections manuscrites de Saint-Pétersbourg (1557-1572).” Histoire, Economie et Société, (1/2021), pp. 38-55. doi: https://doi.org/10.3917/hes.211.0038 ). After returning from the Elizabethan court, Dantas was summoned by Queen Catherine de Medici. In the context of the first civil war, Queen Medici formally asked Portugal for a loan to finance the French Crown. The Queen’s request came after previous offers by Dantas. Yet in the presence of Lencastre, Dantas regretfully informed the Queen-Mother of France that he could not immediately assist her as Portugal was, in his own words, the first country in Christendom that was committed to the fighting against heresy. Still, Dantas promised he would write to the Portuguese King to plead for the money. He also suggested that Queen Medici send an ambassador to Lisbon with the request. The Queen replied she would raise the issue at the Conseil Privé. Thus, Dantas took the opportunity to try to surpass Nicot’s previous contest of sending a new French ambassador to Portugal. However, Dantas did not achieve his goal and in the same letter, addressed to King Sebastian, he justified his response to Queen Medici. He argued that Portugal could not be sure that France would be able to repay a loan. Dantas also doubted the Queen-Mother’s chances of defeating the Huguenots.¹²Biblioteca da Ajuda (BA), codex 49-X-9, fl. 5v.

By January 1563, Dantas communicated to the Portuguese King that Queen Medici had not made any more requests for a loan. He did not know whether the Queen-Mother had become upset with him or had simply given up asking. Still, Dantas noted that the financial situation of France was so dire that Queen Medici would urgently need that money.¹³BA, 49-X-9, fl. 4. In the context of the recent Anglican overturn in England, with the beginning of Queen Elisabeth I’s reign (1558-1603), Dantas knew that Portugal did not want to see a similar case happening in France. Thus, in the following months, Dantas continued to report extensively on all the events related to the first French civil war as he knew that Portugal was highly interested in guaranteeing that the Huguenots would not win over the political struggle in France.

On this framework, in February 1563, Dantas updated King Sebastian. Given strong Huguenot opposition, he very seriously doubted that France would immediately publish and apply the decrees from the Trent Council. Formal adoption of the decrees would require the publication by the Paris’s Parliament, and securing their official consent, Dantas averred, always introduced delays. As the Amboise Edict shortly after showed, he was not mistaken, and his concerns indeed came to pass. In March 1563, Dantas also informed King Sebastian that he would not fulfil his order to congratulate King Charles IX for an unmentioned military victory because it would constitute a breach of precedent: no foreign dignitary had done so before. The scenario in France had shifted dramatically with the death of Francis, Duke of Guise (1519-1563). In such a context (and to prevent Queen Medici from asking him about the loan), Dantas advised King Sebastian to order him to visit Charles de Guise, Cardinal of Lorraine (1524-1574), in light of his services at the Trent Council and the recent death of his brother.¹⁴BA, 49-X-9, fl. 17. Unfortunately, there is no record of Lisbon’s response. Still, considering the general arc of his embassy, it seems likely that Dantas ultimately did formally congratulate Lorraine on behalf of Portugal. After all, Lorraine was one of the French figures that he praised most highly throughout his correspondence. Previously, in 1560, the Portuguese royal family even wrote to Lorraine directly to praise him for his action in the Amboise conspiracy (Chichkine, 2021, p. 42Chichkine, V. (2021) “Mirage d’une alliance. Les relations franco-portugaises dans lescollections manuscrites de Saint-Pétersbourg (1557-1572).” Histoire, Economie et Société, (1/2021), pp. 38-55. doi: https://doi.org/10.3917/hes.211.0038 ). Thus, Dantas’s interest was not only related to Lorraine’s religious positions in France. Dantas was attempting to create close connections with key-political actors at the Valois court. Nevertheless, Dantas also had special reasons to accompany events outside France that could influence its internal balances.

This factor explains Dantas’s attention to the English occupation of Le Havre and the war that it unleashed. His interest was connected with the fact that under the Cateau-Cambrésis peace treaty between England and France, Portugal was formally named adjudicator in the Calais affair (Santarém, 1842, vol. XV, p. 101Santarém, Visconde de (1842) Quadro elementar das relações politicas e diplomaticas de Portugal com as diversas potencias do mundo, desde o principio da monarchia portugueza ate aos nossos dias. vol. XV. Paris: Oficina Typografica de Fain e Thunot.). This had happened as Portugal was considered, by both France and England, as more impartial than Spain towards this conflict. It was not also the first time that Portugal was called as a mediator: during the Franco-Spanish wars between King Francis I and Emperor Charles V (r. 1519-1556), King John III of Portugal was often asked to mediate peace talks due to his international prestige and also due to Portuguese neutrality policies versus Franco-Spanish confrontation.

It is under these conditions that might be understood Dantas’s August 1563 missive to King Sebastian. He begins by reminding the King that he had been seriously ill, sometimes on the verge of death, during that year. As a result, King Charles IX had ordered his own personal physician to assist Dantas, and after the French reconquest of Le Havre, he ordered Dantas to meet him in Rouen. Dantas states that he had risen from his bed and voyaged from Paris to Rouen with great difficulty. As King Charles IX was to be officially declared of age to rule, Dantas could not fail to take part in the ceremony. When Dantas arrived in Rouen, King Charles IX summoned him and told him about all the negotiations with England. He confessed to Dantas that he was outraged with Queen Elizabeth I’s offer to hand over Le Havre in exchange for Calais. As a consequence, King Charles IX had decided to retake Le Havre; in his letters, Dantas carefully details all the military operations this involved. This is the background on which Dantas congratulated King Charles IX and Queen Medici for their military success and sent to the Portuguese King the missives he was exchanging with them. He stressed that throughout the letters, King Sebastian could see how he was “sailing in the grace of these princes the best that I can” (“navegando e antretendo na graça destes principes o milhor que posso” in Portuguese). He finished his report by sending another detailed account of the French victory at Le Havre, previously thought by the English to be unconquerable. He states that he did so because the military model of Le Havre’s fortress could be followed in Portuguese Ceuta and Ponte de Lima. In response to a query from Lisbon, Dantas likewise gave his opinion on the fortification of Ceuta.¹⁵BA, 49-X-9, fl. 33-35. Thus, in a critical moment, Dantas took the opportunity to underscore Portugal’s prestige at the Valois court, all the while taking advantage of the situation in France to spy on fortification techniques and to communicate them to Lisbon. This case is directly related to Dantas’s acquisition, also in 1562-63, of French rutters and cartography of Florida from the first expedition of Jean Ribault (1520-1565) (Vila-Santa, 2023aVila-Santa, N. (2023a) “Fighting for Mare Clausum and Secret Science: France, England and Spain in the strategies of ambassador Dantas (1557-1568).” Vegueta, 23 (2), in press. , 2023bVila-Santa, N. (2023b) “The Untold Story of Oceanic Pilot Bartolomeu Borges who Guided Jean Ribault to Florida in 1562: Document Transcription and Translation, Accompanied by an Historical Introduction.” Terrae Incognitae, 2023, pp. 1-23. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/00822884.2023.2182986 ). Using Portugal’s role as mediator, Dantas also wanted to inform King Sebastian on all the Anglo-French peace treaty negotiations, to finally understand if it really had become the time when England lost its last stronghold in France.

On 17 August 1563, Dantas wrote another interesting letter to the Portuguese King. He started by summarizing the negotiations between the English ambassadors and the Valois. He revealed that Queen Medici had placed English ambassador Nicholas Throckmorton (1515/16-1571) under her spies’ surveillance, because of his role in uprising the Huguenots during the first civil war. Queen Elizabeth I’s new ambassador, Thomas Smith (1513-1577), arrived after Throckmorton had finished negotiations. Dantas maintained that Queen Elizabeth I was unprepared to wage full-on war with France: she had been isolated by King Philip II’s (r. 1556-1598) manoeuvres, she had refused Danish and Swedish wedding offers, and above all, she was poorer than her predecessors. On the matter of who was to blame for the hostilities, Dantas, who had met personally and admired Queen Elizabeth I in 1562, stated that King Sebastian could judge for himself with all the intelligence that he had sent. Still, he indirectly blamed England. When King Charles IX made his entry into Rouen and was formally declared of age to rule, in a ceremony at Rouen’s Parliament, Dantas was ordered to attend the event. Still very ill, he appeared and made his speech, but everyone could see he was in poor health. King Charles IX repented having forced Dantas to come from Paris and made him shows of personal affection; Dantas in turn replied that he would always honour King Charles IX. Still, he was forced to endure King Charles IX for over 5 hours before he finally managed to get him into his house (“Mas fez me El Rey tantas cariçias e honras vendo o meu zelo e o que sobre minha ida daquela maneira lhe disse que não quisera por grande cousa deixar de ter feito o que fiz e com isto aturei no cadafalso e ate meter El Rey em sua casa, des das duas até ás sete da tarde” in Portuguese). Dantas finished this report by advising King Sebastian to write congratulatory letters to King Charles IX and Queen Medici on all these recent events. In an aside, he recorded finding it strange that Portugal had not ordered him to write a letter expressing his felicitations to all the French and English Catholics for the good prospects opened up by such a victory.¹⁶BA, 49-X-9, fls. 37-38v. Thus, Dantas was more than informed by King Charles IX himself of all the secret details of Anglo-French negotiations: he once more took the opportunity to suggest Lisbon how to follow a full-Catholic agenda in France and England. Surveying those negotiations as a French victory and sensing England’s isolation as a weakness, Dantas wanted Portugal to secretly support English Catholics. Unfortunately, Lisbon’s response and Dantas’s following action on the matter remain unknown. As usual, other events drifted Dantas’s attention.

