Empire: World History - 216. Seeds of British India: England’s First Ambassador to the Mughal Court

Episode Date: December 31, 2024

What do you buy for a man who has everything?  Thomas Roe is tasked with wooing the Emperor Jahangir. On March 6th 1615, he sets sail from England on the 8 month voyage to the Mughal Empire, home to one fifth of the world’s population. He has been sent by James I and the East India Company on a diplomatic mission to improve trading relations. The English envy the fabulously rich Emperor Jahangir whose personal wealth is ten times that of the national revenue of England at the time. Expecting to be greeted as a diplomat, Roe arrives in India and is forced to undergo a customs check. He is ill and accompanied by a badly behaved cook and a drunk chaplain. He hasn’t even reached court in Ajmer and everything seems to be going wrong. Will he succeed in his mission to win over Jahangir? Listen as Anita and William are joined by Nandini Das, author of Courting India: England, Mughal India and the Origins of Empire, to discuss the grumpy ambassador’s stay at Jahangir’s court and how it shaped the East India Company. Twitter: @Empirepoduk Email: [e-mail] Goalhangerpodcasts.com Assistant Producers: Anouska Lewis & Alice Horrell Producer: Callum Hill Exec Producer: Neil Fearn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you want access to bonus episodes, reading lists for every series of Empire, a chat community. Discounts for all the books mentioned in the week's podcast, add free listening and a weekly newsletter, sign up to Empire Club at www.mpowerpoduk.com. St. Stephen's Hall, the echoing reception area of the Westminster Parliament, is decorated with a series of sprawling 1920s murals entitled The Building of Britain. This sequence illustrates what was then regarded as the greatest turning points of British history, such as King Alfred's defeat of the Vikings. One of these murals, painted by William Rothenstein, contains a fresco that purports to show the beginning of British diplomatic relations with India.

The painting shows Britain's first ambassador to India, Sir Thomas Rowe, being received by the Mughal Emperor Jahangir in 1614. the image depicts a meeting of equals. Roe is raffish, confident and self-possessed in his hos and Jacobian breeches, standing before the emperor airily waving a letter from James I. He's wearing theatrical buckled shoes and a dashing cape, and he looks Jahangir in the eyes. He trumpet blows and courtiers bow. Jehungia looks dazzled.

As the caption puts it, Rose succeeds by his courtesy and firmness at the court of Ajmir in laying the foundations of British influence in India. Don't do that ever again. Hello. Hello. Welcome to Empire. That was very good.

No, I mean, something very Bertie Worcester at the end. Don't do that again. It is Empire. In case you just thought you'd tuned into Edwardian Jackanori, this is empire with me, Anita Arnan. And me, William Duripur. Yes, okay. So that's, I mean, that's something that you wrote a while ago.

about this. This is a really exciting episode for us because we've already talked a little bit about Johan gear and we sort of fell out in the last episode. We never fall out. We often disagree. Well, I mean, we basically fall out every day. But on this occasion, it was about the fact that you thought Johan gear was... David Attenborough.

David Attenborough. And I thought he had the makings of a chainsaw killer. Hannibal Lecter. And he was like a mean kid who like cutting things up. for the sake of it. And that was right. Well, I don't know. We're going to find out

because there's somebody I trust implicitly who's on the programme to sort this out. We haven't grown up in the room. As when these episodes happen and we fall out, we decide to get somebody

who we both respect to adjudicate. Enormously in this case. And then literally agree with me. It is, it is the fabulous Nandanidas, the magnificent author, runner up of this year's Wolfson Prize. You was robbed.

You was robbed. He was robbed. We have a fabulous courting India, which is about this moment. that William just Bertie Worcester just through the start of a relationship between Britain and India that will then morph into what will eventually become the Raj. First of all, welcome, Andy. We haven't heard your voice yet.

Hello, hello, hello. It is very early and we're very grateful that you're joining us. Anita, thank you. I'm still voiceless. I'm recovering from Willie's reading. She's going to take Anita's sign I can see already. Some of us will never recover nothing. There'll be support groups springing up around the country.

You don't understand. We were at the Wolfson together. We're great mates now. You're in big trouble. I sadly was far away in Cochin when you were. I have to say it's one of the quieter parties, it's fair to say it. Well, you weren't there, so it definitely was. It's a very esteemed prize.

