Charles de Prunelé, Baron d'Esneval (1566–1624) was a French diplomat and ambassador in Scotland in 1586. He is known by his title, as "D'Esneval", or "D'Aisneval", or "D'Anneval".
Family background He was the son of André de Prunelé (died 1581) and Marguerite le Veneur. The Château d'Esneval is at Pavilly, Seine-Maritime. Charles de Prunelé also inherited substantial estates from two cousins."Les Seigneurs de Pavilly", Revue Catholique d'histoire, d'archéologie et littérature de Normandie (1929), pp. 83, 130–131.
Mission to Scotland
D'Esneval seems to have gained prominence at the French court and an appointment as a diplomat following his marriage in 1583 to Madeleine Pinart (died 1654), a daughter of the French Secretary of State, Claude Pinart."Les Seigneurs de Pavilly", Revue Catholique d'histoire, d'archéologie et littérature de Normandie (1929), p. 132.Papers Relating to the Master of Gray (Edinburgh, 1835), pp. 61–62. There were suggestions in August 1584 that he, or his brother-in-law, might go to Scotland as a diplomat.Sophie Crawford Lomas, Calendar State Papers Foreign Elizabeth, vol. 19 (London, 1916), pp. 24, 39. In 1586 he was sent to Scotland and welcomed by David Beaton of Melgund, a Master of Household to James VI. His wife, Madeleine Pinart, remained at the French court as a dame d'honneur to Catherine de Medici.Conyers Read, Mr Secretary Walsingham and the Policy of Queen Elizabeth, 2 (Clarendon Press, 1925), p. 252: Calendar State Papers Scotland, vol. 8 (Edinburgh, 1914), pp. 230–231 no. 282, 590-1 no. 676.
Henry III of France and his mother Catherine de' Medici wrote to James VI in November 1585, introducing the new resident ambassador charged with promoting the Auld alliance. Henry III intended that D'Esneval would present a gold ring worth 500 Écu to Claude Hamilton,Alexandre Teulet, Relations Politiques, 4 (Paris, 1862), pp. 9–10, 19: Adolphe Chéruel, Marie Stuart et Catherine de Médicis (Paris, 1858), pp. 133–134, 162 and gave Hamilton a letter for James also introducing D'Esneval as a resident diplomat.William Fraser, Memorials of the Earls of Haddington, 2 (Edinburgh, 1889), p. 37. The appointment of a resident ambassador was a recognition by the Valois court that James VI, rather than his mother, the exiled Mary, Queen of Scots, was ruler of Scotland.Michael Questier, Dynastic Politics and the British Reformations, 1558-1630 (Oxford, 2019), p. 166: Mark Greengrass, 'Mary, Dowager Queen of France', Innes Review, 38 (1987), p. 182.
Mary, Queen of Scots, hoped D'Esneval would be able keep open her communications with her son James VI and further the Auld Alliance. She wrote to D'Esneval asking him to send updates on James's health and affairs.Agnes Strickland, Letters of Mary, Queen of Scots, vol. 3 (London, 1843), pp. 192–194. She also thought he was inexperienced and unlikely to have much knowledge of Scottish affairs. Mary had a better opinion of his time-served companion, the Monsieur de Courcelles, a secretary of the French ambassador in London, Guillaume de l'Aubespine de Châteauneuf.William Turnbull, Letters of Mary Stuart (London: Dolman, 1845), p. 341.