On 1 October 1563, Dantas wrote a worrying letter to King Sebastian. Queen Medici had fallen from her horse, and false rumours had immediately spread that the Queen-Mother was dead. Dantas did not want to even contemplate what would have happened to France if Queen Medici had died. As usual, he sent a relation of this special event to Portugal, together with a copy of the Guises’ request to King Charles IX to prosecute Admiral Gaspard de Coligny (1519-1572) for ordering the assassination of the Duke of Guise.¹⁷BA, 49-X-9, fls. 39-40. On 14 November 1563, Dantas informed Lisbon that negotiations between Queen Elizabeth I and France (related to Calais) were still underway. He forecast that France would not hand over Calais, as the French considered England to be in breach of previous treaties with Le Havre’s occupation. Instead, he expected that France would pay the usual financial compensations to England. This was precisely what happened in the Treaty of Troyes between England and France, signed in 1564. In the same letter, Dantas additionally reported that King Charles IX had not yet condemned Coligny, to the great dismay of the Guises.¹⁸BA, 49-X-9, fls. 40v.-41. By 17 November, Dantas observed with unease that Coligny had come to the court and had a long conversation with King Charles IX.¹⁹BA, 49-X-9, fl. 43. Again, Dantas was attentive to key events in France and assiduously reported on them. Behind these reports were Dantas’s and Portugal’s concerns with the destiny of the Catholic party in France and its broader impacts in Europe.

Once Queen Catherine of Austria received the news of the riding accident of Queen Catherine de Medici, with whom she had previously exchanged regular letters, Queen Austria ordered Dantas to pay Queen Medici a personal visit to congratulate her on recovering. Queen Medici was much pleased by Austria’s concern for her. In a letter of 28 May 1564 addressed to Queen Catherine of Austria, Dantas in turn praised Queen Medici’s commitment to restoring the Catholics’ position in France.²⁰ANTT, CC I-106-137, fls. 1. In another missive, also from 28 May but addressed to King Sebastian, Dantas related Queen Medici’s and King Charles IX’s delight at the missives streaming in from Portugal with congratulations on the reconquest of Le Havre and Queen Medici’s recovery. Taking advantage of this good moment, Dantas formally asked for authorization to leave France due to his health. He stressed the fact that King Charles IX and the Queen-Mother of France would not deny him permission, as they were aware of his illness.²¹BA, 49-X-9, fls. 51v.-52. What Dantas could not predict was that his request would be refused and that he was only to temporarily return to Portugal in 1566. Queen Medici’s and King Charles IX’s political-religious conciliation may have motivated Lisbon’s interest in accompanying the following French events, thus possibly justifying Dantas non-authorization to return to Portugal. It was in this context that Dantas achieved an important goal during the next year: the public recognition of Queen Catherine de Medici’s confidence in court.

In July 1564, in a letter to the Portuguese King, Dantas regretted his inability to accompany Queen Medici and King Charles IX on their French Grand-Tour, aware of the importance of it to the internal pacification of France. He still hoped to recover and considered accompanying them in a sedan chair.²²BA, 49-X-9, fl. 58. In reality, the only foreign representatives who made the full journey with the Valois court were the new Spanish ambassador D. Francés de Alava and Cardinal Santa Cruz (Knecht, 1996, p. 383Knecht, R. J. (1996) The rise and fall of Renaissance France. London: Fontana Press.). Still, when Dantas’s health improved, he made his way to Toulouse. On 27 December 1564, in a letter to Philip II, Alava reported that Queen Medici was impatient for Dantas’s arrival. He also recounted Queen Medici’s anger with the English ambassador (unnamed, but likely Thomas Smith).²³ Archivo, 1953, vol. VI, p. 561. When Dantas arrived on 23 January 1565, Alava reports an unexpected event: Queen Catherine de Medici gave precedence to Dantas over the English ambassador. Queen Medici’s order may have been motivated by the fact that she disliked the English ambassador’s protest around her decision to rename the heir to the throne, christened Alexander Edward (in honour of the English monarch Edward VI), Henry (Bordonove, 2009, p. 119Bordonove, G. (2009) Charles IX 1560-1574. Paris; Pygamalion.). Still, Alava’s letter states that the English ambassador was aware of Queen Medici’s decision before Dantas’s arrival. For this reason, and to avoid the humiliation of a Portuguese ambassador being given precedence over him at the Valois court, the English ambassador played ill, malingering his way out of appearing before Queen Medici.²⁴ Archivo, 1953, vol. VII, p. 90. In a 4 February 1565 report to Philip II, Alava confirmed that the Queen-Mother had indeed given that order.²⁵ Archivo, 1953, vol. VII, p. 123. The case caused so much gossip at the Valois court that, in a 5 March missive to Philip II, Alava confessed his pity for the English ambassador, who was evidently so embarrassed by the preference shown to the Portuguese ambassador that he had begun avoiding Dantas.²⁶ Archivo, 1953, vol. VII, p. 161. Even more revealing than Alava’s letters, however, are those by Dantas.

Shortly after arriving in Toulouse, Dantas informed King Sebastian of Queen Medici’s and King Charles IX’s preparations for the Franco-Spanish meeting in Bayonne. But it is in a huge report, addressed to King Sebastian and dated 18 March 1565, that Dantas explains what happened. This letter may be considered one of the most important in his epistolary, and therefore will be given a more detailed description. Dantas starts with a worrying update on his failure to bribe Coligny and the French Chancellor Michel de L’Hôpital (1507-1573). These attempts were connected to the French outcry against the 1560 loss of Fort Coligny in Brazil, and to Nicholas Durrand de Villegagnon’s (1510-1571), the leader of France Antartique, demands for a compensation. After describing his manoeuvres in this matter, Dantas interrupts the discourse to state that he deplored the absence of an impartial messenger who could brief the Portuguese King on the events that followed his arrival. He says, nonetheless, that he feels compelled to give an account of these happenings. When he arrived in Toulouse, Dantas reports, he was immediately summoned by Queen Catherine de Medici and King Charles IX with a clear order that he be given precedence over the English ambassador. He could only explain this as being “due to the respect that King Charles IX has for you (King Sebastian) and not due to my qualities and person” (“e isto atribuio eu ao respeito que El Rey tem a v.a. e não as calidades de minha pessoa” in Portuguese). King Charles IX then ordered Dantas to accompany him to his games, which he did. At this stage, Dantas started thinking that he should invite King Charles IX and Queen Medici to a banquet at his house, but he gave up the idea because he lacked formal authorization from King Sebastian. Instead, he invited King Charles IX and his courtiers to a theatre play in the house of Toulouse’s archbishop. Dantas spent the day listening to courtiers’ apologies for their late arrivals to such an honourable and prestigious gathering. At a certain moment, King Charles IX asked Dantas why did not he offer everyone a banquet. Dantas decided to pay for lunch to everyone. At his own lunch table were some of the more influential members of the Conseil Privé, although they go unnamed. Later, Dantas was invited by Queen Medici to witness the marriage of Madame de Curton. Dantas acknowledged to the Queen-Mother that he was much honoured and that he had lacked the courage to request an invitation himself. Queen Catherine de Medici replied to Dantas that she considered him a good servant and would always do whatever she could to please him.

