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- [00:01]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
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- [01:35]
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Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Hello, I'm Professor Susannah Lipscomb and welcome to Not Just the Tudors from History Hit, the podcast in which we explore everything from Anne Boleyn to the Aztecs, from Holbein to the Huguenots, from Shakespeare to samurais relieved by regular doses of murder, espionage and witchcraft. Not, in other words, just the Tudors, but most definitely also the Tudors. The story of the interaction between England and India is mostly told as that of the British Empire, and with good reason. From 1757 it was absolutely a story of colonial conquest by the British, but in the early days of encounter from the late 16th century onwards, no one could ever have predicted that result. For the first century and a half of English travel to India, the English presence largely consisted of struggling merchants petitioning a mighty Mughal empire plying an abortive trade and making a negligible impact on a thriving state and society. Sir Thomas Roe, first ambassador from England to India, said of the Mughal Emperor, he met the great Jahangir in jewels. He is the treasury of the world, buying all that comes and heaping rich stones as if he would rather build than wear them. Suffice to say, he was impressed. Jahangir. Meanwhile, in his memoirs, the Jahangir Nama does not even mention Rome. And as for the East India company, founded in 1600, by the mid 17th century it was teetering on the verge of collapse. But we won't get that far today. I want to know about the first English travelers arriving during this Mogul golden age. What inspired them, what evidence survives from them and how they sought to ingratiate themselves with the imperial power they discovered. My guest is Dr. Lubaba Alazami, Lecturer in English at Queen Mary University of London, and the author of the new book, Travelers in the Golden Realm. How Mughal India Connected England to the World. Prepare to have your preconceptions dispelled. I'm Professor Susannah Lipscombe and this is Not Just the Tudors from History hit. Lubaba. Welcome to Not Just the Tudors. It's an absolute delight to have you on.
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Dr. Lubaba Alazami
Thank you very much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.
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Professor Susannah Lipscomb
So we're going to be thinking about the earliest English travelers to India and the sort of nascent East India Company. I thought it might be helpful to start by thinking about the place that India occupied in the Tudor Elizabethan imagination in the 16th century.
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Dr. Lubaba Alazami
I guess the starting point that I tend to take is Elizabeth's excommunication. So when Queen Elizabeth is thrown out by the Catholic Church, not that it hugely matters to her spiritually because she's, of course, not Catholic, but it creates this rupture with what is majority Catholic Europe. I like to call it the first Brexit. So in that respect, suddenly England is finding itself increasingly isolated and it needs to sort of. Because we're an island nation, we need international partnerships for our economic survival, among other things. So Elizabeth is the monarch who then makes that decision to take England in more global direction. So where she first prioritized her connections was in the Ottoman Empire, but she also turned to India and Mughal India. I mean, we were quite behind when it came to Mughal India. The Portuguese had got there a century before us, and the Dutch were going to get there a similar time to us. But Mughal India was another region of the world that England turned to for trade, in particular, particularly to make up for the ruptures in trade with mainland Europe. And so Mughal India, in the European imagination, and particularly in the English, Imag, was viewed as a land of incredible wealth. And that was true from classical times and we continued through medieval times. So if we think about Mandeville's travels, Sir John Mandeville, 14th century armchair travel writer, he didn't actually travel, but in his book, half of the book is sort of dedicated to India and there is a lot of discussion about India's riches. And so in England's imagination, Tudor England's imagination, this was a very rich place to go to make these trade connections. And so that's sort of where Tudor England was in terms of how it viewed India. It viewed India as a land of immense wealth and India was a land of immense wealth. So this was absolutely very accurate. It was incredibly wealthy and a great opportunity for trade.
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Professor Susannah Lipscomb
You write that in the 16th and 17th centuries there were these three leading Islamic empires, the Turkish Ottoman Empire, the Persian Sahavid Empire, and of course in India, the Mughal Empire. So tell me some more about the Mughals and the extent of their empire by the late 16th century.
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Dr. Lubaba Alazami
Sure. So of the Islamic empires of that period, the three largest, as you say, were the Ottomans, the Safavids in Persia or Iran, and the Mughals in India. And the Ottomans were sort of the Ottomans were where Queen Elizabeth first turned. And there were very many reasons for that. One is that they were very proximate. Another is that Elizabeth was of course at war with the Habsburgs, at war with Spain and the Ottomans were at my enemy's enemy is my friend. And also the Ottomans were the most powerful entity and empire in Europe. It was sort of partnering with the biggest bully in town, so to speak. Mughal India was somewhat different in terms of its dynamic. Mughal India is quite an interesting, interesting case in that the Ottoman Empire very much defined itself by its Islamic identity and by being leaders of the Sunni world. The Safavids of Persia very much identified themselves with their Islamic identity and being leaders of the Shia world. The Mughals were a Muslim ruled empire that governed a non Muslim majority. So it didn't take that very religious approach towards its identity and towards its governance. And that was both. That was a very pragmatic thing to do because they were of course, the India then as now had a large Muslim minority. So it wasn't a small minority, it's a very large minority, but the majority were not, were not Muslims. So the Mughals were far more pragmatic and they didn't Take that very Islamicate identity in that way. They deployed it when it was useful. So when. When they sort of expanded territory, then they sort of. Then you'd see coming out in Mughal memoirs that they start deploying these. This religious rhetoric that, oh, we're gaining land for Islam. That's the only time pretty much, that they engage in that rhetoric. And it's sort of like politicizing religion, as so many do. But otherwise, in terms of governance, they were far more pragmatic in terms of the extent of the empire, particularly by the end of the 17th century, it was at its largest extent. And so this, you know, when we say India, India as we know it today is only a part of what Mughal India was. So Mughal India in this period, towards the latter part of 17th century, extended from Pakistan to Bangladesh. It didn't reach the southernmost tip of India, but it got pretty far, and it reached. It reached pretty far up north and sort of took parts of Afghanistan. And of course, the frontiers kept shifting as well. So the frontiers shifted. For example, on the Persian side, the Mughals bordered with Persia. And so sometimes Persia occupied certain regions, and sometimes the Mughals are occupied. So it was incredibly extensive at this time. And so the English, when they arrived in India, they came to a consolidated and expanding empire. And one of the key things that I highlight in the book is the fact that the English came to Mughal India during its golden age. So there was a factor of timing as well in terms of when the English arrived and sort of what they encountered. Of course, the Mughals, they began in 1500. So the early period, the first couple of decades, are quite unstable. But by the time the English arrived, this is a thriving, established government, the established empire, being governed by basically an emperor who's just enjoying his time right now. He's not having to. He is continually expanding his empire, but it's not an unstable empire that he's trying to retain control of.
