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For 500 years our little island Britain
has punched above its weight around the world...
Getting Our Way.
The means to our success?
Not just gunboats and commerce, but ruthless power broking,
Machiavellian manoeuvring and plenty of charm - diplomacy.
Diplomats are the people you don't often get to hear about.
It is the kings and queens, the politicians and the generals
who dominate the history books, but this series is about my predecessors,
who championed Britain's interests abroad - ambassadors and envoys,
power-brokers and negotiators.
You must never forget
that it is British interests you are there to promote and protect.
You are constantly having to talk to, make deals with,
make concessions to, people who, in other ways, are doing things
you thoroughly dislike and disapprove of.
You have to be a bit of a schemer,
otherwise you can't do the job properly.
As Our Man in Washington, I saw history in the making.
Now, I'm going back over the last five centuries to put myself
in the shoes of different diplomats
who helped Britain's rise to greatness...and managed our decline.
Our diplomacy must always be driven by the national interest.
That's easier to say than to define, but of one thing we can be sure,
our top priority is, as it has always been, our security.
Well, it's the irreducible national interest
and this is the minimum
a diplomat or statesman
must try to accomplish.
When I was at school, I was taught that the roaring seas
had protected England from invasion for a thousand years.
But back in the 16th century, we were far from safe.
For Queen Elizabeth I, a key line of defence, was not the roaring seas,
but her spymasters and diplomats -
ruthless, pragmatic men, like Lord Burghley and Sir Francis Walsingham,
who had made it their life's mission
to confound the Queen's foreign Catholic enemies.
What I would give to have been in that game!
The nearest I got to it was playing cat and mouse
with the KGB in Soviet Russia.
In 1572, shocking news arrived from across the Channel,
where Elizabeth's chief spy, Walsingham, ran our Paris embassy.
Thousands of Protestants had been slaughtered on St Bartholomew's day.
Throats were slashed and bodies dismembered.
The River Seine ran red with blood.
Burghley called it, "the greatest crime since the Crucifixion".
The grisly news from France tapped into a deep fear
that a great international Catholic conspiracy would come together
to depose Elizabeth and restore Catholicism in England.
The Pope had just issued a Bull, calling for the violent overthrow
of "this monstrous heretic". Poor Elizabeth.
As they said about Richard Nixon, just because you're paranoid,
it doesn't mean that they aren't out to get you.
The survival of the nation, no less, was at stake
and the Queen immediately summoned a diplomat for help.
He was a Cornishman and his name was Henry Killigrew.
Killigrew was one of a new breed of professional diplomats,
key players in the 16th century world of rapidly shifting alliances,
cold-blooded assassinations and devious espionage.
Elizabeth I might not yet have had a Foreign Office,
but she had moved from the medieval world
into a recognisably modern era of professional statecraft,
where resident ambassadors abroad kept a wary eye on neighbour states
in the defence of Britain's national interest.
So much of real history happens behind the scenes,
where diplomacy likes to ply its trade.
These days, ambassadors summoned home to see the Foreign Secretary
come here - the Ambassadors' Waiting Room
at the very heart of the Foreign Office.
It can be nerve-wracking awaiting orders.
Eventually, Henry Killigrew's moment came from his queen.
Killigrew had earned a reputation as a troubleshooter,
whose discretion was such that there is not a single portrait of him.
Less than a fortnight after the Paris Massacre,
Elizabeth gave him instructions for a new and vital foreign mission.
Without even pausing to say goodbye to his wife and children,
Killigrew made haste.
From Paris, Walsingham had reported rumours of plans
of a French military enterprise against England
and he strongly advised that steps should be taken
to shut up what he called the "postern gate".
BAGPIPES PLAY
And that postern gate was Scotland.
Edinburgh in 1572 was up for grabs.
A two-year civil war had reached stalemate
and Killigrew's task was to negotiate a settlement
between the rival Scottish factions.