In 1604, England and Spain signed a peace treaty. By the time the treaty mattered, nobody could agree on what it actually said — because the original document had been lost.

The Treaty That Nobody Could Find

9 April 2026

The Treaty of London of 1604 ended nearly two decades of Anglo-Spanish conflict. It was carefully negotiated, signed with considerable ceremony, and then — in the way of many important documents in the pre-archival era — progressively lost, copied, mistranslated, and disputed until nobody was entirely certain what had been agreed.

This episode examines the gap between the ceremony of agreement and the practical reality of enforcement, the role of memory and oral tradition in diplomatic relations, and what happened when two parties to an agreement consulted their copies and found they said different things.

What we discuss

The negotiation of the Treaty of London. The archival practices of early modern states. How early modern diplomats handled textual disputes. What this history reveals about the nature of international agreements.