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Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Yes, and that's so very important, isn't it? Because these first English travelers to India find that India has got so much to offer them, but the same cannot be said in reverse, can it?
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Dr. Lubaba Alazami
It's really quite striking because, you know, when we think about England's history with India, we tend to think about the imperial period, we tend to think about from 1757 until 1947. So that's the time period that we tend to think about, and that shows a particular political dynamic of that time period. It shows English. English colonial authority over Indian subordination. But of course, you know, the history started 178 years before that. So that there's an entire period, the period that my book covers, which contextualizes what comes after, but also needs to be understood on its own terms. And in that period, in the period that my book covers, the political balances and the economic balances are entirely reversed. So the English are essentially on the back foot. They're sort of a developing nation at this point. The Mughals are what you would call a developed nation, very powerful, very wealthy. And so when the English arrive, they find that, you know, there is very little that the English can offer that would entice the Mughals. And also, the Mughals had established trade networks within the Indian Ocean region and within the region of Asia that they're in. So they didn't really need anything from these strange people who are coming from the far north, from countries they'd never heard of. But also it was the fact that England's key export at this time was wool. Thank you, Cornwall, for your sheep. But England used to export a woolen cloth called broadcloth, which is woven very thick, dyed in dark colors. Very popular in northern Europe, where it's cold, but then it reaches Mughal India, and it's kind of hot over there. And so the Indians have no interest in this. And even there are, of course, there are parts of the Indian subcontinent which are cold, such as Kashmir, Murray, and Pakistan. You know, these regions, you know, they have snowfall, they're very cold. But in those regions, they have Kashmir. Right? That's where. That's where Kashmir comes from. So they have. Even when it comes to warm clothes, which is England's speciality, India has better forms of warm clothing. So they have cashmere shawls and much more richer textiles. And India was particularly famed for its textiles. You know, England arrived and found that there was very little that they could entice the Mughals with. And so there was a lot of this scrambling around trying to find what they could use to entice the Mughals into a trade treaty. And, I mean, that in itself proliferated some really interesting tales in terms of the Anglo Indian encounter, particularly in relation to England's relationship with the wider world. It was that need to find things that entice the Mughal markets that sort of burst England's globality, particularly in this part of the world, that they sort of examined what's happening in the markets, and they saw that, okay, so this product is interested. Is sold here. So, like, spices. So they went off to Indonesia to get spices. One of the commodities that particularly interested me during when I was researching this book is that the English observed that the markets had a roaring trade for ivory, and ivory was particularly purchased by women. So the English went out of their way to go to east and West Africa to procure ivory. So Indian women were quite specifically framing the terms of trade encounter that England was having in India. And so ivory comes up quite a lot in the records in relation to a commodity that sells very well, particularly for Indian women. But, you know, and besides commodities, the English had to trade, had to just purchase things in silver, which is very, very expensive. Made people back home a little bit annoyed because you're stealing cash from the national coffers, and they'd essentially bring chests full of silver and mint it in the local Mughal mints and then use that cash to purchase goods in the markets.
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Professor Susannah Lipscomb
So who are the first English arrivals to India and what inspired them?
- [13:53]
Dr. Lubaba Alazami
So I've been talking about trade quite a bit, but interestingly enough, the first Englishman to reach India was. Was not there for trade. So Thomas Stevens, he arrives in 1579, and he is, in fact, a religious refugee. And I found this particularly interesting, particularly because of the sort of discourses around refugees that we have today and the refugee crisis as it's, you know, as. As it's kind of referred to. And it just sort of showed me that, you know, movement of people goes in all directions and for all reasons for centuries, so it's not anything new. And the English were refugees in India at this point. It was, you know, the sort of. Again, the tables were returned at this point. So English people were fleeing off to Asia. So Thomas Stevens, he's a fascinating character, and he's a refugee because, of course, Elizabeth, Protestant England, Catholic persecution, and Thomas Stevens was a Catholic. And so he flees England, he goes off to Portugal, and then he gets on a Portuguese ship, goes off to India, and he spends the rest of his life there, some 40 years. He settles in Goa, and he essentially goes as a Jesuit priest to. To proselytize Christ. But also what's particularly fascinating about him is that he's quite a scholarly figure. So Thomas Stevens, he goes there, spends the rest of his life there, and he goes out of his way to learn the languages of India, particularly Konkani and Marathi. And he not only writes a grammar book of these languages, but he also writes this magnificent epic poem called the Krista Purana, or the Story of Christ in Konkani and Marathi. And it's an incredible piece of work, and it's to make the story of Christ accessible to Indians, particularly Brahmin, Hindu, Brahmins, but also, it's just. It's a remarkable work because this is the first work by an Englishman in a. First major literary work by an Englishman in an Indian language. And it's. You know, we talk about John Milton and Paradise Lost, but I think this one. And, you know, we need to be talking more about this poem. And to this day, it's a. It's a highly respected poem that basically tells the story of Christ, but in an Englishman who arrives in India as this religious refugee and goes out of his way to learn the languages to effectively become Indian and then produce this epic work.
- [16:05]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
After Thomas Stevens, the first Englishman to travel extensively in India is Ralph Fitch. Why did he go? What was his story?
