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Lying Abroad: Henry Wotton and the Invention of Diplomacy

byCarol Chillington Rutter

Carol Chillington Rutter follows the adventurous life of Henry Wotton, poet, spy, traveler, and ambassador in Jacobean Europe. His missions required coded messages, improvised alliances, theatrical self-presentation, and calculated deception at a time when diplomacy was becoming a recognizable profession. Moving among courts, wars, religious divisions, and personal risks, the book shows how information traveled before permanent embassies and modern foreign services. Wotton's career reveals diplomacy not as polite ceremony but as a dangerous craft built from trust, performance, intelligence gathering, and the ability to lie convincingly abroad.

Publisher

Manchester University Press

Publication date

2026-02-01

Format

Hardcover

Pages

328

ISBN

9781526172068