Note 5 — Book I. LETTERS TO MAXIMILIAN.

Nearly twelve years have elapsed since we parted company with Busbecq on his return from Turkey. A sketch of his life during this interval will be found in vol. i. pp. 59-64. We there expressed some doubt as to whether there was any trustworthy authority for his visit to Spain in attendance on the younger Archdukes; we have, however, since obtained evidence of it in the Archduke Albert’s decree, creating the Barony of Bousbecque. In it are recited Busbecq’s services, and amongst them this visit is mentioned. The date of the decree is September 30, 1600, and it states that the visit took place twenty-five years before. This is obviously an error, as we can account for his time from August 1574 to February 1576; in all probability the true date of the visit lies between the years 1570, when Albert and Wenceslaus went to Spain with their sister Anne on her marriage to Philip II., and 1572, when we find Busbecq residing at Vienna. See vol. i. p. 62.