For those who you don't know the Wolfson, it is for, you know, the glory of glories. It is the glory of the world of writing history. And the pride, I felt, sort of, you know, there were. you know, two South Asian women. First of all, women, hello. Hello, what the short list. It was great. And then sort of brown women.

I was very, very delighted by it who were writing about Asia. But there were more South Asian women you said on the shortlist than they were at the party. Yes. Thanks for sharing that. But yes, true story. Anyway, Nandini, so the story of courting India is the story of the said painting that William was talking about as well, which is this phenomenal relationship. that develops between a man called Sir Thomas Row, who is a diplomat, and Jahangir, who is either the greatest brown Attenborough of our day or bit nuts.

Anyway, so the great mogul leader. First of all, just tell us why this relationship is the bedrock for everything that follows. I mean, it sounds like quite a tall claim. We should also just maybe butt in here to say that you cut me off before I came to the climax of that reading, which is the point that that whole... That's gone on for a while. That's true. But the whole thing hinged on the next sentence, which was nothing could have been further from the truth. The idea of the embassy presented by the mural. The fact was, and this is what Ndadiq tells us. Well, I just want to hear from her now.

Tell us. Tell us. Was there anything that the British made up in that mural was not true? Well, I kind of like to think of it as a before and after picture. And this is the after bit. you know, the photoshopped version of the story. So part of it is true. Rowe did have a petition in hand which he waved at Jahangir,

and he did meet Jihangir. The awestruck look on Jihangir's face, perhaps not so much. Yeah, because I mean the reason Roe is interesting is because he writes in my new, well like Jihangir does about every day that happens to him. Absolutely. And you certainly don't get the impression from Rowe's writing,

and definitely not from Jahangir's, that Jahangir was in awe. at all and that Roe thought he was in awe at all. And the lovely thing is that while, as you say, Ro writes a great detail about everything that happens to him on this trip and every nuance of Jahangir's reaction to him and everything else, Jehungir doesn't even bother mentioning him once in his memoir. Well, this is the most glorious thing and also really frustrating for anyone trying to write about these two people, because I'd have pages and pages of Roe writing in his diary about every little thing Jahangir did or war,

Jahangi's love of bling, Jahangi's love of his pet cranes, all kinds of stuff. And I turned to the same pages in Jahangir's memoirs. You could pretty much track them day by day, and all he's talking about is the mating habits of his pet cranes. Yes, he was obsessed for those. No sign at all of the English ambassador.

Like David Attenborough, as we say. First of all, let's, because we're kind of leaping into the middle of a story of way where I think we ought to sketch. out a little bit of who we're talking about. So first of all, let's just talk about, because clearly we're going to get to this relationship, which will be uneven and misreported in years to come. But tell us who we are talking about in the form of Thomas Row, because we've talked about Jahangir quite a lot in the last episode. Who is he? What's his origin story? And why is he important? Well, I guess, you know, quite a few people when Roe gets appointed as the first

English ambassador to be formally sent out by the country. would have been asking exactly the same thing. Who the hell is he? Who is this guy? Yeah. Very, very bluntly put, he's a young man with very good connections. Never goes wrong as a formula for success. He's best mates with Prince Henry, who's the Crown Prince,

or had been the Crown Prince, still he played too much tennis and then died. We should perhaps explain at this point that we're talking about the 17th century rather than today, because it does sound... See, I inhabit the 17th century, so I forget about that. Thank you, Will. Yes. Okay, deep breaths. Let me set the scene. Elizabeth I died. James I first of England, James the sixth of Scotland is on the throne. So this is around 1603. It takes the fairly early East India company. This is a fledgling trading company about 10 years to convince James that they really

can't do without a man on the ground in India. If they need to bring home all the fancy stuff that English buyers want. You know, all the wool and gold and pearls and everything, and also the spices to spice of English food. James doesn't want to go down that route at first for a very, very simple reason, which is that he's completely broke at this point. I mean, he's having to sell knighthoods to earn some money into the crown's coffers. But ultimately, they come to this deal around 1614, which is that the East India Company, this new trading company, which has only been in a operation for about a little bit more than a decade at this point, is going to bankroll the embassy, and James is simply going to rubber stamp it. And the reason for that is that Jahangir doesn't

otherwise, won't give the English the time of the day. They're too small an entity, you know, this tiny little island somewhere. Can you just, in a second, give us a little sketch of the relative size and importance of, on one hand, the Mogul Empire, and on the other hand, England in, what are we talking about, 1610 when the idea comes to a head? Yeah. So, I mean, in terms of size, you know, England is a mere spot in comparison to the vast expanse of the Mughal Empire, 150 million square miles almost. And 150 million people. So it's a huge stretch. A fifth of mankind, in fact, is ruled by the Mughals at this point, which is quite a huge

