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Hello, I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb and welcome welcome to Not Just the Tudors from History Hit,

the podcasts in which we explore everything from Anne Boleyn to the Aztecs,

from Holbein to the Huguenots, from Shakespeare to Samarise,

relieved by regular doses of murder, espionage and witchcraft.

Not in other words, just the Tudors, but most definitely also the Tudors.

There's a famous saying which sums up the slippery nature of diplomacy.

An ambassador is an honest gentleman sent to lie abroad for the good of his country. You'll note the deliberate double meaning there.

Lie can mean simply reside overseas, or it could be flagging up the necessary economy of truth in statecraft.

The line comes from one of the most outrageous characters of the Elizabethan and Jacobian age,

whose life reads like the wildest fiction, yet is all surprisingly true.

Let me introduce Sir Henry or Harry Wooten, student, traveller, secretary-soldier, scoundrel, spy,

a maverick who quite literally invented modern diplomacy.

Wooten first entered the shady world of international intelligence when he became assistant

to Robert Devereaux, Earl of Essex, Queen Elizabeth

the first dashing, temperamental favourite, who would ultimately lose his head for treason. But at Essex's

downfall, Witten managed to save his own neck by fleeing to Italy, where he embarked on one of the

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