Rank and Emolument in the British Diplomatic Service 1689–1789

Abstract

From the institution of resident diplomatic missions in the fifteenth century a basic distinction has been drawn between ambassadors, either ordinary or extraordinary, and ministers of less eminence, often described as residents. By the late seventeenth century, however, various intermediate grades had become established. For example, a decree of the States of Holland, passed on 29 March 1651, mentions ‘ambassadors, resident envoys, agents or other ministers’. Much the most important intermediate rank was that of envoy extraordinary, which under Louis XIV became much commoner than before, while the gulf between the envoy and the mere resident grew steadily. The title of resident is said to have been degraded when the lesser German courts gave or even sold the title to persons who had no diplomatic functions at all. The increasing use made of envoys in the seventeenth century was partly due to a desire for economy, but at least as much to the desire of sovereigns to avoid or at least reduce the number of quarrels between ambassadors where there were several ambassadors at the same court and no generally accepted rules of precedence. Thus Frederick William, the great elector of Brandenburg, is said not to have appointed any ambassadors. There was a similar reluctance at Genoa and in Sweden and elsewhere in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century. When Cobden proposed and carried in the Select Committee of 1850 on Public Salaries the abolition of embassies he was much less of a radical than his contemporaries thought.