Richard Field’s English Reception of the Truce of Plessis-lez-Tours (1589)

Abstract

According to the Stationers’ Register, it was on 26 May 1589 (old style) that Richard Field, one of London’s most prominent stationers, entered two volumes dealing with French affairs. They were two collections containing three declarations made by the Kings of France and Navarre about a truce they had formalised a few weeks earlier. This agreement was meant to put an end to the long period of intermittent war between Henry of France and his cousin of Navarre. The two Henrys met at Plessis-lez-Tours, by the Loire River, in late April 1589. The meeting was observed and celebrated by many people in the kingdom. Combined, the royal troops and those of Navarre could win against the Leaguers and the Spanish. Indeed, as publisher Richard Field did not act simply as a courier, conveying news and ideas from one side of the Channel to the other – he may be considered as a co-author of the volumes he printed. This article intends to show how Field, in combining the three declarations, created a theatrical and political space on which truce was staged and in which Henry, king of Navarre and would-be king of France, stood out as the only king of peace. In so doing, Field wanted the texts to be read as celebrations of a long-awaited truce but a truce that was only a stepping-stone for Navarre to become king of France.