It is. But for the English, the main thing that interested them at this point, of course, is money. And there I had my favorite factoid, courtesy of one of the East India Company merchants on the ground, who's doing exactly that, trying to give the English in London a sense of the scale of the Mughal Empire compared to themselves. And he writes that the personal revenue of the Mughal emperor, which is Jhangir at this point, is the equivalent of 54 million sterling pounds, which is about 10 times the entire national revenue of England. That's a great fact. That's a very good one.

Isn't that great? That's astonishing. This is Jahangir's own income, not the countries, just one individual. One thing you haven't mentioned about Thomas Roe, and I won't hold it against you because I've come to like you, Nandini, is that Thomas Roe was an Essex boy. I mean, we very rarely get a look in as an Essex girl, so these claims to fame. And is buried in said marshes to this. day. Yeah. But Roe is interesting, as you say, because he has influence. But he also,

the East India Company, who have to bankroll his visit, they are quite pissed off about it because the prospect of having to pay for somebody to go and impress Jahangir's court and not be in their control. There's a slight tear going on here. They're not delighted that the king is getting involved and that Roe is going out. Not initially anyway, aren't they? Well, actually, initially no one is delighted. And this is the greatest thing about it, because Roe, in the meantime, has also stood for elections for the Parliament and managed to really annoy James I as well by going against his tax raises in Parliament. So James doesn't particularly like him. The people within the East India companies, there's a big faction who think he's just a young man with good

connections, you know, a posh boy who knows the right people. And Nipo Babies, we would put it these days, yes. What is he doing here? Also, his sort of previous travels haven't been an enormous success either. Well, this is the only reason Roe agrees to this embassy because he's sunk. He's basically sold off his estate to go on a wild goose chase to South America before this. To look for Eldorado. To Guyana. Yeah. He's looking for the golden lands and he doesn't find it. He writes back an enormously grumbling letter. He's very good at writing grumbling letters, Anita. I mean, he's the master of the grumble. I revel. I revel in his griping. It's beautiful. He does a good griper. You're really there with him. He's like,

oh, gosh. I felt his pain every step of the way. He made it known that he was suffering. But at that point, when he loses all his money, he's also in love. Yes. He's fallen in love. He's married someone and his mom-in-law hates him. So this is the ultimate kind of fraud for any young man in the make to make a success of his next appointment. And that's what he does. To go and try and make his fortune. Yeah. So he's failed to find El Dorado, and he's now going off to the richest ruler in the world in order to try and recoup his personal fortune, but also to turn around the fiasco of previous attempts

to try and get into the mogul court. Tell us about Hawkins, the previous guy the company had sent out, who wasn't an official diplomat, was just a kind of rollicking sea captain. What happened then? Well, Hawkins is one in a string of figure. English merchants, adventurers, dare we say some of them are fairly close to being conmen who end up at the Mughal court trying to get a trading license which they hopefully then can sell off to the East India Company or act as a third kind of contact between the East India Company

and the Mughal emperor. Hawkins can speak in Persian, he has a smattering of Arabic, he has a long kind of experience in trade. And he reckons the way to get into Jehungi's good crisis is by just, you know, being good company. And he does that. He even gets to the stage where Jahangir marries him off to one of his wards from the harem. Hawkins tries to wheedle out of it by saying, I can only marry a Christian woman. And Jehung get, ah-ha, as it happens, I do have one of those. I've got a nice Armenian.