Dantas claims that he and Alava were the only ambassadors allowed to witness the wedding. While Alava was accompanied by the cardinal of Bourbon, Dantas was with the Cardinal of Guise, the Constable Anne de Montmorency (1493-1567) and other courtiers. After the ceremony, a dinner was arranged and Dantas ended up at the table with King Charles IX, Queen Medici, Alava, the Cardinal of Bourbon, the Prince of Navarre and the Duchess of Guise. Near midnight, Queen Medici “kidnapped” Dantas to bring him to the “night of cakes” (a type of party involving the consumption of sweets), to which Dantas was obliged to go. It is at this stage that Dantas finishes the letter with his main point: while apologising to King Sebastian for mixing serious issues with pleasant stories, he argues that these court affairs prove his good social standing among the Valois court. As a consequence, he could not be held responsible for the lack of results in attempting to bribe Coligny and L’Hôpital (an earlier request from Lisbon) and asks for the King’s final position concerning Coligny and L’Hôpital.²⁷BA, 49-X-9, fls. 71v.-73. Although King Sebastian’s reply remains unknown, Portugal ordered Dantas to pay Villegagnon compensation and Dantas maintained personal contacts with Coligny, as I have shown elsewhere (Vila-Santa, 2023aVila-Santa, N. (2023a) “Fighting for Mare Clausum and Secret Science: France, England and Spain in the strategies of ambassador Dantas (1557-1568).” Vegueta, 23 (2), in press. ). Still, even after this event, other letters likewise demonstrate that Dantas continued to hold an important position at King Charles IX’s court, while he worked to favour Portuguese interests in France.

Shortly after these events, in March 1565, against a backdrop of problems King Charles IX and Queen Medici were experiencing with the Order of Saint Michael (Knecht, 1996, p. 389Knecht, R. J. (1996) The rise and fall of Renaissance France. London: Fontana Press.), Dantas records that both rulers asked him to convince King Sebastian to grant their French and Italian servants’ habits of the Portuguese Order of Christ. Dantas counselled the Portuguese King to satisfy the request.²⁸ANTT, CC I-107-57, fls. 1-2 and CC I-107-60, fl. 1. In doing so, France was confirming the international prestige of the Portuguese military order, something that Dantas considered important. Nonetheless, on 6 May 1565, another more pressing event caught Dantas’s attention. While Queen Medici and King Charles IX prepared for the Bayonne meeting, Dantas informed King Sebastian that Queen Medici had not authorized him to accompany her. Dantas in response protested to Queen Medici, urging her to arrange houses for him and the other ambassadors in Bayonne or not far away from it. Profiting from the recent status that Queen Medici publicly gave him, Dantas gathered, in his own house, the ambassadors from Venice, Florence, and Scotland, together with the Cardinal of Santa Cruz, and later even the English ambassador. He, then, formally complained to King Charles IX about their exclusion from the trip to Bayonne. Queen Medici replied to Dantas that King Philip II would also leave his ambassadors in Madrid and that he should comply with her orders.²⁹BA, 49-X-9, fls. 78-79. However, Dantas may have continued to press as, on 20 May, he briefed King Sebastian that King Charles IX had authorized him to depart and that he was already on his way.³⁰BA, 49-X-9, fls. 79-79v. Thus, after staging an ambassadorial uprising against Queen Medici that he won by convincing King Charles IX against her mother’s decision, Dantas witnessed the whole Bayonne meeting. His insistence on being present may be linked with his interest in having a meeting with the Duke of Alba, to propose a maritime league between Portugal and Spain against France and England (Vila-Santa, 2023aVila-Santa, N. (2023a) “Fighting for Mare Clausum and Secret Science: France, England and Spain in the strategies of ambassador Dantas (1557-1568).” Vegueta, 23 (2), in press. ). But while he kept secret negotiations with Alba, Dantas also kept himself well informed of the Valois matrimonial plans with Spain that could harm Portuguese interests.

Yet in July 1565, Dantas informed Portugal of Queen Catherine de Medici’s wedding plans and asked for Lisbon’s final opinion. The resumption of negotiations surrounding the marriage of King Sebastian to Princess Margaret of Valois (1553-1613) was on the line,³¹BA, 49-X-9, fl. 83. a match Dantas had proposed to Queen Medici in 1560, but with which she did not advance at the time (Cloulas, 1979, p. 136Cloulas, I. (1979) Catherine de Medicis. Paris: Fayard.). In August 1565, Dantas reported that he was already at work on the matter at the Valois court.³²BA, 49-X-9, fl. 89v. Such dealings motivated Queen Medici to send Dantas to Lisbon to negotiate the marriage alliance in March 1566. When Dantas returned to France in late 1566, he continued the negotiations in letters, as one from November 1566, sent by Constable Anne de Montmorency to Regent Cardinal Henry (1512-1580) shows.³³ANTT, CC I-108-17. The negotiations were complicated by the impact of the French attack on Madeira Island, in October 1566.³⁴On the topic of Madeira Island’s attack see Brehm and Trindade, 2020 and Chichkine, 2021, p. 52. Still, the matrimonial dealings continued. In February 1567, King Charles IX promised to pay compensation to Portugal (for the attack on Madeira) if King Sebastian finally committed to the marriage with his sister, something Lisbon did not receive well (Chichkine, 2021, p. 52Chichkine, V. (2021) “Mirage d’une alliance. Les relations franco-portugaises dans lescollections manuscrites de Saint-Pétersbourg (1557-1572).” Histoire, Economie et Société, (1/2021), pp. 38-55. doi: https://doi.org/10.3917/hes.211.0038 ). Then, the dealings were delayed by Dantas’s illness. In July 1567, he promised that when he recovered, he would take up the issue once more.³⁵ANTT, CC I-108-63, fl. 1.

Jean Correro, the Venetian ambassador to France, reported in his 1569 relation that he had spoken to Dantas about the wedding proposal. As Cardinal Henry was also known to be working, at the same time, on the marriage of King Sebastian in Austria, Correro asked Dantas who the Portuguese King would marry. Dantas replied that King Sebastian would marry Princess Margaret of Valois, as Portugal already had too many connections with the Habsburgs and, following such a union, France would agree to cease attacks on Portuguese overseas areas.³⁶ Tommaseo, 1838, vol. II, p. 172. Still, Dantas could not bring the arrangements to a fruitful conclusion. He was recalled to Portugal in October 1567, as the letter of King Sebastian to King Charles IX shows. Despite, later French and Portuguese attempts to negotiate the matrimonial alliance between 1568 and 1572, Princess Margaret married the future King Henry IV (1553-1610) in 1572 (Chichkine, 2021, p. 52Chichkine, V. (2021) “Mirage d’une alliance. Les relations franco-portugaises dans lescollections manuscrites de Saint-Pétersbourg (1557-1572).” Histoire, Economie et Société, (1/2021), pp. 38-55. doi: https://doi.org/10.3917/hes.211.0038 ). Having detailed Dantas’s main affairs in France, it is now time to more carefully assess his reading of French events of the 1560s.

DANTAS, AN INFORMANT ON THE FRENCH CIVIL WARS

During his embassy, Dantas became an expert in reporting for King Sebastian on critical French events. In several cases, Dantas did not merely inform: he also made forecasts and his own interpretations. One of Dantas’s most interesting reports is that of 12 July 1559, in which he describes King Henry II’s death. Dantas states that the King was much pressed to make a last will, but that he only replied “patience, patience” (“paciência, paciência” in Portuguese) before dying. He correctly predicted, drawing on his knowledge of French medieval precedents, that King Francis II would ascend the throne, assisted by Queen Catherine de Medici. Dantas advised Portugal to send a special envoy to mourn King Henry II’s death, as King Henry II had done when King John III (r. 1521-1557) passed away.³⁷ANTT, CC I-103-102, fl. 1-2. In a March 1560 missive, Dantas describes the Amboise conspiracy against King Francis II, the wars in Scotland to expel French troops and the conspiracies against Queen Elizabeth I. He also advises Portugal to send an envoy to insist with King Francis II on a full Catholic policy and to write letters to the Cardinal of Lorraine on the subject.³⁸ANTT, CC I-104-7, fls. 3-7. As for the Amboise conspiracy and after his own investigations, Dantas assured Portugal that it was ordered by “low people” and that there were no proofs of aristocratic involvement. As consequence, the Portuguese royal family wrote to King Francis II, to his wife Queen Mary Stuart (1542-1587) and to the Cardinal of Lorraine revealing their happiness at the outcome of the failed conspiracy (Chichkine, 2021, p. 42Chichkine, V. (2021) “Mirage d’une alliance. Les relations franco-portugaises dans lescollections manuscrites de Saint-Pétersbourg (1557-1572).” Histoire, Economie et Société, (1/2021), pp. 38-55. doi: https://doi.org/10.3917/hes.211.0038 ).

