‘A man of curious enquiry’: J ohn P eyton's G rand T our to central E urope and R obert C ecil's intelligence network, 1596–1601

Between 1596 and 1601 J ohn P eyton the Y ounger (1579–1635) travelled to G ermany, B ohemia, P oland– L ithuania, S witzerland, and I taly. His accounts of the Empire and B ohemia are among the most detailed and best informed reports to have survived from the period, yet they are virtually unknown to modern scholarship. Furthermore, he was the author of the celebrated description of the P olish– L ithuanian C ommonwealth, A Relation of the State of P olonia and the U nited P rovinces of that C rown , A nno 1598. Based on new evidence, this article shows that J ohn P eyton's travels in C entral E urope formed part of C ecil's attempts to gather intelligence on S panish diplomatic activity in the E mpire and in the P olish– L ithuanian C ommonwealth. I argue that P eyton was one of many contemporaries who left E ngland on an E lizabethan G rand T our; a peculiar mixture of visiting E uropean countries for culture, education and intelligence. His writings, however, belong to the more sophisticated written achievements in E lizabethan intelligence gathering.