Here's one I made earlier. So Hawkins is a little bit stuck and he gets married. But the problem for Roe is that when he lands in Surat in his ship and he says, Here I am, the English ambassador, nearly sent by my wonderful king, people just laugh in his face. Because they go, yeah, seen one of those before. We've had one through here not so long ago. The thing about Hawkins, and Hawkins is one of a number of ambassadors. And let's just talk about that before we get onto Roe's start in this new career of trying to woo Jahangir.

it isn't easy, first of all, to woo Jahangir, because, you know, Hawkins is liked by Johangir gives him not only an Armenian girl, but a title. He gives him a title of Khan, so that, you know, there's some want, but he doesn't get those trade deals that he wants. And of him, I think this is a sort of paraphrase and Rose account of Hawkins failure. He says, Hawkins offended the customs of the court by his English pride, unwilling to humble himself as required by their ceremonies. And there is a sort of a theme of that with not just the English pitching it wrong, but others as well. Somebody that we've talked about, Willie, you and I, Jean-Baptiste Tavenier, who also, you know, presents himself to the court. A fancy Frenchman. Fancy Frenchman who sees the Coen-Nor Diamond and is, you know, our first sort of reporter of the Coen-Nor Diamond's existence. But he's also kind of slightly snooty. They've gone to ask for something from the richest country in the world. But he says, Tavernier, in his, the Mughals love ceremonies, but to us it's wasteful and ridiculous. So there is this sort of paternalism, if not snottery about the Mughals from a lot of the, you know, the Portuguese are the same.

Jahangos Kornikov says about the Portuguese ambassador. It turns out the Portuguese ambassador behaved as if he were a sovereign himself. Such impudence was intolerable. So the Europeans behaved high-handedly before Roe, and the Mughals despise them for it. No wonder when Roe turns up going, da-da! And? Well, partly the problem there is that the grammar book that the Europeans are following, tend to believe that ambassadors, particularly are reflections of their monarch.

They're like little sons reflecting the bigger sun in a way. So if they debase themselves in front of, if they do a Cornish or a Thaslim, the elaborate courtly boughs that Mughal custom demands, it means their monarch in absentia is lowering themselves in front of this eastern monarch. Describe that bow. So, I mean, I know what you're talking about, but just for those who haven't, what is this elaborate bow? What does one do to please a muggle?

Well, there are two options at this point. One is that you touch your hand to your forehead while bowing down from your waist three times as you're approaching. And the other is really kneeling down and touching your forehead to the ground in front of the emperor. Neither is an acceptable option for any of these European diplomats. The thing, though, is that the Portuguese really understand the power of the Mughals in a way that the later people post-Roe don't quite, in a sense. And that's why Roe is so important because he, being the king of Grump, he absolutely sets the tone of the European shirtiness, shall we say, when encountering Mughal grandeur. And everyone else after him follows suit. And we should say, shouldn't we, that the Mughal attitude.

to Europeans is not particularly warm. Akbar calls the European immigrants in India an assemblage of savages. Akbar is very charitable about them. He tells his court chronicler, you know, these people are here. What can we do? It is our duty to educate these savages. Yeah. Roundabouts fair play. This is the same rhetoric that will continue within European circles for a while. Yeah. So, I mean, this doesn't bode well for a successful mission. And indeed, when Roe first, reaches Surat. Yeah, it doesn't go well in Surat. I mean, it's just bad, bad, bad. So am I right in saying the Mughal's edition edicts? They don't sell anything to English people without permission, especially not booze because you know what they're like. Yes. And that's partly because

some of the men from the East India Company get drunk and go on a rampage. Wine is cheap. Including Rose Cook, doesn't he? Rose Cook gets sort of arrested for doing sort of soccer hooligan stuff in the streets of Surat. Pretty much. Will you. within 24 hours after landing. I mean, in a way, I can understand why they would go so wild. English ships are not the best things to travel in in this period and you're stuck in that box, that rotting, wooden, creaking box where rats eat at your toes if you lie too still for about eight months. I mean, I'd need a drink. I'm not joking. I mean, I can understand this. You land in Ajmer and you need a drink, but they go berserk, most of them. Rose Cook gets drunk.

and chooses to have a spat in the middle of the road with the governor's brother. Not the right man to pick a fight with in any way. Not at all, but the governor's brother is quite, you know, you can sense from the description. And this is why Rose descriptions and the contemporary descriptions are so handy, because they're so kind of detailed. You can sense from the description that the governor's brother is going, here we go, there's another drunk European on the street. So this man calls out names in proper football hooligan style at this Indian nobleman.

The governor's brother, not just anyone. The nobleman just turns on his horse and says, What do you say to me? The cook sort of takes us, what do you say to me? It just sort of ratches up. What getta means the governor's brother is saying, what is he saying? Yes. Cook's going, what did he just say to me?