- [16:17]
Dr. Lubaba Alazami
So Ralph Fitch went as a trader. So he went with a group of English traders. They included a painter, a jeweler, a number of people who are specialized in various things. And so they went on an overland route. They didn't voyage around Africa the way most people were getting to India by this time, but they. They went on an overland route across the Mediterranean, went across Syria, and. And so they. They were traveling to India for trade. Now, they came up with some trouble because this. The Portuguese, of course, have reached India before everyone, and they were very, very keen to make India their monopoly. So one of the things that the Portuguese did was they effectively ran a protection racket in the Indian Ocean called the cartaz system. And the cartaz was essential export that ships had to purchase in order to not be attacked by Portuguese vessels. So the Portuguese were very, very particular about not allowing other Europeans, in particular, into India. And this is one of the interesting things about this period is in that, you know, because these people are arriving, the English arrived entirely for trade. The Portuguese arrived primarily for trade, but they did have territories as well, similar with the Dutch. But because they're, you know, a key impetus was trade. Often it wasn't about fighting with Indians or fighting with indigenous people. Often it was about fighting with cousins from Europe. So when Ralph Fitch came along with his compatriots looking to go to India to trade, they get caught by the Portuguese and they get caught at Hormuz. And Hormuz is a big flashpoint right now, but it was. And, you know, particularly right now, it's a big flashpoint because there's. Because of the conflict that's happening, and because it's a key trade route now it's particularly a key trade route in relation to energy and petroleum and that sort of thing. Back in. Back then, in the 17th century and 16th century, Hormuz was, was no less, if not more of a key point of trade. Because this is a time when maritime trade is so immensely important. You don't have air freight or anything like that. So maritime trade and overland trade are the two routes that things move. So the Strait of Hormuz was a key sort of point at which vessels went past. And the Portuguese had occupied this island at Hormuz. It's called Hormuz Island. It's a beautiful island. You should look it up. It's like terracotta. It's an iron rich island. And so what they ensured was every ship that passed through the Strait of Hormuz had to stop at this Hormuz is island and the Portuguese took duties from it and they made an absolute killing from doing that. So, so they had quite an established settlement at Hormuz. Ralph Fitch and his friends get taken over to Hormuz and then they get deported over to India and they get deported over to Goa. And once they get there, they get imprisoned. And the fascinating thing is that Thomas Stevens finds out, right? And this is the first time that Thomas Stevens is encountering someone from his homeland in years. So he gets into action and he actually goes out of his way to get these people bailed. And he promises the Portuguese authorities that no, they're good Christian people, they're not going to abscond, they're very good people. And he, and he posts bail for them and gets them out. And of course, what's the first thing they do? They abscond, right? So they run off and they're very much, and particularly Ralph Fitch runs off. And Ralph Fitch actually then he takes on this fascinating journey where he essentially does a grand tour of Mughal India, of the Indian subcontinent, including doing quite an extensive tour of Bengal. And so it's really, again, you know, this, this particular story and this particular period and particularly the earliest period where you have these individuals going, they're, they're incredible tales and incredible people. They're a little bit mad and you have to be to go that far. But that's what makes it such pleasurable history as well, and such fascinating history that they, you know, these are really quirky characters with, with a great deal of punch in them who, who get up to no good in the pursuit of the riches of India. Now for Thomas Stevens, he wasn't necessarily pursuing the riches of India, he was pursuing the riches of Christ and trying to spread it in India. But Ralph Fitch and, you know, majority of the people who were going There were very much here, you know, here to get rich and, you know, they did whatever was necessary and faced whatever consequences was necessary as well.
- [20:27]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
And is Fitch's account of his travels formative for later future travellers?
- [20:34]
Dr. Lubaba Alazami
They absolutely are. So these earliest travellers, so Fitch and Thomas Stevens are very formative and these are sort of travellers accounts that the East India Company referred to and also their travelers accounts that, that are included in major anthologies of travel writing in this time. So particularly a particularly famous work of travel writing is Hakluyt's Principal Navigations and it's a two volume work. So these account, they're incredibly useful and made use of by the East India Company and they find their ways into this compendium of travel writing by Richard Hakluyt, which is a two volume work. And Richard Hakluyt really compiled this work to encourage England's global turn, to encourage trade in the east, to encourage colonization in the Americas. So Thomas Stevens's letters to his father and his brother are included in this anthology and Ralph Fitch's memoirs are also included. And so, yeah, they absolutely play a sort of formative role in England's turn to India. And particularly when the East India Company begins its first voyages in India, they have nothing to turn to apart from these, right? I mean, they turn to Portuguese accounts. But in terms of English accounts, these are the formative English accounts that help inform those first voyages.
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Professor Susannah Lipscomb
We should mention the East India Company now, shouldn't we? Really, tell me about the foundation of it.
- [21:46]
Dr. Lubaba Alazami
The East India Company is a fascinating company. Around this time, around Queen Elizabeth's time and continuing through the Stuarts as well, you had this proliferation of trading companies and these trading companies were another mark of England's global turn in this period, particularly post Reformation. And so the East India Company is one of these trading companies and one of the key trading companies that emerges in this time. It's founded in 1600 during the reign of Elizabeth I. They tried to establish it in 1599. Elizabeth wasn't so keen and that's because she was particularly focused on the Ottoman trade. By 1600, she agrees to give this royal charter. So the East India Company comes into being. And interestingly, the, you know, we know of the East India Company as this company that's focused on India and it goes on to, of course, colonize India in the 18th century. But interestingly, the East India Company did not go to India in the beginning and it was not aiming for India in the beginning. Its first couple of voyages actually went off to Indonesia. And this brings up a couple of interesting points about this history and this period and that region in the English imagination that India was actually very capacious to. It meant pretty much anything in the Indian Ocean. So it wasn't just India as we know it today. It wasn't even just India as the Mughal Empire, it was just this entire region.
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Professor Susannah Lipscomb
It's the Indies, I suppose, isn't it? That's the way to think about it.
