Letters are a literary resource often under-estimated by scholars.
Sackville's letters from
France, to Thomas Heneage and Elizabeth I, demonstrate how the application
of literary means,
guided by a partial viewpoint, creates the circumstances in which
the political management of actuality
can occur. These letters are generally known only from extracts and
digests in calendars, which give
no hint of their literary forms and styles. No one has yet commented
on the significance of their
rhetorical tactics. The full context of the correspondence shows
Sackville exploiting existing
relationships with Heneage and the queen to build up good will
and credibility for himself as a lively
and judicious personality. In particular, the previously
unpublished representation of his secret
interview with Catherine de Medici exploits the actuality of
dramatic dialogue far beyond the normal
use of so-called verbatim report in diplomatic correspondence.
This representation raises questions of
how far Sackville interpreted what he heard and why. The
opportunity to compare Catherine's account
of their meeting with Sackville's shows him selecting and
emphasizing certain details, while
suppressing others, in anticipation of his reader's response.