Diversifying Migrant Roles

Abstract

The seventeenth century saw Irish migrants in Spain branch out from their traditional haunts in the counting house and the seminary into the army, the navy, the university and, of course, the Inquisition itself. Their complex relation with England, central to their sixteenth-century reception in Spain, continued to mark their experience abroad. The peace brokered at the 1604 Treaty of London ushered in a new era of diplomatic relations between the rulers of Spain and England and permitted the exchange of ambassadors. Initially their role, like that of the port consuls, was to ensure the observance of the treaty. By and large, the new arrangement disadvantaged Spain, which was left with its strategic vulnerability in the Netherlands and its susceptibility to English, French, Dutch and Danish incursions into its New World territories. Queering the diplomatic pitch was the vague possibility of a Spanish match for Prince Henry, the eldest Stuart heir, unrealistically premised by the Spanish on religious guarantees for the Stuarts’ Catholic subjects in England, Ireland and Scotland. This was the central plank in Anglo-Spanish relations in the first quarter of the seventeenth century, and set the volatile context for the reception of Irish visitors travelling to Spain and within its Empire.