Guerau de Espés del Valle (1524 in Lleida – 1572) was a Spanish nobleman and diplomat. He served as Philip II of Spain's ambassador to Elizabeth I's England from 1568 to 1571 during one of the tensest moments in Anglo-Spanish relations and was expelled after being accused of complicity of the Ridolfi plot. He was a knight of the Order of Calatrava. He also appeared as a character in the 2007 film Elizabeth: The Golden Age, played by the British actor Will Houston.Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007) - Full cast & crew English sources call him "Guerau de Spes".
Career John Man, English ambassador in Madrid, had called the pope a sanctimonious little monk and so Philip II replaced the priest Diego de Silva y Guzmán with Espés as ambassador to England. Due to his hostility to the English, Espés described William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley, one of the most powerful and influential noblemen in England at that time, to Philip II as
In the Spanish Netherlands the Geuzens' Revolt began and in November 1568 the royal treasury in Seville sent five ships with 40,000 pounds of gold, with which Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, Duke of Alba was to raise troops in the Netherlands to quell the revolt. These ships were attacked by Huguenot privateers and sought protection in British waters. Espés told Elizabeth that the gold belonged to Philip's bankers and was being sent to Antwerp and asked that Elizabeth protect the ships. She agreed and most of the ships anchored in English ports. However, news then reached Elizabeth of a Spanish attack on the British ships at San Juan de Ulúa in Mexico and in reprisal ordered that the Spanish ships be confiscated and their gold moved to the Tower of London.Colin Martin, Geoffrey Parker, The Spanish Armada S.61 On Espés's advice, Alva then seized the goods of English merchant ships anchored at Antwerp.
Mary, Queen of Scots Espés heard reports from the household of Mary, Queen of Scots, who was held in England at Bolton Castle and Tutbury Castle. Espés heard from Leonard Dacre about plans for the Queen of Scots to marry Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk and to remove William Cecil from government.Wilfred Hammond, Catholic Nobles and the Elizabethan State, 1558-1588: Northern Affinities and the Politics of Religion (Boydell & Brewer, 2025), pp. 174–175. Espés was not enthusiastic because the Earl was not a Catholic.Krista Kesselring, The Northern Rebellion of 1569: Faith, Politics and Protest in Elizabethan England (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), p. 51. In January 1569, he understood that Mary easily gained friends and allies, and she was confident that if she could be freed would become Queen of England.Martin Hume, Calendar State Papers Spain (Simancas), 2 (London: HMSO, 1894), pp. 96–97 no. 95.
John Hawkins In a letter dated 14 February 1569,Martin Hume, Calendar State Papers Spain (Simancas), 2 (London: HMSO, 1894), pp. 106–108 no. 78. Espés wrote that John Hawkins had come to London with four horses loaded with gold and silver from the Indies (meaning Florida). Hawkins said that he left 240 men to found a colony in Florida in lieu of that lost at San Juan de Ulúa. Espés commented that the treasure would hardly cover the cost of his voyages.Letter of August 1569 Espés wrote to Philip II of Spain on 11 September 1570 that Hawkins had given him his promise not to sail to the Indies again, but was making preparations to molest Spanish ships from La Rochelle.Nick Hazlewood, The Queen's Slave Trader: John Hawkyns, Elizabeth I, and the Trafficking in Human Souls (Harper Collins, 2004), p. 385: Martin Hume, Calendar State Papers Spain (Simancas), 2 (London: HMSO, 1894), p. 277 no. 215.
The Neptune jewel He described a New Year's Day gift presented by the Earl of Leicester to Elizabeth in January 1571. The gift was a jewel with an enamelled scene showing Elizabeth enthroned and Mary, Queen of Scots, in chains. Neptune bowed to Elizabeth.Carole Levin, "Queen Elizabeth and the Power and Context of the Gift", Donatella Montini and Iolanda Plescia, Elizabeth I in Writing: Language, Power and Representation in Early Modern (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), p. 226. For Espés, this device was typical of English boasting and bravado and was a warning for caution and the need to take advantage of opportunity and artifice for the preservation of Spanish power.Martin Hume, Calendar State Papers Spain (Simancas), 2 (London: HMSO, 1894), pp. 289–290 no. 231.
Expelled from England Espés was finally expelled from England in December 1571 for his alleged complicity in the Ridolfi plot. Elizabeth wrote to the Duke of Alba that Espés was such a person as "would secretly seek to enflame the realm with firebrands".Robert Hutchinson, Elizabeth's Spymaster: Francis Walsingham and the Secret War that saved England (London: Phoenix, 2007), p. 54.
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