- [23:08]
Dr. Lubaba Alazami
Yeah, absolutely. So it's the Indies and then after Columbus you end up with the East Indies and the West Indies as well. So the West Indies is the Americas, the East Indies is in the Indian Ocean. And of course the West Indies emerges because Columbus was trying to get to India and he thought he'd arrived there and, you know, he, he called it the West Indies. Well, that's how the West Indies came into being. So East India Company were actually aiming for Indonesia and that's where they went first. And there's a very, very clear reason for that. Because the sort of, you know, most lucrative commodity of this time, the crude oil of this time, if you will, was spices. And spices, I don't mean a drug, I mean literal spices. Spices as in whole spices, cloves, cardamoms, the sort of thing that you pick up in your local supermarket and have in your store, cup note now in your kitchens. But at this time, this was sort of the most prized commodity of the time. And it was not just for culinary reasons, but it. That it was used for medicinal purposes. So it was quite a Cree commodity. And a lot of these whole spices could only be found in the Indonesian archipelago. So particularly things like cloves, mace, nutmeg. These particular spices were highly coveted and only located in those islands. So England first went to Indonesia. Now when they got to Indonesia, they found that the Indonesians don't like their wool either, right? And it was the Indonesians who pretty much first rejected their wall. Indonesia is a very, is a, is a very warm region. So the English go there, they, they roll up very cheerfully with their bolts of broadcloth and find absolutely no one wants that stuff. But then, so again they're examining the markets and what they find is that they don't like broadcloth, but they love these cotton calicos that are coming from India. So that kind of, of instigates the East India Company to rebound off of Indonesia to go off to India. And they particularly, and this is quite a key point to consider that when it came to navigation, when it came to observing markets, they very much tried to attune themselves to what indigenous people are doing, right? So when it comes to navigation and trying to reach these regions, they'd hire indigenous guides for along the way. And when they got to Indonesia, they observed the markets to see who's selling what. And they saw that Gujarati trademark traders from India were coming with cotton, which enjoyed a roaring trade in Indonesia's markets. And so they were trading cotton for spices and taking them off back to India. So the English basically learned from that observation and they went off and they rebounded off to India. And so the first voyage from The East India Company The East India Company's founded in 1600, but the first voyage direct to India arrives in 1608.
- [25:52]
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- [27:41]
Rakuten Advertiser
Big savings are in the air. Don't miss your chance at 15% cash back during Rakuten's big give week. Shop and get rewarded at your favorite stores like ulta, Blue Apron, KitchenAid and hundreds more. So go ahead and refresh your closet, spruce up your home, book that trip and much more. But 15% cash back is only from May 4th to 11th, so join now. Go to rakuten.com or download the Rakuten app to join for free and start that's R A K U T E N.
- [28:25]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Just going back a little bit. We've mentioned Ralph Fitch before. He doesn't manage to secure an audience with the Emperor Akbar, who is the first Englishman to meet the Mughal emperor.
- [28:39]
Dr. Lubaba Alazami
So the East India Company's first voyage, that was in 1608. The person who captained that was a fascinating, fascinating character called William Hawkins. And so Hawkins manages to secure an audience with the Emperor who's in charge then. And it's not Akbar anymore by then, it's Jahangir, Akbar's son. And I think again, you know, it's significant that you know Ralph Fitch, you know, he goes to India. Thomas Stevens and Ralph Fitch, they both go to India during the reign of Akbar and then the East India Company arrives tribes during the reign of Jahangir. Akbar is the first emperor of the Mughal golden age in terms of a stable and settled empire. So the English really came when India was doing very, very well. And then Jahangir continued in his father's sort of leisurely reign. So William Hawkins manages to secure an audience with Jahangir and he manages to gain some favor. He's a fascinating character and there's some very clear reasons why he was hired. He is quite likely a nephew of John Hawkins, who was one of the English sea dogs, one of the great privateers. I say great. He was a slave trader. So you know, by great it's yes,
- [29:45]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
he's somewhat infamous as well. I think it's fair to say he's
- [29:48]
Dr. Lubaba Alazami
somewhat infamous is perhaps the better term. So he was one of England's earliest slave traders, but he was one of the very infamous and well known privateers of this time who served Elizabeth and was sponsored by Elizabeth. So William Hawkins kind of comes from this sort of of Voyaging, exploratory stock in terms of his family, but also he had spent time in Turkey, he spent time in the Ottoman Empire, and so he spoke Turkish, and the lingua franca of the Islamic worlds included Persian, Turkish and Arabic. And so he was a useful person to have to send because he spoke Turkish, and that was a language that would probably fly in the Mughal court. And it did. And that was one of the things that Jahangir found quite fascinating, that essentially a white man rolling up, speaking Turkish, that was one thing that really managed to ingratiate himself, him at court. Another thing is that, again, he's another chameleon in that he goes to India and he absolutely loves the place and he absorbs Indian customs and cultures and cuisines and clothing, and he basically tries to become Indian. And this is the story of so many of these early arrivals in India that they're just so. They admire the empire so much and are so fascinated by it and so aspirational of it that they try to. To basically become native to this region. So William Hawkins comes along, he speaks Turkish, he takes up Indian clothing, he takes up Indian cuisine, and the emperor kind of sets him up as minor nobility, very minor, but he basically sets him up with a household with a small cavalry, and he becomes known as an English khan. So Khan is sort of a figure of mine and nobility, so he really does manage to ingratiate himself at court. And so the first impression that the English gave in the Mughal court wasn't too bad, but it does kind of fall apart later. But the earliest moments wasn't too bad. Jahangir is basically treating William Hawkins like a candle. So he's. He's dressing up this man in Indian clothes, he's feeding him, he's setting him up in his Indian ken house, and he's like, He's. He's having the time of his life. And then he says, you know, seeing as you're becoming so Indian, how about an Indian wife? Right, let's matchmake you as well. And William Hawkins, at that point, he writes in his memoirs that, you know, I said that I'd be fine with that so long as he's a Christian. And I didn't think they'd have any Christians. And this, again, this shows how. How the English were really learning as they go along, because, of course, India was wildly diverse as it is today, and there's plenty of Christians in India. And so Jahangir says, yes, of course, I've got one of those. And so he matchmakes him with a ward of his royal household called Mariam Khan. And Mariam Khan, she's a. She's of Armenian Christian heritage. Her father was, was a merchant who was respected at court. And so after her father died, she was taken into the Mughal royal household and raised as a ward. So she's, she's a noble woman. She's. She's a la. And she's a lady who is used to a particular style of living, who's used to, you know, a particular degree of authority as well. And so, you know, so this match is made and they marry. And by all accounts, it's quite a. It's quite a happy marriage. Well, by, by all accounts being, by William Hawkins's account, because we don't actually have Moham Khan's account, but William Hawkins is quite, is very happy with his wife. And so, you know, he's, he's really enjoying the Indian life life, but then he manages to screw it up, essentially.
