DIGGS, DUDLEY [SSNE 3958]

Surname

DIGGS, DIGGES

First name

DUDLEY, DUDLIE, DUDLY

Title/rank

SIR

Nationality

ENGLISH

Social status

GENTRY

Education

UNIVERSITY

Text source

Dudley Diggs was an Oxford graduate and had strong connections with the East India Company and in 1612 had founded a company seeking to discover the North-West Passage. He was the Stuart Ambassador to Muscovy in 1618. His mission was unsuccessful in achieving closer alliance between the Stuart and Muscovite regimes, and indeed according to Bell Digges did not even receive an audience. A speech of his from December 1643 against the placement of court favourites survives in the Thomason Tracts.

 

Sources: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography; S. Konovalov, Oxford Slavonic Papers, Vol. 2, 1951 [Bodleian Library, MS, Ashmole 824, ff. 175-86]; G. M. Bell, A Handlist of British Diplomatic Representatives 1509-1688 (London, 1990), passim; Steve Murdoch, Network North: Scottish Kin, Commercial and Covert Associations in Northern Europe, 1603-1746 (Brill, Leiden, 2006), p.259.

Service record

STUART KINGDOMS, RUSSIA

Arrived 1618-07-16

Departed 1618-08-06

Capacity AMBASSADOR, purpose DIPLOMACY

STUART KINGDOMS, THE DUTCH REPUBLIC

Arrived 1620-11-01

Departed 1621-02-10

Capacity COMMISSIONER, purpose DIPLOMACY