Jacques Bochetel de la Forest

Guillaume Bochetel was an administrator of royal finance and ambassador to England in 1535, attending a meeting at Calais to discuss a marriage between the infant Princess Elizabeth and Charles de Valois.

[6] In May 1568, an envoy from Regent Moray in Scotland, Nicolas Elphinstone, brought jewels and pearls belonging to the deposed Mary, Queen of Scots for sale in London.

[9] Bochetel described Mary's pearls in detail in letters to Catherine de' Medici and Charles IX of France, although he does not seem to have seen the items in person.

[10] There were six cordons or sashes strung like paternosters, each with twenty five pearls, many large and beautiful, the most part as big as muscady nuts, nutmegs.

The influential 19th-century biographer Agnes Strickland wrote of pearls resembling "black muscades" and purple Muscatel grapes.

The rest of the jewels did not approach the pearls in value, and were nondescript, except a piece of unicorn's horn which is nicely mounted in goldsmith's work and highly decorated".

[17] He wrote to Catherine de' Medici that Elizabeth's offers of assistance for the Scottish queen were only, "subterfuges et délayemens".

[19] She wrote to him from Bolton Castle in October 1568, hoping that he would support and liaise the Bishop of Ross, John Lesley, and the Abbott of Kilburne, at the York Conference.