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Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Yes. So I'd love to come back and ask you just a bit more about Madame Khan in just a second, but how does he fall from favor? Because he seems to be doing so well at first, doesn't he?
- [33:11]
Dr. Lubaba Alazami
Yeah. And, and this was a bit unfortunate on his part, but he manages to fall from grace because. So Jahangir, he's. None of these Mughal emperors, apart from Alamgir I, who kind of reigns towards the end of the 17th century, none of these Mughal emperors are particularly related, religious, you know, so. So, you know, they drink. And of course, in the Islamic faith, you know, drinking is not allowed. But Jahangir was a great drunkard and it made him very ill. But then he'd have these bouts of piety where he'd basically go sober and say, I'm not going to drink and no one's allowed to drink. Don't even come to my court with any smell of alcohol on you. William Hawkins missed that memo. So he shows up to court drunk, and this kind of means he falls from grace at court and he also has sort of some. He also has dish agreements. There's also intrigues invol has disagreements with noblemen at court as well. And this kind of, they kind of work against him and that contributes to him falling from grace as well. But a key thing was that he showed up drunk and so he falls from grace from court. And so then he's actually, he's actually told, right, you can go now, we're done with you. And again, it's that dynamic of Jehangu essentially treating him like a Candle, like, I've played with you. I'm tired of you now you can go, you know. So he drops him at that point. So it's again, these early characters who come to India, they're so fascinating and quirky and just entertaining half the time.
- [34:28]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
And one of the consequences of Hawkins being dropped is his attempt to return home. And Mariam Khan becomes the first Indian woman to emigrate from India to England, or at least to try to. What becomes of her?
- [34:48]
Dr. Lubaba Alazami
So this is so, again, a fascinating tale. So William Hawkins, so he's going to go home. Home. Mariam Khan's family is not keen for Mariam to follow him because they're like, we're never going to see her again. So you can't be taking her off to the other side of the world. But the couple actually, they go and they sneak out and they get on an English vessel and they voyage off. So Mariam Khan does become the first Indian noble woman to voyage that, to voyage to England and probably the first Indian woman at all to voyage to England. Because this is very early stages. And one thing that is quite key to highlight in terms of migration is that, you know, when you're voyaging to the other side of the world, it's a very perilous way to travel. So by the time you've arrived in India from England, half your crew is likely to be dead. So the return voyages would. Would involve many Indian sailors that would be hired in India and then brought back to England. So there was very much movement of people. And so from this very, very early stage, you had South Asians coming to England, right? You had, you had migration come, migration taking place, and the, the sort of cosmopolitanism of London, you see these, the foundations of that in this period. So Mariam Khan and William Hawkins, they voyage back to England and William Hawkins doesn't actually make it. He falls ill, he dies, probably of dysentery, which was a really common shipboard illness that, that happened in this time. But Mariam Khan does make it back. And so you can, you can imagine, first of all, this Indian lady, and she's going on this voyage, probably the first one to go on this voyage. It takes a great deal of courage and chutzpah to do that, but rights to go to the other side of the world. And then halfway along the journey she finds that she's on her own, her husband's died, so she's really like, she's entirely on her own. These ships were populated by men. So, you know, the East India Company, particularly In this time, in later periods, you know, in, during the colonial period, you're kind of accustomed to East India Company men taking their families to India. And it's part of the settlement and colonial process. In this period it's only about 20 trade, so women and families are not allowed on these vessels. So Mariam Khan would have been the only woman on this vessel. So she suddenly finds herself alone. However, along the way they met with a couple of other ships, including another East India Company captain called Gabriel Towerson, who William Hawkins knew. And so Mariam and Gabriel Towson kick it off and they sort of establish a bond. So by the time they land in Ireland, which is where they stop before they get and go to London, they're engaged in, engaged. And so in Ireland they, they sort of do Hawkins, they bury Hawkins, do his funeral, and then she goes off to London where she marries Gabrielle Towerson and she, you know, she, she becomes the wife of a second East India Company captain. And one of the things that I like to think about is, you know, this is the first Indian woman in England. And she's come not just from Mughal India, a really wealthy, advanced nation, but she's come from the royal court of Mughal India to Stuart England. And so it's very, very like, you can imagine what she's experiencing. She's used to tree lined streets, she's used to the opulence of an imperial household. And now she's in Stuart England where it's kind of smelly and there isn't a great deal of hygiene and it's very, very cold. So she's having to give up her calicoes and cottons and silks and take on broadcloth, the stuff that her countrymen don't like. So I think even in that, you know, it must have been quite an experience for, but you know, she, she manages, she stays there for a few years with her husband. She, you know, she makes friends because there, there are, you know, East India Company wives that, you know, they're a community. So she makes friends. So you know, she, she manages it, she, she toughs it up.
- [38:28]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
There's one other character I particularly like to talk to you about today, which is Sir Thomas Rowe. And a personal recollection, if I may. I, I've been fascinated by Rowe for a very long time. Even when I was doing my undergraduate degree, I was reading up about him. He's the first official English ambassador to India. So he's such an interesting character, very different to Hawkins. And actually I was reflecting when you were speaking earlier about Hawkins great embrace of Indian culture and customs. Rowe does exactly the opposite. And I almost think it might still be fair to say that most, most European travelers to India take one of those two responses. Certainly over the sort of history of the encounter between the two nations. It's been all in one way or the other. So who is Ro? What are the goals of his embassy?
