William Bruce was a diplomat in Poland, and wrote letters with news to Robert Cecil. He became involved in a plan to send a portrait of a Polish prince (Władysław IV Vasa) to Anna of Denmark in 1608. Bruce’s draft letters explain the picture was really for Princess Elizabeth, who might someday marry the Polish prince.

“I write to your Majesty latterly, a letter to recreate your M[ajes]tie in your melancholy and saturnial humour, in remembrance of my true devotion to her Mteis service I write by this bearer letting your Mtie to wit that I have procured this young prince his portrait for your Mtie, which your Mtie shall receive with the latest London ships godwilling, they mean here the estate of his father being settled that he shall be indeed one suitable to our Lady Elizabeth your Mties daughter”

Bruce took the opportunity of this correspondence to ask Anna of Denmark to send him money, as living in Gdansk and travelling to the Polish court was costly. He wrote about this in comic terms which suggest some level of familiarity, and he may have visited Anna in Dunfermline in the 1590s. Bruce mentions a royal servant, the poet John Murray, and Thomas Dalyell, a servant of Edward Bruce, Lord Kinross, who could help deliver the queen’s gold angels.

Bruce invokes Pierce Penniless twice, as the Thomas Nashe character, and the presumption she recognises these references may be interesting.

“Madame I am scarce of moneye as ever pierce penniless wes when he made his complainte to the devill upon Salisburie plaine or upon the highte of Paules steple I wiette nocht whether your Mties trewe auld servant & eloquent poet Mr Johne Murraye can tell your Mtie iffe your Mtie hathe maide him ane Bischop that he maye take tyme to reide aulde histories nowe in his aulde dayes”

And, in another passage ‘dining with Duke Humphrey’:

“iffe your Mties angels knowethe nocht the waye hethar Thomas Dalyeale sarviteur to my Lord of Kinlosse can addresse them whom I sall accept as thankfully as evare pierce pennilesse walde hawe donne iffe he wer leivinge my purse beinge as towme [empty] often tymes as ever his were and [my] credite is banished this land so that I muste lakinge moneye besiege some towne as doethe the Cavallrais of Londonne and sume tyme imitate thame banquettinge wyth duc omphrey and drinke wyth the deukes so that I thinke me heire placed in purgatorie for my sinnes”

William Bruce’s journal or diary including these draft letters and accounts is held in Gdansk.¹ Many thanks to a colleague for sending pictures.

Bruce recorded the arrival of the beardless Robert Shirley speaking in Italian to the Polish Parliament:

“Mairover heire is received ane ambassador frome Persia called Robert Shirley youngest son to Sr Thomas Shirl, 8 Martij, who is to entreate al Christian princeis to make weare against the Turke he is a younge man without ane bairde but a man of ane excellent airte he had his narration before this kinge in Italiane in Parliament, whiche was holden so weille spoken that this kinge dide ordaine him to be at his charges als longe as he sall remaine into Poleland”

According to this letter book, the portrait was received in London, and Bruce wrote to one of Anna’s ladies “I am very glad the picture is come to her Majesties hands, I had meikle ado or I could have it, and at the last it were sent down to the country to me from the court to be send to her Majestie, but I being on the way to the court, so it were delivered to another who send it with one of his friend’s piece in my name as he said to me.”

Bruce reported the major stumbling block for an Anglo-Polish royal marriage was religion, the Polish nobles noted Elizabeth was a Protestant, and a Scottish agent, Robert Cunningham, was coming to London to make enquiries if “she would continue a Puritan”. Bruce thought it would be a good match, if Sigismund III Vasa’s invasion of Russia was a success.

There is a biography of William Bruce in the University of St Andrews SSNE database

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1. J. K. Fedorowicz, England’s Baltic Trade in the Early Seventeenth Century Trade: A Study in Anglo-Polish Commercial Diplomacy (Cambridge, 1980), p. 17. ↩︎