Dantas’s reports from 1562 to 1565, covering King Charles IX’s reign, are much more detailed thanks to the survival of the Ajuda codex. Despite the aforementioned case of his winning precedence over the English ambassador in 1565, it is relevant to note that in May 1562, Dantas helped ambassador Throckmorton when he returned to France and needed to be formally received.³⁹ Archivo, 1952, vol. IV, p. 7. Still, this did not prevent Dantas from gathering intelligence (from the Spanish ambassador in England) relating to English preparations to invade Normandy. Based on that information, in September 1562, Dantas briefed King Sebastian on the conspiracies underway against King Charles IX, which had been orchestrated by the Huguenots with English support.⁴⁰ANTT, CC I-106-20, fl. 1v.-2. Moving a couple of months forward, Dantas’s letters from October-December 1562 provide detailed descriptions of all the events tied to the first civil war. These include a military description of the Dreux battle (Dantas was also an interested observer of military tactics), reports on the difficult financial situation of France, and Queen Medici’s fears of simultaneous invasions by the English, German and Italian powers.⁴¹BA, 49-X-9, fls. 1-2, 4 and 5v.-7v. In January 1563, Dantas informed King Sebastian about the English operations in Normandy and described Queen Medici’s preoccupation with planning a French response.⁴²ANTT, CC I-106-48, fl. 2-2v.

Dantas also mentioned that in the summer of 1562, Coligny was accused by the Guises of plotting to kidnap Princess Margaret of Valois and future King Henry III, to whom Dantas used to pay personal visits. To thwart these schemes, he reports that Queen Medici had sent the pair to the Amboise castle.⁴³ANTT, CC I-106-45, fls. 3v.-4v. In January 1563, he relates the Queen-Mother’s decision to recall her children from the castle.⁴⁴BA, 49-X-9, fl. 11v. In reporting these events, and bearing in mind that in 1560 Dantas had proposed Queen Medici the wedding alliance of Princess Margaret with King Sebastian, it becomes likely that this intelligence came from Queen Medici’s closest advisors, as Dantas was even allowed to visit her offspring. In the middle of events of the first civil war, this can only mean that Dantas won Queen Catherine de Medici’s confidence much before the 1565 precedence issue mentioned before. Thus, this precedence issue may have been, on behalf of Queen Medici, a sort of public confirmation of Dantas’s status at the Valois court. However, this did not mean that Dantas always approved Queen Catherine de Medici’s religious policy or even that Dantas backed important political decisions by the Valois.

In February 1563, when news of Duke of Guise’s death reached him, Dantas wrote to King Sebastian that his servants had announced to everyone that he (Dantas) took the tidings with such a passion (“paixão” in Portuguese) that he fell physically ill and had to go on bedrest. Dantas explained his extreme reaction by emphasising the treacherousness of the duke’s killing and his own concerns about the situation of the Catholic party in France after his death. In the same letter, Dantas revealed the secret dealings between Coligny and Queen Elizabeth I (relating to the English occupation of Le Havre and Dieppe in exchange for support to the Huguenot party).⁴⁵BA, 49-X-9, fls. 14v.-15. In March, after the publication of the Amboise Edict, Dantas passed updates along to King Sebastian and stated clearly that Queen Medici was trying to conciliate the irreconcilable (Catholics and Huguenots). He forecasted the failure of her policy and anticipated another civil war (as it would happen in 1566). Sensing the damaging effects of the Edict for the Catholics, Dantas posited that Queen Medici would not have dared to issue it if King Philip II had been in Flanders. To Dantas, King Philip II was the only one with the power to undo the dangerous situation created with the Amboise Edict’s publication. He also worried with the Edict’s impact in England. He noted the fact that the Guises had been compelled to sign it, and confessed that he was fortunate not to have attended the ceremony of its publication because of his continued illness. He also apologised for only then sending a copy of the Edict (along with a report on the Duke of Guise’s death), explaining that Queen Medici had forbidden all ambassadors from writing about the Edict.⁴⁶BA, 49-X-9, fls. 18v.-21.

In April, Dantas continued to brief Lisbon on the preparations to expel the English from Normandy, and stated that he had discovered that Antoine de Bourbon, King of Navarre (1518-1562), had been shot in 1562 because of his alleged plan to order the assassination of the Duke of Guise. He also promised to deliver more information on the shocking death of a Frenchman in Scotland. He assured King Sebastian that he would invite the Scottish secretary, whom Queen Mary Stuart had sent to France, to dinner in his house. On a more approving tone, he also related the Queen-Mother’s rebuke of the Frenchmen who had disrespected the son of the Duke of Alba when he came to France.⁴⁷BA, 49-X-9, fls. 22v.-24. Meanwhile, in April, Dantas laid his hands on the secret capitulations of the Amboise Edict, which he immediately sent to Portugal. He apologised for having sent incorrect information but justified it by citing Queen Medici’s previous ban.⁴⁸BA, 49-X-9, fl. 27.

Still, in 30 June 1563, Dantas changed his opinion of Queen Medici’s religious policy: her intentions, upon some reflection, were good. He sent a report on Chancellor L’Hôpital, who was helping to implement the conciliatory policy, despite being too much admired by the Huguenots. He also noted that King Charles IX remained in a very critical financial condition. Although Dantas admired King Charles IX’s determination, shown in his recovering Le Havre by selling the church’s silver to raise finances, he acknowledged that King Charles IX was still fighting for the obedience of his subjects in several parts of France, while German landsknechts were leaving the country.⁴⁹BA, 49-X-9, fls. 30 and 31-32v. Thus, after the end of the first civil war, Dantas reported everything he could on Catholic and Huguenot movements as he was not sure that France could be spared from the spectrum of another religious war. This concern motivated him to continue writing important reports.

In February 1564, Dantas wrote to King Sebastian about the positive results of Queen Medici and King Charles IX’s religious policy. He was glad to see that they had only named Catholics for important offices and that King Charles IX had given orders to dismantle the Huguenot fortresses built during the first civil war. He, then, commented on a major issue of those days: who did take the decisions? Queen Catherine de Medici or King Charles IX? He concluded that the policy was masterminded by Queen Medici, although King Charles IX showed promising signs of favouring Catholics. In addition, Dantas reported Queen Medici and King Charles IX’s intention to start the Grand-Tour of France.⁵⁰BA, 49-X-9, fls. 44-45v. But, still in February, he recognised with dismay that King Charles IX had no intention of enacting the decrees of the Trent Council in France.⁵¹BA, 49-X-9, fl. 46. In May, Dantas sent King Sebastian the peace treaty between France and England vis-à-vis Calais, stating that France would pay England compensation. He nevertheless wrote that he did not believe that France would ever actually return Calais to England (as it happened). He also briefed King Sebastian on the events related to Andelot’s (Coligny’s son) demands for a promotion to marshal of France (and on Queen Medici and King Charles IX’s outraged reaction).⁵²BA, 49-X-9, fls. 54-55. According to Dantas, whose description suggests that he may have witnessed in person this event, Andelot insisted with Queen Medici on the appointment and threatened with the consequences of a hypothetical refusal, arguing with the fragile religious situation of France. The Queen-Mother rose from her chair, came close to Andelot, and replied to him that the time when the Kings of France were threatened by nobles had already passed. King Charles IX, who was playing chess when this happened, became so upset with Andelot’s menace that he temporarily forbade him from returning to court. Dantas insisted on the scandal of the situation. In July, Dantas reported that the Duke and Duchess of Savoy would soon visit King Charles IX, who was outside Lyon due to an ongoing plague.⁵³BA, 49-X-9, fls. 58v.-59.

By September, Dantas wrote to King Sebastian that King Charles IX was still in Lyon and that his financial situation was so bad that he was forced to humiliate himself by relying on merchants’ loans - and all the while, rumours of new Huguenot plots were spreading.⁵⁴BA, 49-X-9, fl. 62v. In December, Dantas was greatly pleased to inform the Portuguese King that the Cardinal of Lorraine and Louis de Bourbon, Prince of Condé (1530-1569), had secretly met at Soissons and were reported to have reconciled and embraced with much affection. There were rumours that Condé would return to Catholicism, and Coligny was so worried that he sent agents to spy on the meeting. Dantas’s Catholic optimism was such that, in the same letter, he even gave his word that Queen Catherine de Medici was doing everything she could for the Catholics. Indeed, she was raising King Charles IX in Catholicism so well that Dantas believed King Charles IX would someday fully restore the status of the Catholic faith.⁵⁵BA, 49-X-9, fl. 66v. However, Dantas’s opinion about the Valois King, as for Queen Medici, was also affected by shifting circumstances.

It was in this precise context that, in a February 1565 letter, Dantas described in hopeful terms King Charles IX’s entry into Toulouse, an event met by Catholics with considerable delight.⁵⁶ANTT, CC I-107-41, fl. 2. In one of his letters from March, Dantas reveals that he was quite impressed by King Charles IX’s speech to his subjects and confirmed that he and Queen Medici were doing everything they could, albeit in secrecy, to favour Catholics, especially when it came to disbanding Huguenot armies. He also mentions many preparations underway for the Bayonne meeting.⁵⁷ANTT, CC I-107-60, fls. 2v. e 3v. In an April letter, Dantas describes the arrival of the Italian Prince of Parma and the Netherlandish prince of Egmond to the Valois court.⁵⁸ANTT, CC I-107-63, fl. 1v. However, by that time, his efforts were fully concentrated on the Bayonne meeting. For this reason, in a missive dated 10 July 1565, Dantas discussed, in a tone reflecting the widespread scandalised reaction, the arrival of the Ottoman ambassador to France.

