ABSTRACT
In the early modern age, international relations were conducted between courts and European political dynasties, while diplomacy was the art of negotiating relationships between those who exercised power, ultimately, the most sophisticated exercise of courtly life. In this type of diplomacy, women had their place. This chapter analyses the diplomatic role of Lady Anne Fanshawe, England's ambassadress to Madrid, the mechanisms of power they employed, from visits and gifts to the political utilization of courtly sociability and ceremony. During the second half of the seventeenth century, the wives of French ambassadors in Madrid helped their husbands to obtain information of political interest in Madrid's courtly circles. Lady Anne's political movements is documented by the letters she wrote to her husband during the negotiations for peace between Spain and Portugal and the memoirs for private use that she wrote towards the end of her life.
