Right: Charles Whitworth, 1st Baron Whitworth (1675-1725) Guillaume Birochon
Left: Andrey Artemovich Matveev (1666-1728) Artist unknown
My Royal Connections talk is now complete and I recently delivered it for the first time at Brantham Historical Society. I think that it went well, although it was challenging to fit almost a thousand years of history into an hour.
While researching the topic I discovered that in the early years of the eighteenth century Peter the Great established the first Russian permanent embassies in every European capitals. Prior to that time envoys were sent on diplomatic missions on an ad hoc basis as circumstances demanded.
Our first ambassador to the Russian Court was Charles Whitworth, later Baron Whitworth (1675-1725), a career diplomat who had served in Berlin and Vienna prior to his appointment to Russia between 1705 and 1712. In addition to trying to improve the regulation of the tobacco monopoly held by the English Russian company, it fell to Whitworth to smooth over the relationship between the two countries following the scandal surrounding his ambassadorial counterpart in England, Andrey Artemonovich Matveev.
Matveev was the son of a Moscow family with close familial ties to Peter, who as a youth had spent time at the Matveev family home during the irregular reign of his sister, Sophia. Matveev was dispatched on assignments to the Dutch Republic and Austria before settling in London in 1705. He was clearly a copious spender since, just prior to leaving the city in 1708, he was abused physically by bailiffs and incarcerated in the ‘sponging house’ (debtors’ prison ) for non-payment of his debts.
Andrey Artemonovich was finally bailed out but, despite apologies from Queen Anne and the Government, his detention and treatment scandalized other foreign ambassadors in London who complained vociferously. The result was the passing of the Diplomatic Immunities Act of 1708, the first instrument of its kind. The Act was repealed in 1964 and superceded by the international Vienna Convention, which is the reason that diplomats in London flout the congestion charge and don’t pay their parking fines!