Dantas states that despite their formal alliance with France, the Ottomans had attacked Frenchmen in Provence, and notes that King Charles IX had refused to immediately receive the ambassador due to opposition raised by his sister, Queen Elizabeth of Valois (1545-1568), King Philip II’s wife. Dantas assumed that King Charles IX had ordered Henry, Duke of Guise (1550-1588) to escort the Ottoman ambassador; in any case, there were many rumours about King Charles IX’s precise answer to the ambassador. While the Huguenots feared that his presence would motivate Spain to declare war on France, the Catholics supported giving him a warm reception as 3000 Frenchmen were being held prisoner in Istanbul and the alliance with the Ottomans was required to counter-balance Spanish power. For his part, Dantas concluded that the world was turned upside-down. Afterwards, Dantas fully described all the ceremonies during the Bayonne meeting. In addition to this account, he sent King Sebastian an annex reporting on the logistical specifics of the event and all the expenses incurred by King Charles IX. Dantas felt disappointed with the meeting, and voiced that the only pleasant moment for the Catholics was when Queen Elizabeth of Valois refused to have her hands kissed by Huguenots. In Dantas’s words, the outcome of the meeting was clear: the Huguenots’ happiness and the Catholics’ sadness. In closing, Dantas speculated ruefully that King Charles IX would not, in the end, restore the status of the Catholic faith. Meanwhile, he sent rapid-fire letters warning Portugal of Queen Catherine de Medici’s proposals for marriage alliances between King Charles IX and Princess Joana of Austria (1535-1573) and Princess Margaret of Valois with the Spanish Prince Charles (1545-1568). Fortunately, Dantas wrote, Queen Medici would face King Philip II’s opposition, as indeed happened.⁵⁹BA, 49-X-9, fls. 80-82v.

During the Bayonne meeting, Dantas managed to receive updates on the Ottoman ambassador’s movements. In August 1565, Dantas was relieved to inform King Sebastian that the Ottoman ambassador had departed from France very displeased with King Charles IX and Queen Medici. But he also claimed that King Charles IX had secretly ordered officials to present many gifts to Istanbul. Around the same period, Dantas reported on some riots (in Rouen, Lyon, Tours) and related that King Charles IX had ordered Blaise de Monluc (1502-1577), governor of Guyenne, to put them down. He noted happily that Queen Medici had ordered that some churches in French Navarre, turned into stables by the Huguenots, be restored.⁶⁰BA, 49-X-9, fls. 83 and 84v.-85.

While Dantas came to Portugal, Manuel de Araújo, Dantas’s agent at the Valois court, kept briefing Lisbon on important events, such as the escalations that resulted in the second and third civil wars. On 16 November 1566, Araújo wrote to Regent Cardinal Henry that a man had appeared denouncing Coligny’s plans to kill King Charles IX. He was executed and Coligny was cleared of the accusation. Sudden news of the death of Queen Mary Stuart had also arrived in France. Araújo was also busy consulting with a Scottish secretary to verify these reports. In the meantime, King Charles IX had ordered the imprisonment of three German ambassadors who had visited Coligny before the Valois King. Araújo passed on news of the death of the Ottoman Sultan Soliman (r. 1520-1566) as well (information actively suppressed at the Valois court to avoid its dissemination weakening France’s position).⁶¹ANTT, CC I-107-8, fls. 1-1v. Therefore, even during his absence, Portugal did not lack reports as Dantas certainly made sure that his agent would continue to update Lisbon.

It was hard to maintain secrecy in sixteenth-century France (Knecht, 1996, p. 330Knecht, R. J. (1996) The rise and fall of Renaissance France. London: Fontana Press.), as all these reports evidence - Dantas himself clearly became an expert in accessing “secret” political, diplomatic and religious intelligence. But, while Dantas reported everything he could on French events because he knew Portugal had an interest in French and Catholic affairs, he also used France as the gateway for his networks of information in Europe. In the end, Dantas also needed to inform King Sebastian of important events taking place in other corners of Europe.

THE FRENCH EMBASSY: A PORTUGUESE WINDOW TO EUROPE

Thus, aside from all the aforementioned episodes relating to England and Scotland, traditionally linked in Dantas’s mindset with French affairs, Dantas’s epistolary bears testimony of other important networks that he had in Europe. As I have shown elsewhere (Vila-Santa, 2023aVila-Santa, N. (2023a) “Fighting for Mare Clausum and Secret Science: France, England and Spain in the strategies of ambassador Dantas (1557-1568).” Vegueta, 23 (2), in press. ), Dantas had informants in the Netherlands (the Portuguese consul/overseer Rui Mendes de Vasconcelos established at Antwerp) and in England (the Spanish ambassadors and his own personal agents). He kept close correspondence with the Portuguese ambassadors in Spain and Rome as well, and mediated the departure of couriers and missives for other places, as several of his letters evidence. Dantas certainly kept himself apprised of European events through other ambassadors at the Valois court, such as the Spanish and very likely the Venetian, the Scottish, the Florentine and the Papal legates. This possibility extends also to the Danish, Swedish and possibly some German foreign representatives at the French court. It is in this light that might be considered the following Dantas’s reports on important European events of the period.

In December 1561, Dantas sent Cardinal Henry an updated summary of the Trent Council, alongside news that the Cardinal of Lorraine had departed to attend the meeting. Along with his letter, he sent the Cardinal a book that bishop Quadra, the Spanish ambassador to England between 1559 and 1563, had entrusted him with delivering and warned that the Ottomans were at peace with Emperor Ferdinand I (1502-1564). As he considered it very probable that Ottoman attacks would soon strike the Western Mediterranean, Dantas counselled Lisbon to shore up the Portuguese fortresses in Morocco and Asia.⁶²BA, 49-X-9, fl. 86v. In October 1562, Dantas wrote again to Cardinal Henry, this time about Queen Mary Stuart’s aspirations to the English throne and how they poisoined Anglo-Scottish relations. He reminded the Cardinal of Queen Stuart’s strong claim against Queen Elizabeth I and said that Lisbon should be made aware of it.⁶³BA, 49-X-9, fl. 87. In Dantas’s mind was the old alliance between Portugal and England, which he felt to be diminishing in the context of Anglo-Portuguese overseas rivalries in the 1550s,⁶⁴I have recently approached this topic using a set of new found documents in the Portuguese archives. For further details see my article titled “From Allies to Rivals: Portuguese maritime espionage in England (1551-1559)” forthcoming at English Historical Review. and even more after his embassy to Queen Elizabeth I. Still, Dantas considered important to accompany all the events surrounding Queen Mary Stuart, which as Catholic Queen and if crowned in England, could revert Anglo-Portuguese relations to a better status quo. This factor explains why Dantas continued to report on each news he received concerned with Queen Mary Stuart.

In January 1563, Dantas briefed King Sebastian on the non-progress being made at the Trent Council which was stalled over disputes about where bishops may reside. He also promised to inform himself better on the instructions to the Ottoman ambassador who had just arrived in France.⁶⁵BA, 49-X-9, fl. 12. In February, Dantas discovered that the Ottoman ambassador had come to claim the payment of an old loan and that King Charles IX had replied to him that he would pay when the first civil war was over. Always obsessed with Ottoman movements, Dantas immediately informed the Portuguese King.⁶⁶BA, 49-X-9, fls. 14-15v. In April, there was no relevant news from the Trent Council, but Dantas sent King Sebastian the speech delivered by the Ottoman envoy at Emperor Maximilian’s (1527-1576) coronation. He also mentioned the wars between Poland and Muscovy and stated that King Charles IX had sent the Order of Saint Michael to the Danish and Swedish Kings.⁶⁷BA, 49-X-9, fls. 25-25v. These examples show clearly that, for Dantas, Portugal needed updated reports of events taking place in such distant places as Sweden, Poland, or Russia because they could influence Portuguese main interests in Western Europe. For Dantas being well-informed was crucial for making the right political decisions.