David Moysie wrote that D'Esneval was 24 years old and arrived in Leith on 13 January He identified D'Esneval by another of his titles, as "de Gazeran" or "Gofferon".Ruth Grant, 'The Anglo-Scottish Alliance of 1586', Julian Goodare & Alasdair MacDonald, Sixteenth-Century Scotland: Essays in Honour of Michael Lynch (Leiden, 2008), p. 225: Memoirs of the Affairs of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1830), p. 56 The Master of Gray wrote about the arrival of D'Esneval to Francis Walsingham, saying he was very young. He noted that Courcelles, formerly a secretary to Michel de Castelnau, was his advisor, and was now known as "De Preau".Letters and papers relating to Patrick, Master of Gray (Edinburgh: Bannatyne Club, 1835), pp. 61–62 Meanwhile, William Cecil wrote to the Earl of Leicester with news that James VI had sent his envoy William Keith of Delny to London to conclude their league. Cecil described the situation of the rival diplomats in Scotland in his letter:Mr Randolph is to go to the Scottish king, and so the treaty, as I think, shall go forward. Time must try these things, for we find that the French king hath sent, by sea, a baron of France, the son-in-law of Pinart's, a man of great living but of little understanding, and therfore he hath a shrewd instrument with him, called Courcelles, whom your lordship did, I think, know here with Mauvissière (Castelnau), a notable servitor to the Scottish queen and the house of Guise, and, adding to this, that we understand how Lethington, the secretary in Scotland, and Robert Melville, who both remain in good credit with the king, are devoted to the king's mother and to France, we may doubt of the events.John Bruce, Leycester Correspondence (London: Camden Society, 1844), p. 52 (modernised here).
D'Esneval had an audience with James VI on 18 February.Lettres de Catherine de Médicis, 9 (Paris, 1835), pp. 13–14 When the English diplomat Thomas Randolph arrived in Edinburgh, James VI told him D'Esneval was younger than him, and had no experience of Scotland. Randolph reminded James that the ambassador's intention was the important matter.Letters and papers relating to Patrick, Master of Gray (Edinburgh: Bannatyne Club, 1835), p. 67
Randolph noted that D'Esneval had an audience with James VI at Holyroodhouse on 7 May.Calendar State Papers Scotland, vol. 8 (Edinburgh, 1914), p. 365 no. 388: Henry Ellis, Original Letters, series 2 vol. 3 (London, 1827), p. 124: Leycester Correspondence, p. 187. Walsingham was convinced that D'Esneval had brought a significant sum of money to Scotland, possibly originating in Spain, while Randolph only had words to counter the effect of this gold.Sophie Crawford Lomax, Calendar State Papers Foreign Elizabeth, 20 (London, 1921), pp. 352, 382. D'Esneval and Monsieur de Courcelles tried to form opposition in the Scottish court to the Treaty of Berwick (1586) with England.Ruth Grant, 'The Anglo-Scottish Alliance of 1586', Julian Goodare & Alasdair MacDonald, Sixteenth-Century Scotland: Essays in Honour of Michael Lynch (Leiden, 2008), p. 225 fn. 56. Their efforts were unsuccessful, due in part to the banishment of their ally at court, James Stewart, Earl of Arran, and offers of an English subsidy.William Boyd, Calendar State Papers Scotland, vol. 8 (London, 1914), pp. 536-7: Stephen Alford, The Watchers (Penguin, 2013), p. 159. On 3 July, D'Esneval wrote to Henry III about the English treaty, and a conversation he had with James about personal letters from his mother since the mission of Albert Fontenay.The life of Thomas Egerton, Lord Chancellor of England, pp. 68–69
D'Esneval made representations to James VI that Scottish soldiers ought not to be recruited for the Protestant King of Navarre.William Boyd, Calendar State Papers Scotland, vol. 8 (London, 1914), p. 622 no. 712.Letters and papers relating to Patrick, Master of Gray (Edinburgh: Bannatyne Club, 1835), p. 100 His letters were interecepted in England, and Francis Walsingham passed them to Thomas Phelippes for decipher and comment.John Morris, Letter-books of Amias Poulet (London, 1874), p. 283
Portraits and diplomacy
James VI spent the summer at Falkland Palace,Adolphe Chéruel, Marie Stuart et Catherine de Médicis (Paris, 1858), p. 376. after a few days at Dunfermline, remaining at Falkland from 12 June to the end of August,Memoirs of the Affairs of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1830), p. 152. and D'Esneval stayed with him.John Hosack, Mary, Queen of Scots, and her Accusers, 2 (Edinburgh: Blackwood, 1874), p. 314. D'Esneval brought up the subject of a portrait of James VI requested by Mary, Queen of Scots with James VI, before the king left for Stirling and a hunting trip.Kate Anderson, "Certane Picturis of His Majesties Visage: Tracing James VI’s Succession Campaign through Visual and Material Display and Dissemination", British Art Studies 29 (December 2025). She had written to him on 30 April (and to Courcelles) asking him to procure a life-size picture taken from life (recouvrer de mon filz ung sien pourtraict en grand, faict sur sa personne propre).Alexandre Labanoff, Lettres de Marie Stuart, 6, p. 271: Calendar State Papers Scotland, vol. 8 (Edinburgh, 1914), pp. 349 no. 374, TNA SP 53/17 f.59., 563 no. 631: Alexandre Teulet, Relations Politiques, 4 (Paris, 1862), p. 54: Life of Thomas Egerton, Lord Chancellor of England, pp. 65-6 James VI was pleased at this sign of his mother's care for him. He suggested a life-size copy of a recently made portrait could be made by a painter, who was much in demand, as no other such portrait painter was to be found in Edinburgh (n'est retrouvir que luy en tout Lyslebourg).Agnes Strickland, Letters of Mary, Queen of Scots, vol. 3 (London, 1843), p. 104: BnF Fr. 4736 f.319: British Library Cotton Nero BVI f.397.
