Four Years at the Court of Henry VIII

Sebastian Giustinian (1460–1543) served as the Venetian ambassador to the court of Henry VIII between 1515 and 1519, during which time he sent back frequent and detailed dispatches to the Signory of Venice. Guistinian's letters paint a vivid portrait of a diplomat's life at court. In this second of two volumes, Giustinian writes of Sir Thomas More, an outbreak of plague, the predicament of Catherine of Aragon, and many other diplomatic and social matters. Translator and editor Rawdon Lubbock Brown (1806–83) had an unrivalled knowledge of the Venetian archives: he was the first historian to appreciate the importance of the dispatches sent from London by the Venetian ambassadors. His edition of Giustinian's correspondence provided an entirely new insight into Henry's reign when it was first published in 1854. Volume 2 also includes an account of the English embassy to the French court in 1518.