Also for this reason, in June 1563, Dantas sent King Sebastian a copy of the Emperor’s letter to the Pope Pius IV (1559-1565), detailed the precedence conflicts at the Trent Council, and informed him of Queen Mary Stuart’s proposal of marriage from the Archduke of Austria. According to Dantas, Queen Stuart replied that she would need to consult the Scottish nobility before providing a final answer.⁶⁸BA, 49-X-9, fls. 32-32v. In August, Dantas sent the latest updates from Venice, concerning the Trent Council and an envoy of the Acehnese Sultan (on Sumatra Island) who had arrived in Istanbul asking for artillery and support against the Portuguese in Asia.⁶⁹BA, 49-X-9, fl. 35. This way, Dantas’s French-based European network served to inform Lisbon quicker of important events affecting the Portuguese Empire in Asia. In November, Dantas let King Sebastian know that the Danish monarch had had to flee after being defeated by the Swedish King. A close acquaintance in France had informed Dantas that the Pope Pius IV had thought of sending a special envoy to King Philip II, but had decided against it.⁷⁰BA, 49-X-9, fl. 41v. In another missive, from November, he communicated to King Sebastian that he had already sent Manuel Raposo to Savoy (as he had been ordered).⁷¹BA, 49-X-9, fl. 42. In February 1564, he briefed the Portuguese King on Raposo’s good reception at Savoy but also reported that the duchess of Savoy was annoyed because King Sebastian had not written to her directly.⁷²BA, 49-X-9, fl. 44. In September, Dantas also reported on Emperor Ferdinand’s sudden death but stated that he had still time to speak with his family before passing away.⁷³BA, 49-X-9, fl. 62v. The following year was marked by Dantas’s reports about Catholic-Ottoman hostilities.

In February 1565, Dantas was worried by the numerous letters he was receiving which were, as he says, full of references to Turkish galleys. He warned that the Ottomans would send 150 to 200 ships to besiege Malta or La Goleta along with attacking corsairs. In this scenario, he advised Portugal to forbid navigation in the Mediterranean to avoid unnecessary losses.⁷⁴BA, 49-X-9, fl. 69v. In March, Dantas reported on the developing war between the Emperor and the Ottomans, unfolding while the war between Denmark and Sweden was still active. Once more, he counselled Lisbon to forbid navigation from the Strait of Gibraltar to the Mediterranean so that mariners would not fall prey to Argel and French corsairs.⁷⁵ANTT, CC I-107-60, fl. 3. In April, he briefed King Sebastian, sent an annex about the Pope’s niece’s wedding festivities and also took the occasion to inform Portugal about the new cardinals appointed by the Pope Pius IV.⁷⁶ANTT, CC I-107-63, fls. 1-2. In July, he told the Portuguese King that the Emperor had opened the war with the Ottomans at the same time that D. Garcia de Toledo had arrived to relieve Malta from the Ottoman siege. He likewise wrote about Queen Mary Stuart’s wedding to Lord Darnley (1545-1567) and how Queen Elizabeth I was afraid that her failure to prevent the marriage had reinforced Queen Stuart’s claim to the English throne.⁷⁷BA, 49-X-9, fls. 81 and 82v. In August, he noted that Queen Mary Stuart had written to Queen Catherine de Medici and the Pope Pius IV, seeking their blessings on her marriage. He also gave updates on the war between the Emperor and the Ottomans⁷⁸BA, 49-X-9, fl. 84v.

The loss of Dantas’s letters for the years 1566-68 prevents documenting further cases of his use of France as a crossroad of Portuguese networks of European information. Still, as all these examples show clearly, Dantas did not fell or behave as a mere ambassador to France: instead, as a learned Renaissance man, he was concerned with the evolution of Europe. This is why, he used his privileged position in France and at the Valois court, to obtain information, discuss and then voice his opinions to the Portuguese King. However, in doing so, Dantas was not innovating when compared to his predecessors, as he knew that was another of his duties as Portuguese ambassador in France. Thus, it is time to compare Dantas to his predecessors in office before offering final conclusions about his embassy.

DANTAS AND HIS PREDECESSORS: A COMPARISSON OF APPROACHES

As has been shown, Dantas’s embassy in France was affected, at different moments, by his health problems. However, there was another serious issue that also influenced his embassy, from the beginning to its end in 1568: financial difficulties. Dantas’s complaints about his shortage of funds can be associated both with the 1550-60s economic crisis in France (Knecht, 1996, pp. 303-308Knecht, R. J. (1996) The rise and fall of Renaissance France. London: Fontana Press.), and be interpreted in the framework of always-expensive sixteenth-century diplomacy. Indeed, it is hard to find any sixteenth-century ambassador that does not complain about shortage of funds. Still, this matter must be kept in mind when considering comparative approaches to Dantas’s predecessors.

As early as February 1559, in a fragmentary letter, Dantas seems to be complaining about his lack of cash to King Sebastian.⁷⁹ANTT, Fragmentos, box 1, maço 1, n.º 39. In January 1562, he admitted to the Portuguese King that he already had amassed huge debts, and that this situation was impacting his image in France. Only the Spanish ambassador Chantonnay was offering assistance, but such a dependency, Dantas argued, was damaging to his reputation.⁸⁰ANTT, CC I-105-86, fl. 1v. This statement evidences clearly that Dantas did not want to become dependent of Spain for more than strictly needed, as he knew that Spain was accustomed to using Portugal’s needs to deepen its influence in Portuguese affairs. In this regard, Dantas’s concern is totally linked with the faction struggle at the Portuguese court between the ones favourable to a deepening relationship with Spain and their opponents. Dantas, clearly, belonged to the second group.

Later on, when his health started to fail (blamed by Dantas on the bad air of France), he intensified the dramatic tone of his missives. In August 1562, Dantas requested authorization to return to Portugal due to his illness and asked King Sebastian to appoint a richer ambassador, as life in France was too expensive.⁸¹ANTT, CC I-106-4, fl. 3v. The next month, he petitioned the Portuguese King urgently for cash to meet his expenses, which were increasing unsustainably fast.⁸²BA, 49-X-9, fl. 87. Although Dantas does not mention the details of his expenses, his correspondence from this period shows that they were very likely associated with the payment of spies at French ports and in England, and connected as well with bribery payments to Villegagnon, Coligny and L’Hôpital, which started precisely in 1562.

By August 1563, Dantas wrote King Sebastian a letter of two folios in which he protested the lack of monetary grants being provided to him, a state which he considered unfair given his 25-year-long career.⁸³BA, 49-X-9, fls. 36-36v. Soon, Dantas’s despair made him resort to more sophisticated arguments. In October 1563, he wrote to the Portuguese King stating that doctors had concluded he was close to death. He reminded King Sebastian that no good Christian King should refuse aid to a dying man, even if he were a Muslim or a Jew, which Dantas was not.⁸⁴BA, 49-X-9, fl. 40. Denied a quick answer, on 17 November 1563 Dantas sent King Sebastian a very detailed account of his expenses so that the King could judge for himself.⁸⁵BA, 49-X-9, fl. 42v. Sensing that the answer would not arrive any time soon, on 19 November, Dantas wrote to Portuguese secretary Pedro de Alcáçova Carneiro. He was happy that Carneiro had appreciated his gift but asked for help to secure more funds, as no one in Portugal was replying to him. He stated that even King Charles IX’s physician had borrowed him money and that he did not have anyone else to lend him cash. Once more, he submitted a detailed financial account with all his expenses, among them the costs associated with the embassy to Savoy, couriers and particularly maritime espionage efforts.⁸⁶ANTT, CC I-106-89, fls. 1-2.

However, the financial situation of the Portuguese embassy in France remained tenuous. In September 1564, Dantas sent King Sebastian another report in which he begged the King to ensure grants to his loyal servant Manuel Raposo, who deserved them for his work in Savoy. Dantas argued that the lack of awards to Raposo was affecting his reputation and that some of his servants were considering abandoning him because of it. It was also on this background of financial difficulties that Dantas had witnessed, some previous months, the escape from his house of Portuguese cosmographer André Homem, who ended up working for Coligny (Vila-Santa, 2023aVila-Santa, N. (2023a) “Fighting for Mare Clausum and Secret Science: France, England and Spain in the strategies of ambassador Dantas (1557-1568).” Vegueta, 23 (2), in press. ). He also complained that the cash he had recently received from Portugal was insufficient, not even enough to pay the bribes and his agents for the previous years’ services.⁸⁷ANTT, CC I-107-12, fls. 1v.-2v. At the same time, compounding Dantas’s problems, King Sebastian refused his request to return to Lisbon. In this context, by March 1565, Dantas promised the Portuguese King that he would continue to do his best, but demanded more money if he were to keep serving Portugal well.⁸⁸ANTT, CC I-107-55, fls. 1-1v.

In August 1565, following the aforementioned episodes of the banquet expenses and the preparations for the Bayonne meeting, Dantas’s doubts that his health and funds would permit him to properly accompany King Charles IX’s Grand-Tour were fully confirmed. These anxieties underlie his aggrieved reflections on the consequences of the peregrination (“peregrinação” in Portuguese) to France that he was forced to make. This time Dantas petitioned King Sebastian to urgently transmit 2000 cruzados to him, as his debtors were asking for their loans’ repayment and no one else would extend him money.⁸⁹BA, 49-X-9, fl. 89v. Although further details are undocumented, Dantas’s financial problems probably persisted. His salary as an ambassador was simply not enough. In 1561, when King Sebastian granted him another pension of 150 thousand reais, but still withheld the title and monetary privileges of commendator of the Order of Christ, Dantas kept on complaining. Between his return to Portugal and his death, he was only promoted to a royal counsellor in 1566 (Santos, 1969, pp. 45-46Santos, M. E. M. (1969) O caracter experimental da Carreira da Índia. Um plano de João Pereira Dantas, com fortificação da África do Sul (1556). Lisbon: Junta de Investigações do Ultramar.). This means that Lisbon never fully recognised Dantas’s requests, even though it was no secret that life at the Valois court was expensive.

