Eustace Chapuys

Eustace Chapuys (1489-1556) served as the Imperial ambassador to England from 1529 untill 1545 and is best known for his extensive and detailed correspondence.

He was born in Annecyin Savoy. He attended the University of Turin since 1507, staying there for at least 8 years. In 1517 he became an official of the diocese of Geneva and subsequently served the duke of Savoy and Charles de Bourbon. In 1527 he entered the service ofthe Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V.

After going to Savoy as ambassador, he went to England to take over the post of resident ambassador there from Don Iñigo Lopez de Mendoza, a post that had been instably occupied since the forced withdrawal of Louis of Praet in 1525. Chapuys's legal background made him an ideal candidate to defend Henry VIII's wife Catherine of Aragon (who was also an aunt of Emperor Charles V) against the legal proceedings that historians call the ["Divorce Crisis"] and which led, eventually, to the English rejection of Papal authority and Break from the Roman Catholic Church. Chapuys' attempts to defeat English machinations against Catherine eventually failed and Henry married Anne Boleyn. Catherine's died in January of 1536. He stayed as resident ambassador in England until 1545 (save a brief interlude which he spent in Antwerp in april 1539). He then asked to be relieved of his post due to illness, and only after introducing his succesor to the post, François van der Delft, did the Emperor allow him to leave. Afterwards, Chapuys resided in Leuven (in Belgium today) where he founded a grammar school for promising students from his native Savoy (the Collège Chapuisienne).

Chapuys also appears as a character in William Shakespeare's play The Famous History of the Life of King Henry VIII under the name of Capucius.