- [39:25]
Dr. Lubaba Alazami
So Ro, the consummate Englishman abroad, shall we say, so row. He's. So he's, as you say, the first English ambassador to India. So he is sent from the court of James I and he arrives in 1615, stays until 1690 and exactly as you say, if William Hawkins is a chameleon, Sir Thomas Rowe is the epitome of the stiff upper lip Englishman abroad. So he goes to India and he is very. And you. I, you know, I, I actually admire him for how stiff he is. This is a man who does not, who does not concede anything. So he goes to India and he's like, right, I'm here to represent my monarch, so I'm going to be English in every possible way, even if it kills me. And it almost did kill him because he goes to India, India, and in the hot Indian climb and decides that the way forward is to wear taffeta and stiff ruffs and full English wear in that weather. So he made himself very, very ill by it. And you know, at certain points he was sort of given over for dead, like he would not recover. That's how ill he made himself. But he, he, absolutely, he, he did his best. He, he went to India. He was very, he was very devoted to his task of essentially securing a trade treaty from the Mughals. And he spent four years, he, he spent four years at the court of Jahangir, Jahangir along during his roving courts as well. So the Mughal emperors, with the seasons, they'd move off to a different part of town. So they'd move. So Jahangir rather liked going to Kashmir during the warmer seasons. But also the Mughals had began as a nomadic. Their roots were in, as a peripatetic sort of community and a nomadic community. So the Mughals started off in that, it sort of as a moving people. And then when they went to India, it was Akbar who kind of moved into this buildings. So the founding emperor Babur, his son Humayun, they basically enjoyed living in tent cities and gardens. They really loved gardens rather than buildings. Akbar is the one who moved the Mughals into buildings, but they still kept that peripatetic tradition alive. Whenever they travel, they travel with their entire court. So we're talking cities of tents moving across this massive, massive empire. So Thomas Rowe would often accompany Jahangir on these kind of tours that he took, these sort of progresses that the emperor took. But he was very stiff in terms of his engagements. They didn't really like to engage in the diplomatic protocols of Mughal India, for example. So one of the very established traditions in this region, not just in India, but also in Central Asia and Persia and elsewhere, was the hilat, which is like a cloak. And so it's a robe of honor is how it's often translated, where you go to court and it's kind of a mark of honor that the emperor will give you his cloak or the governor or whoever will give you the cloak that they're wearing, wearing as a sort of mark of respect. So when Ro is offered a cloak, he. He kind of takes it very grudgingly, but he. And he's very uncomfortable wearing it because he feels that by wearing that, he's becoming Indian. And he's very, very keen on retaining his English identity, his stiff upper lip. Similarly, at court, William Hawkins speaks Turkish. Thomas Rowe speaks none of no language other than English. And so he has to work through translation. So Thomas Rowe, he particularly had this translator called Jadu. I love that name because that means magic. So he's got this translator called Jadu. Now, translators are all very well, but the problem is when it's a translator that you're depending on, that person is liable to be targeted by your. By those you are competing with. So the Portuguese would target England, the English transl. The translators for the English, and try to sabotage sort of discussions that are taking place at court also. So, you know, and also another great tradition of the Mughal court was every time you arrived or came, you had to present a gift. Now, this gift could be anything, right? Akbar liked cocks because he liked cockfights, right? So he'd actually, you know, he'd bring a bird and he'll. He'd enjoy a nice cockfight. So it wasn't about bringing riches or anything like that. It was basically to bring a curiosity, bring something interesting to. For the emperor. Thomas Rowe, as a merchant ambassador, saw it as obsessive greed on the Mughal's part. And he really struggled with the gift culture. He just couldn't figure out what to give that would entice them. And he would be constantly scrambling to find suitable gifts. And, of course, the English were not that wealthy compared to the Persian ambassadors, for example.
- [43:51]
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- [44:22]
Medicare Announcer
An official message from Medicare I turned 65 this year. I knew it was time to figure out Medicare and I had questions like when to enroll and how to enroll. So I went straight to the official source, medicare.gov to get the facts about Medicare. I found answers to all my questions and I'm ready to get started. And so can you just go to Medicare.gov to get the real facts about Medicare?
- [44:47]
Dr. Lubaba Alazami
Paid for by the U.S. department of Health and Human Services.
- [45:05]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
And also, isn't there something about the quality of the gifts that he brings? I mean, the carriage that is his great sort of prize. Yep. You know, has to be refurbished before the emperor will step into it.
- [45:17]
Dr. Lubaba Alazami
It was terrible. My goodness. So, so he arrives with. So the main gift that Thomas Rowe is given is this English carriage. And it's like a big deal. You know, they've sent a whole carriage and someone to drive it as well. So they really feel that, you know, this is an important thing that we've given. They've lined it with china velvet and all of that. And so he's very proud of it. And the English are very proud that this is the great gift that we've brought. And the emperor. So they present it to the emperor and the emperor actually gets down from his throne and examines it and gets his people to examine it and then says, is the English king such a great king who sends gifts of so small value? That's actually what Ro records in his memoirs, the poor man. And then the emperor goes out of his way to get this thing fully refurbished. He pulls all of the. Because by the time it's reached him, the china velvet inside has kind of rotted away. It's become brown and basically, basically degraded along this long voyage and everything. So he gets it fully refurbished. He gets all this velvet pulled out. He replaces it with silk, with printed silk. He replaces all the brass nails with solid silver nails, and he goes out of his way to make it completely opulent to perm standards. And he dresses up the, the, the person who's driving it as well in, in opulent clothes as well. And then it's like, now I'm happy with this gift. And a key point about this also is that not only does he refurbish it to make it worth Mughal standards, and that in itself shows a dynamic. Shows the dynamic between England and India, but then he gifts that to his wife, Queen Nurjahan. And so that in itself shows the authority of the queen rather than the king in Mughal India, and particularly in relation to these international relations and these trading negotiations.
- [47:02]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
I wanted to ask you a bit more about Nur Jahan. We've talked about her on previous episodes on this podcast. But how important was it for Rowe that he fostered a relationship, relationship with the Emperor's wife?
