Nicolas Elphinstone

Elizabeth of Bohemia, wearing the "Medici pearls"

Elphinstone sold a large group of pearls to Elizabeth at the end of April 1568. These pearls have come to be known as the "Medici pearls". Pope Clement VII is said to given them to Catherine de' Medici as a wedding gift. Brantôme wrote that she gave them to Mary and he saw her wearing them.[9] Catherine made efforts to buy them back in London.[10] The pearls are said to have been given in 1613 to Princess Elizabeth at her marriage, and some are thought to have returned to the British royal family. King James bought pearls and gave them to Princess Elizabeth pearls before her marriage.[11] Anne of Denmark, in 1619, had a "carcanet" of long and round pearls worth £40,000 and said to be the "fairest that are to be found in Christendom."[12]

The attempted sales in London in 1568 are known from the letters of a French diplomat, Bochetel de Forrest. Bochetel described the great pearls in detail. There were six cordons sashes strung like paternosters, each with twenty five pearls, many large and beautiful, the most part as big as muscady nuts, nutmegs. They were valued by several merchants for Elizabeth. English merchants offered 10,000 crowns, Italians 12,000, a merchant from Geneva suggested 16,000. Elizabeth, it was thought, paid 12,000. The rest of the jewels on offer were not so valuable, except a well mounted piece of unicorn horn.[13]

Bochetel de Forrest described how Elpinstone had met the Scottish double-agent Ninian Cockburn, alias "Beaumont", on his journey at Berwick. Nicholas Throckmorton arranged his audience with Elizabeth, and Elphinstone showed her the jewels and pearls in the presence of the Earls of Pembroke and Leicester.[14] Bochetel wrote that the jewels were carried secretly to London and the pearls sold to Elizabeth for twelve thousand crowns: "ces bagues ... ont este icy envoyees fort secretement, et en fin, comme jay cy devant escript, acheptees par ceste royne pour le somme de douze mil escus."[15] The concluded sale was not kept secret: when Elphinstone came to Carlisle in June 1568, Mary asked for his arrest as "hyr grevous enemye and seller of hyr juells".[16] William Kirkcaldy of Grange noted the sale in his memorandum on the Edinburgh Castle jewel coffer: "Item Mr Nycoll Elphingston sauld the pearll in London for xiij m or xiiij m quhilk the Queen of England hes for hir self & causit by them."[17]

The jewel sales were halted by Mary’s escape from Lochleven and arrival in England on 16 May 1568. Elizabeth now had to appear impartial to causes in Scotland. She bought no more jewels directly from Moray’s agents and made efforts to prevent other sales of Mary’s goods in England.[18] Elphinstone sent a letter to William Cecil when he got back to Edinburgh on 21 May 1568, carried by a man who had been at the battle of Langside and would describe the battle to Cecil.[19]

Elphinstone continued to take messages to Elizabeth and Cecil for Regent Moray. Moray gave him a length of black velvet for his clothes and 120 French gold crowns to go London in January 1570.[20] His instructions were to discuss offers to William Drury, the Marshal of Berwick, for him to lead an army in Scotland against Mary's supporters, issues following the Rising of the North, and Moray's actions against his rebels. Elphinstone was to press for at least £1,000 and £1,000 yearly to protect Protestant Scotland.[21] Later there was some uncertainty about any commitment to pay this money. Elizabeth sent Thomas Randolph to Scotland in reply, but Moray had been assassinated.[22]

Elphinstone was still in London when news of the assassination broke. He assumed the story was untrue, a rumour spread by Mary's secretary the Bishop of Ross, and wrote to Cecil with this theory. Unsold jewels were left with Regent Moray's widow, Agnes Keith.[23]

He delivered letters to Elizabeth from Regent Mar in June 1572, while she was busy with Montmorency and other French ambassadors.[24] Thomas Randolph wrote to Mar that Elphinstone was returning with disappointing news.[25] Elphinstone had £50 yearly from the English exchequer as a pension for supporters of English policy in Scotland. He was described as a good servant to the late Regent Moray, wise and well affected (to England), and in great favour with Regent Morton.[26]

During the crisis following the border incident known as the Raid of the Redeswire in 1577, Regent Morton considered sending Elphinstone as an envoy to Queen Elizabeth, until her ambassador Henry Killigrew arrived in Edinburgh.[27]

He brought a copy of the illustrated costume book, Richard Breton and François Desprez, Recueil de la diversité des habits (Paris, 1562), and Les songes drolatiques de Pantagruel (Paris 1565), for the young king's library.[28] Elphinstone told Regent Morton in 1577 that the keepers of the young king at Stirling Castle were no loyal to him, and according to James Melville of Halhill, he advised Morton to bribe them and buy their service.[29]