Anthony Standen (spy)
According to his own accounts, in 1565 Standen came to Scotland at the instance of Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox, and was appointed an equerry of the royal stable, or Master of the Horse, to Mary Queen of Scots and Lord Darnley.
[2] Mary asked her wardrobe staff to make a mattress and bedding for Standen in July 1565 at the time of her her wedding, and the accounts identify him as "Standy, escuyer de l'ecuyie du Roy".
He said he had told the Francesco I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany of the likely "association" of Mary and James, by which the captive queen would be returned to Scotland.
[20] On the same day he wrote to John Lesley, Bishop of Ross, also conjecturing that Eleanor de' Medici, a wise and fair lady, would be a good bride for James VI.
[23] Standen reported that Anthony Shirley sailed from Plymouth on 21 May 1596 for Africa with five ships, with the financial support of the Earl of Essex, but had hoped to command a larger fleet and was cheated of his ambition and like others "notably cut-throated and consumed".
Standen's suit was favoured by Lord Buckhurst, but the Earl of Essex preferred another candidate, Sir Thomas Smith who he had knighted at Cadiz in 1596.
[29] Standen went to Rome to collect altar ornaments and beads intended for Anna of Denmark, a gift which was supposed to open a relationship leading to the conversion of England to the Catholic religion.
[30] Standen himself wrote to Robert Persons that "the Queene [is] warned from dealing in Cath: causes, and she ys very assyduous at sermons, so that I am in a stagger what shall become of my tokens", meaning his efforts would not be successful.
Cecil wrote to the ambassador in Paris, Thomas Parry, saying he should tell the Papal nuncio that Standen had misled him and Anne of Denmark was not a Catholic, and King James insisted:if any false informer have presumed, out of their own vanity, to describe the Queen's minde as if she did believe in the Romish religion, he shall take his princely word that he is wronged and she abused; for although when she was in Scotland she mysliked many of those precise opinions which were mayntayned by most of those churches, yet for the matter of her fayth, she was never tyed to the Romish assertions[35]In February 1604, Sir William Broune heard that Standen was intended to bring Anne of Denmark a message of assurance in her religion, and that she would then try to convert King James.
[36] Villeroy and the French ambassador in London, Christophe de Harlay, Count of Beaumont, doubted that Standen had official instructions from King James.
He mentioned that Anne of Denmark enjoyed hearing Nicolò Molin and Zorzi Giustinian, the Venetian ambassadors in London, speaking Italian.
[40] In August 1606 Anne of Denmark sent a letter to Christina of Lorraine Duchess of Tuscany on behalf of her servant Standen who was travelling in Italy for reasons of conscience and religion.