- [47:15]
Dr. Lubaba Alazami
It was wildly important because Nurjahan was the most influential of Mughal empresses. And during the reign of Jahangir, she was essentially the co sovereign with the emperor. And a mark of her co sovereignty, for example, is that within, within Mughal India and other Islamic societies as well, the mark of the, of imperial authority, the mark of the emperor was that he minted coins in his name. And so whoever the coins are minted in whose name, that's the ruler, Noor Jahan minted coins in hell her name. Right. And often they'd be minted in these silver coins. And of course, as we said, England is trading in silver, right? So they're coming to Mughal India, they're minting their coins in the Mughal mints, and then they, and then they're using those silver coins to purchase goods. So those coins, you know, many of those coins would have been minted with, with Nujahan's name. So there's a very direct connection between English trade and the queen. But also at the very top of the discussions and the negotiations, Rou finds that it's not the king he has to impress, it's the queen. So he spends, you know, his time in India constantly trying to negotiate with the queen and, and really struggling. So he, he goes out of his way to try to find what, what gifts the queen likes rather than the king to keep the queen happy so that she will approve the. She will approve these trade relations and encourage her husband to. So, you know, Nurjahan, she liked lace, she liked hats, she liked pictures. He'd procure all these things to send to the queen. And I think a key thing to note is that when I'm researching this particular history and I'm writing about it, the queens consistently emerge as very, very significant, particularly in relation to trade. So when we look at history, I think it's quite crucial that we sort of give a cross section and give the various voices to develop that mosaic or collage of what history is and the various nuances of it. And throughout this period that I cover, the queens are hugely influential because in Mughal India, the international trade was not centralized. It was usually private traders who engaged in it, because the Mughal kofirs were, were not funded by international trade, they were funded by land taxation. It was an agrarian economy. So trade was kind of left to individual private traders. So Gujaratis were significant traders, but the most significant traders of Mughal India were the queens and the princesses. They were the most powerful. Powerful, not just politically, but in terms of trade. So Noor Jahan had ships in the Indian Ocean. Jahangir's mother, Mariama Zamani, she had the largest ship in the entirety of the Indian Ocean. It was called the, the Rahimi. So the Rahimi was, was. This was the largest vessel in the Indian Ocean. You could see it from miles off. And it was such a significant vessel that whatever was the cartaz rate of the Portuguese for the Rahimi was the rate for all the other ships. So the queens were very directly engaged in trade. Noor Jahan had ships, but also she used to, she used to build caravanserais, which is on the overland route of trade. She used to set up these caravanserais for traders and merchants to take rest. So, you know, they're very much engaged in trade. She used to take all the duties for the, for the merchants that came into Agra, into the Mughal capital. So in that sense, the queens were very, very much engaged in trade at the highest levels. And so the English came and they thought, we have to negotiate with the king. And then they found actually we have to negotiate with the queens. And it's not just negotiating with them, but also keeping them sweet. Because if you cross hairs with the Queen's trade, that could really destroy things for you. And that was one of the things that destroyed things for William Hawkins as well. Right. So it wasn't, you know, he showed up drunk, there was court intrigue. But another key thing that happened was one of his English traders outbid the Queen Mother in, in Bayana to purchase indigo. And the Queen mother was livid and she made, and her son became livid when she told him and Hawkins got a thorough dressing down at court for doing that. So, yeah, so Noor Jahan, Mariam Al Samani, the queens were hugely important and the English found that when they arrived in.
- [51:06]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
We know that Jahangir does not mention Rou in his journals at all, so we must conclude that the ambassador made relatively little impression on the emperor. What did Rowe make of Jahangir?
- [51:19]
Dr. Lubaba Alazami
Oh, he couldn't stop talking about him. This is where the records are. So interesting because, you know, you might think that what matters is what's said is what is said, but what equally matters is what is not said. And the disparity between the Emperor's memoirs and Rose memoirs are really stark. Row is there talking about Mughal court in such immense detail. He's really just observing it and drawing pictures in writing of the Mughal court and how it functions and what people wear and where people stand and all that sort of thing, and how. And all about the Emperor and all his. He includes very detailed discussions with the Emperor and of course, the emperor doesn't include any of those in his account. What he does include is the carriage. He does mention the carriage, but he mentions it and he says that the Franks gave it, the French gave it, so. So he calls the English French, but at the same time, the Mughals did tend to refer to Europeans as French, so they weren't particularly careful about distinguishing. But for Rou, his account is very, very detailed, whereas for Jahangir, his account is very sparse. And bearing in mind, this is an account which talks about ambassadors, this is an account that talks a lot about ambassadors. It talks about Turkish ambassadors and Puritan ambassadors. So ambassadors matter to the Mughal emperor and he particularly loves to talk about. So he loves to talk about what people give, because this was such a key element of diplomacy that he would often include that. So Ro's carriage gets in. Ro doesn't get in. The diplomatic gift is key, but the diplomat himself is not.
- [52:47]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
And whilst Ro is there, I just want us to make quick mention of another somewhat eccentric traveler who arrives from London.
- [52:55]
Dr. Lubaba Alazami
Yes, my favourite guy.
- [52:57]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Who is he? And does his arrival help or hinder Ro?
- [53:01]
Dr. Lubaba Alazami
And he shares a name, Thomas Cor to. And you know, particularly when you. When you're.
- [53:07]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Lots of people called Thomas.