This is precisely one of the aspects that seems to have differentiated Dantas from his predecessors in France. The degree of financial difficulties he felt was increased because Dantas had been formally appointed ambassador from the beginning, and did not work his way up from the status of a mere envoy. This contrasts with, for example, João da Silveira, whose French embassy lasted between 1522 and 1530. Silveira had started as an envoy and only in 1525 was named ambassador to King Francis I’s court by King John III. His promotion can be explained by the growing importance of his mission, which was mainly related to the maritime rivalry between Portugal and France. Silveira was entrusted with the sabotage of Giovanni de Verrazzano’s (1485-1528) voyages, preventing Portuguese pilots from serving France and bribing the French Admiral and Chancellor. In all these aspects, Dantas is quite comparable to Silveira. But while Silveira was for some time called the “hostage ambassador” and was humiliated by King Francis I when he accused Silveira of wanting to be given precedence over the English ambassador and forbade him from accompanying the Spanish ambassador, the same never happened to Dantas. On the contrary, as has been demonstrated, Dantas was given precedence over the English ambassador, in 1565, under the orders of Queen Catherine de Medici. The event underscored Dantas’s status at the Valois court and how far his experience was from the tribulations that Silveira endured almost until his death in office. In contrast with Silveira and King John III’s hesitancy and unpreparedness when dealing with France’s maritime projects (Ventura, 1983, pp. 33-38, 63, 67 and 121Ventura, M. G. (1983) João da Silveira. Diplomata português do século XVI. Lisbon: Gabinete Português de Estudos Humanísticos.), from Dantas’s correspondence emerges the image of an ambassador equipped with clear strategies, although one who was too often alone and dependant on Lisbon’s final approval (Ferreira, 1989, pp. 159 and 166Ferreira, A. M. P. (1989) “Da defesa do monopólio do «Mare Clausum»: Alguns Apontamentos na correspondência de João Pereira Dantas (1562-1565).” In: A Viagem de Bartolomeu Dias e a problemática dos Descobrimentos. Maia: Centro de Estudos Gaspar Frutuoso, pp. 159-166.).

Comparing Dantas to Rui Fernandes de Almada, ambassador between 1534 and 1540, some similarities can also be observed. Like Dantas, Almada tried to prevent French maritime expeditions to Portuguese overseas areas, in this case by bribing the French Admiral Philippe de Chabot (1492-1543), but failed due to the French Chancellor’s opposition. Still, like Dantas, Almada simultaneously defended a maritime alliance with Spain and seems to have been successful in negotiating the handover of several seized Portuguese ships and their cargos (Cruz, 1971, pp. 148 and 153-154Cruz, M. do R. S. T. B. A. (1971) Rui Fernandes de Almada. Diplomata português do século XVI. Lisbon: Instituto de Alta Cultura.).

Dantas’s embassy bears some resemblance, furthermore, to the mission of lawyer Brás de Alvide, sent to France as an envoy between 1548 and 1554. As Alvide’s mission coincided with King Henry II’s reign, maritime attacks were considered a matter of private warfare between Portuguese and French seafarers. French-Portuguese relations were not seriously affected until Villegagnon’s expedition to Brazil in 1555. Like Dantas, Alvide had at least three identified spies in French ports and was tasked with keeping Portugal abreast of all the details concerning French expeditions to Portuguese overseas areas. Still, growing maritime tension with France motivated the Duke of Braganza to advise King John III, in 1552, to replace Alvide with a reputable resident ambassador in France. The Portuguese King started by appointing Gaspar Figueiredo as envoy in 1554. Only in 1557, did King John III follow the advice of the Duke of Braganza when he named Dantas permanent ambassador (Serrão, 1969, pp. 20-21, 30, 40 and 45-49Serrão, J. V. (1969) A embaixada em França de Brás de Alvide (1548-1554). Paris: Centro Cultural Português/Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian.).

Dantas’s instructions seem not to have survived. Nevertheless, bearing in mind the overall arc of Dantas’s embassy, it is not hard to imagine what King John III’s orders may have been in 1557: while winning over the Valois court’s trust, he should lodge formal complaints against Villegagnon’s expedition to Brazil, undertake maritime espionage on new French overseas expeditions, stop the drainage of Portuguese pilots to France and England, give reports on the Franco-Spanish war and transmit up-to-the-minute news on the spread of Protestantism in France and the rest of Europe.

The character of Dantas’s embassy soon diverged from that of his predecessors, as I have argued elsewhere (Vila-Santa, 2023aVila-Santa, N. (2023a) “Fighting for Mare Clausum and Secret Science: France, England and Spain in the strategies of ambassador Dantas (1557-1568).” Vegueta, 23 (2), in press. ), because although he was formally the ambassador to France (and to England in 1562), he also played the part of informal ambassador to England until the end of his tenure. Such itinerancy between the French and the English embassy within the Portuguese diplomatic system is mirrored in the 1570s by Francisco Giraldes, who started as ambassador to Queen Elizabeth I’s court and ended his days as ambassador to France. Thus, the activities Dantas began mainly because of the onset of English overseas expeditions under Queens Mary I (1553-1558) and Elizabeth I were taken up and pursued energetically by his successors. How, then, may be evaluated the impact of Dantas’s embassy in France on French-Portuguese relations of the period, and assessed the effects of his lively reporting on contemporary French and European events?

CONCLUSION

Always a supporter of the French-Portuguese alliance and an opponent to the Portuguese-Spanish political alliance, Dantas persisted in pushing for the marriage of King Sebastian with Princess Margaret of Valois even after returning to Portugal. This factor explains Dantas’s reply to the Venetian ambassador in France that Portugal would not marry another Habsburg. Even after D. Francés de Alava, the Spanish ambassador to France between 1564 and 1570, launched a campaign against Dantas for his protection of traitorous Portuguese pilots (Bourdon, 1956Bourdon, L. (1956) Francisco Dias Mimoso. Le “pilote portugais borgne” (1559-1569). Lisbon, offprint by Revista da Faculdade de Letras.; Vila-Santa, 2013aVila-Santa, N. (2023a) “Fighting for Mare Clausum and Secret Science: France, England and Spain in the strategies of ambassador Dantas (1557-1568).” Vegueta, 23 (2), in press. ), Dantas kept trying to convince Lisbon of the potential benefits in King Sebastian making a marriage alliance with France. Thus, in 1568-69 he was in contact with Raymond de Fourquevaux (1509-1574), the French ambassador to King Philip II’s court between 1565 and 1572, to whom he promised that he would soon return to France to negotiate that wedding. But before he could come to France, Dantas died in January 1570. Shortly after, he was accused of having raised his illegitimate heir with a Lutheran master in Paris.⁹⁰ANTT, Tribunal do Santo Ofício, Inquisição de Lisboa, book 193, fl. 243. Fourquevaux reports that, before Dantas’s dismissal from the French embassy, he was perceived as a Frenchman and Huguenot at King Philip II’s court.⁹¹ Douais, 1900, vol. II, pp. 159, 162 and 174. Such a statement from Forqueveaux, an ambassador whose diplomatic activities (Ribera, 2018, pp. 433-516Ribera, J.-M. (2018) Diplomatie et espionage. Les ambassadeurs du roi de France auprès de Philipe II. Du traite du Cateau-Cambresis (1559) à la mort de Henri III (1589). Paris: Classiques Garnier.) were akin to Dantas’s manoeuvres, invites reflection.

As I hope to have demonstrated, Dantas’s reports on 1560s France prove that, far from being a Huguenot, the ambassador was a fierce Catholic who saw the Guises as heroes in a France troubled by the wars of religion. Still, the accusation that he was almost a Frenchman is very symptomatic; it points to the fact that, despite all of Dantas’s collaborations with the Spanish ambassadors to England and France, King Philip II considered him an enemy of Spain’s strategic interests. This may be owed to several events described in this article, which evidence Dantas’s easy adaptation to the French environment. While Dantas’s status is clear (look no further than the respect he won from King Charles IX in the ceremony when he was declared of age to rule or the Valois King’s interest in playing games with Dantas; or to Queen Catherine de Medici with the episode of the precedence over the English ambassador, the festivities and her reply in 1565), it is also relevant to ask whether Dantas, in turn, became an admirer of France. Although the answer is not obvious in Dantas’s epistolary, he may have been a French supporter for political reasons.

