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cock from one court to the other. We find him now at
London or Edinburgh, now at Copenhagen, now at
Stockholm. His first diplomatic errand from King James
was to mediate between Denmark and Sweden in 1612 ;
in this business he failed. In the Danish capital the
hostile feeling ran high, and the English messenger
barely escaped ill-treatment, though he received from the
King of Denmark a letter of safe-conduct couched in the
highest terms of praise. In October 1612 Spens is taken
formally over by Gustavus Adolphus, and a certain salary
for his diplomatic services is promised to him as long as
he lived. His official appointment to be Sweden’s
ambassador to England took place in 1613, on the 17th of
December. The official document calls him: “Spens
who at all times proved his fidelity and his promptitude.”1
For the next four or five years he stayed in London,
keeping his Swedish master regularly informed about matters
of political importance. Interspersed are other notices of
private interest—thus, when he writes about sending
pictures of the king, the queen, and the Royal Family
(4th January, 1614), or when he recommends Andrew
Ramsay, probably the same that we met above in the fatal
organisation of the Norwegian expedition, for a commission
in the army. In 1615 he similarly commends Thomas
Hamilton, of noble birth, ready with his hand and an
experienced officer, “ who had seen service in Holland, and
now wanted to enter the Swedish ranks, being ashamed to
waste away in shameful idleness.”2 Very frequently in
1 “ Spentziu8 qui per omne tempus fidem ac promptitudinem probavit.”
2 49. . . Thomas Hamilthonus, vir honesto et generoso loco natus, manu
promptus et in rei militaris peritia complurium annorum assuetudine apud
Batavos. . . . Sed cum apud eos omnia pacata videret, pigeretque eum in
otio et ignavia torpescere egit mecum per amicos quosdam, ut per me
commendari possit Majesti. Vai., apud quam viros reimilitaris amantes in
pretio esse audiebat. . . Spens Papers. Riks A.
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