And it's just all completely, I mean, it's about to sort of devolve in. to some kind of, you know, punch up on the terraces. Well, also, I mean, Roe goes there thinking that as the English ambassador, he's going to be greeted with a red carpet and trumpets. Instead, he gets a customs inspection. Yes. I mean, the poor man, his dreams are dashed to the ground. And he's sick as a dog.

I mean, you mentioned the crossing. Roe really suffers and is really ill when he arrives in Surin. He's not in the greatest of moods because he's not being treated very well. but he's also feeling sick. I mean, really very sick. And then he has an additional thing to deal with people who want to search his pockets and his crew and a cook who's frankly gone berserk

and created a diplomatic incident within 24 hours. Don't forget that he also has a chaplain who has a habit of getting really drunk. So not good for the moral health of the crew either. I mean, drink remains a theme throughout Rose Embassy. This is Terry who also writes an account of all this. No, this is the chaplain before Terry. Right.

They go through chaplains like rock bands go through drummers. I mean, this is a rather inauspicious beginning to what, you know, is meant to be a beautiful, beautiful relationship, a lucrative relationship. But you've got the Mughals sizing up Roe and his men, not thinking much of them. And, you know, Roe having to cool his heels because he's not getting the invitation into the heart of the empire as he expected to, and also feeling rotten. But he nevertheless finally gets invited to go to Adjmer, where he will, perhaps, get a glimpse of Jahangir himself.

Join us after the break when we find out what happens. Welcome back. So just before the break, we left you with Roe getting a little bit sort of fed up and frustrated and irritable and waiting and waiting for this letter to come that will invite him to make this two-month trip from Surat to Ajmer. It's sort of 600 miles, pretty hostile territory. I mean, Nandani in your book, you describe it very, very well. It's dangerous country, some of this, before he can get to Ajmer.

And a man who is sick after the ship, his health doesn't improve much on this journey, does it? It doesn't. And Rose Health, frankly, doesn't improve throughout his entire embassy. He's a man made of dysentery by the end. And boy, does he tell us all about it. Too much detail at every point. No, I love it. I love that we know the inner workings of his gut and everything else.

This is such brilliant sort of primary source material. It's thrilling to have somebody who you can just imagine who's talking about their last movement being catastrophic. You can trust them. To this day when you meet any English traveller in India, the first thing they'll talk about is their gut movements. Do you use lotomil or what's your immodium? No, but in all seriousness, I mean, do you not find that if somebody is willing to be that frank about things that are that ick, you can kind of trust a lot of what they write down because it's contemporaneous and in that spirit written? It is and you get such a good sense of Rose personal voice from his letters. I have to admit I didn't like to like the man, but I kind of sympathize with

him. He agonizes about his cut movements. He doesn't have enough good wine. His mom doesn't write to him, all kinds of stuff. And most of all, and what's becoming increasingly clear is going to be a big problem, he's got crappy presents. Oh, I love this so much. He is constantly worrying about it. And he blames the company for making him look like a pauper. This whole problem started right back in London where the East India Company got all the advice it needed from its subordinates in India and then promptly ignored all of it. All of it. So they said to them, the East India Company merchants, or as they were called, the factors, wrote to them and said, whatever you do, please do not send another musical organ. We're fine for musical organs, thanks.

But guess what they send? They sent a musical organ, Dundee. That's what they said. They send a musical organ. And a virginal, which is what a kind of harpsichord. Yes, it's a very early version of, if you think about the piano, take off the back and have a single set of strings. It kind of comes close to a virginal. But it's also very, very delicate, not the kind of thing that you soak in seawater in a ship's old for eight months.

And then drag across 600 miles to Ajmer on a back of a back of. a camel. I mean, it's just not, it's stupid. And it sounds like rubbish at the end of it. Well, particularly because there's no one there who can play it. Nobody can play it. They've already seen it. And poor Thomas Roe is in absolute knots going, oh God, I'm going to have to meet him. It's not going well. All I've got is this ruddy version. No, no. Anita, they sent a second present. Yes. Or wasn't lost. Roe had a second present, a showstock, a carriage. This is really fashionable. Former Lord Mayor of London's carriage, no less, wasn't it?

Well, it was the Lord Mayor is commissioned, but it was newly commissioned for this embassy. And in a way, this would have gone down well. They had a track record for this. So Thomas Smyth, who was the governor of the East India Company, had taken a carriage to the Russian Tsar. In fact, that carriage still exists and was used till the 1980s, I think, for state processions. Gosh. It's now in the Kremlin, which is why I couldn't get. permission to use an image in the book.

