What does 'attorney' mean in this passage from The Winter's Tale

Question

In The Winter's Tale, it is written:

Cam[illo]. Sicilia cannot shew himselfe ouer-kind to Bohemia: They were trayn'd together in their Child-hoods; and there rooted betwixt them then such an affection, which cannot chuse but braunch now. Since their more mature Dignities, and Royall Necessities, made seperation of their Societie, their Encounters (though not Personall) hath been Royally attornyed with enter-change of Gifts, Letters, louing Embassies, that they haue seem'd to be together, though absent: shooke hands, as ouer a Vast; and embrac'd as it were from the ends of opposed Winds. The Heauens continue their Loues.

I looked up attorney in a dictionary but methinks Wiktionary's definitions do not describe the meaning of this verb in this context. What does attorney mean in this passage?

Answer 1

Alexander Schmidt, Shakespeare Lexicon and Quotation Dictionary, third edition (1892) has this entry for attorneyed:

Attorneyed, 1) performed by proxy: their encounters, though not personal, have for some time been royally attorneyed with interchange of gifts, Wint[er's Tale] I, 1, 30. 2) employed as an attorney: I am still attorneyed at your service, Meas[ure for Measure] V, 390.

So the idea in these early lines from The Winter's Tale is that representatives (proxies) of the kings of Bohemia and Sicilia have been communicating their sovereigns' friendly regard for one another through such forms as exchanging gifts, in the absence of actual physical meetings between the two kings.

The second instance that Schmidt cites (from Measure for Measure) shows that in Shakespeare's day attorneyed could also simply mean "retained or put to work or available to serve as an attorney."