Knowing European history and having met personally King Henry II, Dantas knew well that France was the only country in Europe that could seriously hope to counterbalance King Philip II’s hegemony. Nevertheless, French power in Europe started to decline with King Henry II’s premature death and the beginning of the French civil wars. Still, Dantas acknowledged that if France recovered, as it had done under Kings Francis I and Henry II, it would soon return to the fore in European affairs, and could be a match for Spain’s power. This conviction may explain Dantas’s fervent and voluminous reports to Portugal, covering all the key details of the latest French developments. Perfectly aware of Portugal’s fragility during the minority of King Sebastian (between 1557 and 1568), Dantas recognised that Portugal needed its French connection to avoid Emperor Charles V and King Philip II’s plans of integrating Portugal into their domains. In a certain sense, this story seems to be a repetition of King John III’s relations with King Francis I (Faria, 2015Faria, D. (2015) “Negócios matrimoniais entre Portugal e a França no tempo de Francisco I (1515-1547).” Anais de História de Além-Mar, vol. XVI, pp. 407-430. Available at: https://run.unl.pt/bitstream/10362/19813/1/AHAM%20XVI%20%282015%29_ISSN%200874-9671.pdf [accessed 10 September 2021]): moments of tension and reproach, always in the hope of establishing a political, and possibly matrimonial, alliance that could favour both sides without triggering too much Spanish opposition.

Nevertheless, in his French strategy, Dantas’s activities soon involved the rest of Europe, particularly as his reputation began crossing French borders very early. In 1559, during the Cateau-Cambrésis negotiations between Spain and France, D. Francisco Pereira, the Portuguese ambassador to King Philip II’s court informed Dantas of his reputation in King Philip II’s inner circle.⁹²ANTT, Cartas Missivas, Maço 2, nº 141, fls. 1-2. In 1560, one of Dantas and ambassador Jean Nicot’s couriers, the Portuguese António de Almeida, wrote a revealing letter to the Cardinal of Lorraine. In this missive, Almeida advised Lorraine (who, curiously, Dantas so esteemed), to keep an eye on Dantas: he was a respected ambassador and should be treated with the utmost care and courtesy, but Lorraine should never forget that he was also a deadly enemy of France’s maritime ambitions. Pending the creation of proper conditions for formally entering French service, Almeida was willing to offer Lorraine advice on how to deal with Dantas (Matos, 1952, pp. 217-227Matos, L. de (1952) Les Portugais en France au XVIe siècle: Études et documents. Coimbra: Imprensa da Universidade.). Let us recall that by 1560, Dantas was only in his third year at the French embassy. Still, he had already left a profound impression on his contemporaries and adversaries. The same deep impact was repeated, even after a failed Mare Clausum diplomatic mission to England in 1562, when Queen Elizabeth I wrote to King Sebastian praising Dantas’s courtesy and asking him to send her a pair of gloves (Vila-Santa, 2023aVila-Santa, N. (2023a) “Fighting for Mare Clausum and Secret Science: France, England and Spain in the strategies of ambassador Dantas (1557-1568).” Vegueta, 23 (2), in press. ). I do not have many doubts that Dantas’s reputation reached Italian rulers, such as: Savoy, to whom he sent emissaries, and where Portugal also had strong dynastic relations; Venice, as Dantas was close to the Venetian ambassadors to France; and even the Papacy as Dantas actively reported on the Trent Council and suggested how Portugal should patronize full Catholic policies in France and England.

Dantas’s status may not be properly appreciated, however, without mentioning the status of other Portuguese ambassadors in sixteenth-century Europe. For instance, at the death ceremonies of Queen Elizabeth of Valois at King Philip II’s court, in 1568, the Portuguese ambassador was only preceded by the Imperial and French ambassadors (Ribera, 2018, p. 491Ribera, J.-M. (2018) Diplomatie et espionage. Les ambassadeurs du roi de France auprès de Philipe II. Du traite du Cateau-Cambresis (1559) à la mort de Henri III (1589). Paris: Classiques Garnier.). In the challenging scenario of the Protestant English embassy in the 1570s, the Portuguese ambassadors were also highly esteemed. Even when they were accused of Catholic plots, they never ended expelled up from England, as it happened to their Spanish colleagues. Until 1580, the Elizabethan court always made sure that Portuguese ambassadors were well treated. As a consequence, the Portuguese ambassador’s sumptuous house often received the visits of his Spanish and French colleagues (Oliveira, 2018, pp. 118, 124 and 127Oliveira, S. (2018) Uma cartografia das mentalidades. A diplomacia portuguesa na corte isabelina. PhD thesis. Lisboa: FLUL.).

Seen in this light, the fact that Dantas secured the favour of Queen Catherine de Medici and King Charles IX does not come as a surprise. Indeed, such a result fits in well with Dantas’s overall strategy, a goal that was aimed by Dantas not only as a personal one but perhaps mainly as a policy ordered on him by Lisbon. In this sense, Dantas worked to ensure that Portugal’s image in Europe remained intact. The image Dantas tried to promulgate can be summarized as follows: as the first European realm to launch overseas expansion, Portugal was the longstanding champion of Christianity in wars against the Islamic infidels and Protestant heretics, and would never get embroiled in disputes between Catholic princes. This conception is often found in Dantas’s critiques of France and England, and is especially prominent in his rhetoric that uses Portuguese victories overseas and Portugal’s “civilising” role as a vehicle to show the European nature of Portuguese power. In reality, Portugal’s and Dantas’s policy was intended to make up for the fact that Portugal was a relatively small and peripheral kingdom that chose to invest its major resources overseas. As a consequence, in Europe, Portugal was forced to adopt neutrality policies against more powerful powers such as Spain, France, and England.

Like Lourenço Pires de Távora, perhaps the most famous sixteenth-century Portuguese ambassador, or D. Álvaro de Castro, Dantas was another ambassador, previously trained in the school of the Portuguese Empire, that was charged with maintaining a delicate political balance during the challenging period of the minority of King Sebastian (Cruz, 2006, p. 61Cruz, M. A. L. (2006) D. Sebastião. Póvoa de Santo Adrião: Círculo de Leitores.). This may explain all the aforementioned episodes between him, King Charles IX, and Queen Catherine de Medici that point to Dantas’s prominence at the Valois court during the 1560s. Dantas’s relationships with King Charles IX and Queen Medici were not merely personal, but also acted as a stand-in for international relations. The intimacy between Dantas and these rulers shows that both King Charles IX and Queen Medici recognised the European importance of Portugal. Indeed, France’s Portuguese connections functioned as a crucial counter-balance against King Philip II’s power, something that France needed more than ever when the religious wars threatened France’s internal unity; this reason alone may explain the favour Dantas enjoyed among King Charles IX and Queen Medici. In the 1580s, also for anti-Spanish policy, Queen Catherine de Medici and King Henry III (r. 1574-1589) welcomed and supported D. António (1534-1595), the Portuguese pretendant to the Portuguese throne, when he came to France. Thus, Dantas died too early to continue playing an important role in French-Portuguese relations and this might have impacted decisively France’s and Portugal’s inability in the 1560s and 1570s to negotiate a matrimonial alliance (Chichkine, 2021, p. 54Chichkine, V. (2021) “Mirage d’une alliance. Les relations franco-portugaises dans lescollections manuscrites de Saint-Pétersbourg (1557-1572).” Histoire, Economie et Société, (1/2021), pp. 38-55. doi: https://doi.org/10.3917/hes.211.0038 ). Still, Dantas’s actions and vision exceeded his nominal station.

As I hope to have also demonstrated, Dantas’s concerns extended to the major European problems of the period, and, like his predecessors, he used France as a Portuguese gateway for acquiring intelligence on the rest of Europe. His personal relationships and the far reach of his information network throughout Europe evidence the degree of success he achieved. Still, it was primarily as ambassador in France that Dantas made his most significant contributions. Well-versed in Machiavelli’s (1469-1527) and Castiglione’s (1478-1529) political treatises, as his actions towards Queen Catherine de Medici, King Charles IX, Admiral Coligny and Chancellor L’Hôpital suggest, Dantas was able to erect different strategies to achieve his goals in France. In this sense, Dantas is another paradigmatic example of the early modern ambassador, as studied by Dante Fedele (Fedele, 2017Fedele, D. (2017) Naissance de la diplomatie moderne (XIIIe-XVIIe siècles); l´ambassadeur au croisement du droit, de l´ethique et de la politique. Baden-Baden: Brill.). Nevertheless, what Dantas could certainly not forecast was that, in this process, he would produce such valuable reports. The full range of contributions from Dantas’s epistolary to French and European history is now an open field for exploitation by experts in this period.