Catherine de' Medici was anxious to know about the king's negotiations to marry Catherine of Bourbon (a sister of Henry of Navarre) or a Danish princess.Lettres de Catherine de Médicis, 9 (Paris, 1835), p. 18, BnF Français 3305 f.11r On 3 July, D'Esneval wrote to Catherine de' Medici that James had sent his commissioners to Berwick-upon-Tweed for the league with England. He also wrote about the painter and the portraits. James intended to send the first version of the portrait to Denmark, (son pourtraict qu'il veut envoyir en Dannemarc).Agnes Strickland, Letters of Mary, Queen of Scots, vol. 3 (London, 1843), p. 104: BnF Fr. 4736 f.319 & f.320 (two letters dated at Falkland), see external links. In France, a spy for England strained to overhear Secretary Pinart discussing his son-in-law D'Esneval's letters with Catherine de' Medici.S. C. Lomas, Calendar State Papers Foreign Elizabeth, 21:1 (London, 1927), 17 July, TNA SP 78/16 f.74.
James sent Peter Young and Colonel William Stewart to Denmark to discuss his potential marriage on 20 July. Young had an audience with Frederick II at Kronborg in August.William Boyd, Calendar State Papers Scotland, vol. 8 (Edinburgh, 1914), pp. 336 no. 362, 566 no. 635: Memoirs of his own life by Sir James Melville of Halhill (Edinburgh, 1827), p. 353: Annie Cameron, Warrender Papers, 2 (Edinburgh, 1932), pp. 46-47 Courcelles noted Young's return, and understood that his mission included the subject of Orkney and the marriage of one of the Danish king's daughters.Extract from the Despatches of M. Courcelles: French Ambassador at the Court (Edinburgh: Bannatyne Club, 1828), pp. 9, 57–58: Peter Anderson, Robert Stewart, Earl of Orkney, Lord of Shetland (Edinburgh: John Donald, 1982), pp. 111–112.
A portrait of a youthful James VI attributed to Adrian Vanson was acquired for display at Edinburgh Castle in 1996, and may be the picture sent to Denmark.David Stevenson, Scotland's Last Royal Wedding: The Marriage of James VI and Anne of Denmark (Edinburgh: John Donald, 1997), p. 6.James VI of Scotland: Weiss GalleryPortrait of James VI, HES EDIN038Adrian Vanson, Historical Portraits, Philip Mould Another version of James's portrait, dated 1586, is displayed at Falkland Palace.James VI, National Trust for Scotland, ArtUK
When D'Esneval left Scotland, he wrote to Courcelles from Berwick-upon-Tweed and returned his hackney horse. D'Esneval asked Courcelles to liaise with the painter, "pour le tableau du mon paisage" (for my landscape), to agree a price and pay him, perhaps meaning the portrait of James or another work. D'Esneval also mentioned a promise of the Captain of Falkland Palace, James Beaton.William Boyd, Calendar State Papers Scotland, vol. 8 (London, 1914), pp. 619–620 no. 709, TNA SP 52/41 f.7.