- [53:08]
Dr. Lubaba Alazami
Yes, a lot of people. And particularly in this time. Right. Everyone's called Thomas, but particularly when you mentioned that about the contrast of William Hawkins and Thomas Corat, Sir Thomas Row in the, you know, live in Row's embassy, you have a real contrast, like complete opposite people, but with the Same name, right? They're both Thomas. So Thomas Corat is England's first tourist in India. And what's particularly. What particularly makes him fascinating is that he's a walking tourist. So what he first did was before going to India was he did a walking tour of Europe. He wrote this book called Kat's Crud, and it became a bestseller and it made him very, very popular. Now, Thomas Corat is. Was a consummate performer and he just loved to be well known and famous, and he just loved. He just loved people to know about him. He just was. Sought fame. So he used to. He used to love doing orations. He'd do these dramatic or to crowds and just to get that attention. He also served in the court of Prince Henry, the eldest son of King James. Henry, of course, died, and then it went to Charles I. He served in the court of Prince Henry. And he was essentially a sort of unpaid court jester. So this guy lived to entertain. So he goes to India and he's. When his tour of Europe did so well, he thought that, okay, this did. This did me very well. So you know what? I'm going to do that. I'm going to walk to India. And he actually does that. He crosses across the Mediterranean by sea, and then he proceeds to walk, cutting, going across Iraq and Persia and then reaching India. And he's a consummate chameleon. This is a man who. He's traveling on very little. He's spending about a penny a day basically living off the kindness of strangers. He's learning languages along the way. He's sharing whatever cuisine people have along the way and sitting with them. He's giving orations along the way. So the people traveling with him, he would travel by caravan. So the large roving caravans that would travel. And that's a tale in itself. Very, very fascinating how travel worked in this time. So you can imagine the people he's traveling with. They're either very entertained or very irritated because of this man and his endless orations. And so he reaches India, and once he gets to India, by the time he reaches India, you can't distinguish him from the Indians around him. He just looks like a traveling dervish. His clothes are. He's wearing like local robes, but they're very dusty and ripped up. He's speaking local languages. So he's really, really fascinating. And he and Rowe actually know each other from back in London because he kind of moved in these royal diplomatic circles, except Thomas Rowe kind of retained that image. And Thomas Correat sent It out the window. Coryat kind of reaches India before Roe does. He reaches in 1613. And then when Rowe arrives, he gets very happy. He's like, yay, someone I know. So he goes and he visits Rowe and he just basically shacks up with him uninvited and. And stays for as long as he likes and basically living off the ambassador and eating his food and just enjoying being there and not having to spend any money. And so one thing that he does is that whereas Ro is very stiff in. In terms of his courtly appearances and his engagements with the Mughal emperor, and he's working through translators and he's wearing his English clothes, you know, Koreat rolls up in robes and he actually goes out of his way to spend six months to learn Persian for the sole reason of he wants to speak to the emperor. Now, the emperor would come to his. Would do a public audience every day, so anyone could come and talk to the emperor. He'd basically be in his balcony and anyone could come and petition for things and ask for things. So Koreat goes out of his way, spends six months learning Persian, he gets himself a tutor and then he goes to one of these audiences and he delivers a banging oration to Jahangir in Persian and he presents himself. I'm a traveling dervish. I have come to see your ancestor Tamburlain. I've come to see the greatness of your land. I've come to ride on it. An elephant. And he actually did want to ride on an elephant. That was a key reason he went to India. So he. He gives off this massive oration in Persian. And Jahangir, the man who likes to be entertained, was so entertained, he gave him a bag of silver, like 100 pieces of silver, and he just drops it down from the balcony. And Koryat is, of course, absolutely elated because this man is broke and he needs money and he just got 100 silver pieces from the Indian monarch himself. So he's very, very happy. Thomas Row is very, very not. Thomas Row said, you are shaming our country. You are behaving in this manner where you're mimicking them, you are begging them for money. And he was very, very upset and they had. They have a fallout because of this. But Koreat says, I responded to him in a very stout manner because I needed the money. So they, again, very, very different, different people. But one thing that really comes out from this particular encounter is that Coriat understood the assignment and Ro didn't. Koryat understood that in Mughal India, engaging with Mughal customs and absorbing Mughal tradition is what was appreciated. Right. So he goes to Jahangir and speaks his language and delivers an oration and basically appeals to the Emperor on his own terms. And so you know what Ro spends four years trying to do, and he can barely get anything out of the Emperor in these four years of diplomacy. Koreat spends one interview. Interview and gets a bag of silver. And so that, again, just shows the shows. Yeah, shows the dynamic of these early travelers. The ones who really made headway were the ones who turned Indian.
- [58:25]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
That's right. In the end, Ro gets the small concession of permission to open a series of factories, warehouses in Indian towns and establish a permanent base at the port of Seurat. So the English have a right to try trade. And this is sort of the beginning of the story, as it were. But one of the things that Rose says is an observation about how to proceed in India, which I think is so interesting. He, and I quote says, let this be received as a rule that if you will profit, seek it at sea and in quiet trade. For without controversy, it is an error to affect garrisons and land wars in India. And of course, his wise advice is not listened to. And the rise of the East India Company over the next century and a half is based on the exercise of violence on land. But that probably is another story. I wonder, maybe you'll come back and talk to me another time and we can chat about that. What do you say?
- [59:17]
Dr. Lubaba Alazami
Oh, I'd totally be up for that. It's a fascinating story of the rise of the East India Company from these very scattered beginnings, which, as you say, Ro said, we're not here to fight, we are just here to trade. And this is what we should focus on. But things change from there, doesn't it?
- [59:31]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Absolutely. Well, Dr. Alazami, thank you for joining me. You're the author of Travellers in the Golden Realm and I have so enjoyed talking to you about these early beginnings of the English in India, and I hope we get to speak again before too long.
- [59:45]
Livy Dunn
Thank you.
- [59:45]
Dr. Lubaba Alazami
Thank you very much. It's been an absolute pleasure.
- [59:48]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Thank you for listening to this episode of Not Just the Tudors From History hit. Thanks also to my researcher, Max Wintle and my producer, Rob Weinberg. We are always eager to hear from you, including receiving your brilliant ideas for subjects we can cover. So do drop us a line@notjusthetudorshistoryhit.com and I look forward to joining you again for another episode. Next time on Not Just the Tudors From History, hit.
- [60:24]
Dr. Lubaba Alazami
An official message from Medicare.
- [60:27]
Medicare Announcer
I turned 65 this year. I knew it was time to figure out Medicare and I had questions like when to enroll and how to enroll. So I went straight to the official source, medicare.gov to get the facts about Medicare. I found answers to all my questions and I'm ready to get started. And so can you just go to Medicare.gov to get the real facts about Medicare?
- [60:49]
Dr. Lubaba Alazami
Paid for by the U.S. department of Health and Human Services.