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Spain appears to have pioneered the employment of women as diplomats in the modem period when, in 1507, Ferdinand of Aragon sent his widowed daughter Catherine formal credentials as his ambassador in England and instructions to negotiate with Henry VII about the delay in her proposed marriage to Prince Henry. France soon followed suit. The Treaty of Cambrai (1529) was popularly known as 'The Ladies' Peace' because it had been negotiated and drafted by Louise of Savoy, mother of King Francis I, and Margaret of Austria, aunt of the Emperor Charles V, on behalf of their respective countries. Later that century Madame Delahaye-Vautelaye was appointed French Ambassador to Venice, while the Marechale de Guebriant became the French Ambassador to Poland in the early years of the seventeenth century. The youngest daughter of Charles I, Henrietta Anne, Duchess of Orleans, acted as Louis XIV's representative when negotiating the secret Anglo-French Treaty of Dover with her brother, Charles II, in 1670. France subsequently discontinued the practice. In the eighteenth century, we know of only two examples of a woman acting as her country's representative. One such woman was Mrs White, the widow of the British Consul at Tripoli. When her husband died in office in November 1763, Mrs White took on the management of consular affairs, sought and obtained audience of the Regent of Tripoli, looked after some English sailors who had been detained in Tripoli, and conducted official business with aplomb until her husband's successor arrived in 1765. Mrs White's initiative was unofficial, and was considered 'strange and ridiculous' by the Secretary of State, Lord Halifax. Nonetheless, her claim for official expenses of nearly ÂŁ&>0 appears to have been honoured, at least in part. Around the same time, following her husband, Richard Wolters's death in 177 I, Mrs Marguerite Wolters carried on the British spy network in Rotterdam, at least until 1785. In addition, there were probably many cases like that of Mrs McNeill, wife of the British representative in Persia in the 183os, who conducted her husband's official correspondence while he was away on tour. In the seventeenth century the Dutchman Wicquefort considered the question of women in the Diplomatic service under the tides "Si l'Ambassadeur se peut seiVir de l'entremise des femmes pour le progrez de ses affaires" and "Si les femmes peuvent estre Ambassatrices". Wicquefort believed that women could assist in the running of diplomatic affairs although he did not consider that they could become ambassadors. It was not until three centuries later, well into the twentieth century, that the possibility of admitting women to the administrative grade of the Diplomatic Service was even considered in the UK. It is difficult to appreciate today, for instance, the degree of iconoclasm shown by Harold Nicolson in making the heroine of his novel Public Faces (1932) the Permanent Under-Secretary of the Foreign Office. Yet although there were none in the administrative grade, women had worked in the Foreign Office since 1782.