Andrew Marvell’s Paper Work: The Earl of Carlisle’s Baltic Embassy (1664)

The discovery of a dozen ‘new’ documents in Marvell’s hand from the Carlisle embassy discloses much about his role in Sweden and Denmark late in 1664. The forms and contents of the letters themselves, and the further diplomatic correspondence with which they are bound, confirm how the demands first of language (owing to a preference for diplomacy in native tongues in Muscovy and Sweden) and then of secrecy (owing to extremes of caution in Denmark) worked against Marvell having more of a part in the negotiations in those countries. Even so, the documents show him in service as diplomatic secretary on matters great and small. They also shed new light on Marvell’s ventriloquial function, whether it is Carlisle speaking in Marvell’s writing or whether the secretary more nearly writes in his own person. When we find Carlisle, ship-bound with his secretary for a week off Elsinore, writing his friends for the sake of writing, and curveting rhetorically as never before, we sense something nearer minds melding at the end of their 18 months abroad together. Marvell learned a lot from hearing Carlisle speak and from speaking for Carlisle.