British Intelligence Ambassadors at the Court of Anna Ioannovna

Abstract

In the first third of the eighteenth century, relations between Russia and Britain remained strained. Although Russia, under Empress Anna Ioannovna (1730–1740), welcomed Britain, restoring the diplomatic relations it had severed under Peter I and concluding a trade treaty favourable to the British in 1734, official London continued to pursue a policy far from friendly towards the Russian Empire. The intelligence activities of the British official diplomats at the Imperial Court were a vivid illustration of this. King George II of Great Britain, when he sent his ambassadors to their destination, urged them to gather information on everything they would see in Russia. He specifically listed those the diplomats were to focus on: the Russian Empress, her ministers and other high-ranking officials, as well as courtiers and favourites. The British authorities were particularly interested in the state of the nation's armed forces. On their return home, the ambassadors were expected to give a detailed account of everything they had seen and heard at Court. Drawing on an analysis of the ambassadors' diplomatic correspondence with the British Secretary of State, as well as some of their essays, the author examines the problem of British ambassadors' intelligence activities at the court of Anna Ioannovna. As it turns out, the ambassadors collected information on the high-ranking dignitaries close to the Tsarina, their predilections and weaknesses; on the alignment of political powers at court, as well as on the state of the army and navy. Attention is drawn to the fact that the informants of diplomats were often not only Britons in Russian service, but more often high-ranking officials themselves, ready to defend British interests for the sake of monetary rewards or gifts. Few of them realised that by revealing secret information to British ambassadors, they were committing a high crime and harming their homeland. The history of British espionage in Russia in the first third of the eighteenth century, which has not previously been the subject of a special study in historical scholarship, reveals the real purpose of British diplomacy, namely to study the potential enemy, as it viewed the Russian Empire at that time.