But... Blocked by Putin personally. But again, the problem was that this was made of wood. And it's creaky and it has velvet. It's, you know, Roe unloads both of these things. And he goes, oh, right, we need emergency artisans to repair both of them before I can give them or bring there anywhere near the Mughal emperor. And the case isn't helped by the governor of Surat, who was the first person to look at the

presents, making snarky comments about the English king, sending a pipe and a cart. That's just so great. I mean, poor Roe, and Ro agonises so frequently about, is he going to like it? Of course, he's not going to like it. It's a crap present, but he might like it. No, he's not going to like it. It's a really crap present, but he might. I mean, he could like it.

No, he's not going to like it. It just goes on and on and on. And the thing is, the presents are important because what? The ambassador presents is the tone that will be, I mean, describe something, like the Persian embassy, for example, the gifts exchanged with the Persian embassy and Jahangir, describe that. They've got some proper bling. I mean, they didn't bring a virginal. What did they bring? This is the thing.

Roe has to stand there. You have to imagine the scene. So this is the Darbar of Jahangir with all its bling, the golden canopies, the elephants, the works, the trumpets. And then Roe is standing there with his petition on the side of the lalbari, the red rope that separates the commoners from the emperor's body. And he has to wait there to present his gifts while the Persians bring in 30 elephants dressed in gold and silver with enormous kind of platters of gold, silver and silk and carpets carried by these said 30 elephants. So he has to wait there while this kind of good strain goes past him. And then he has to bring out his pipe and cart. Hello.

And he also has a pair of hunting doggies. He's just got two dogs rather than 30 elephants. He's got two Irish wolfhads that he's brought with him. Well, Jahangir was rather pleased with hunting dogs because he's hunting man like James I first himself. So that's not bad. But the problem was that Roe did not start off with two. He started off with a whole troupe of hunting dogs.

But, you know, again, 8-1C voyage, dogs in a ship's old. Dogs don't like it either. No. Dogs and virginals and don't like it. But the other thing is that, you know, what is very interesting about Roe is that he knows and he is acutely aware, like any of us who've turned up with a bottle of baby sham to a party where everyone else is bringing Verve Clico. He's sort of like, I'll just put it on the sideboard where no one will notice was mine.

He's sort of squirming in embarrassment and cursing the East India Company. I think this is where you feel for Roe because he takes his job so seriously. He is very honest. Yes, but he also knows. He understands the Mughals better than any of the others. And he doesn't, what's notable is that unlike all of the other ambassadors I mentioned before, he does not once look down on them. You know, right from the start, he writes that this is overwhelming, this opulence is overwhelming.

He writes quite in the praise of Jahangir and what he's like and his person and his sort of nobility and how he... I mean, just to speak to that for a moment because it is very different to the accounts that have hitherto reached Britain of these weirdos, these savages, you know, when they have bling, it's over the top. And they're all disparaging. Roe doesn't react that way. Well, Roe does and doesn't in a way. Roe is very, very torn. Yes, there's quite a lot of criticism in there, isn't there? Yeah, he is very tall.

He likes the bling, but he's not impressed by other things. Yes. What happens with most of these very early travellers is that they absolutely don't have that sense of a power difference that we have post-empirate, in a sense. They are deeply conscious that the Mughal Empire controls about one third of the world's economy at this point. It's hugely powerful. And England, Mulk, Inglesthan, is a tiny dot.

which is barely on its horizons. And the Portuguese have been busy talking the English down, just to add to the Cabo saying it's a mean and impoverished nation. The Portuguese have about an 80-odd years history already in India at this period. So the English are newcomers. So what happens in not just Rose account, but in Hawkins and all the other early accounts, is this weird push-and-pull mixture of absolute or, on the one hand, hand because they're awed by the grandeur of the muggles, but also an immediate mejerk response

to try to cut that oar down to size. So just to give you an example, yeah, go on. Roe talks about in one of the very early moments when he's gone to the Darbar, he talks about the grandeur, he talks about the emeralds, the size of pigeon eggs. He talks about Jahangir's habit of wearing a different set of jewels every day. He talks about the diamonds on Jahangir's shoes, which would buy a country, that kind of stuff. And then he says, well, it's all very well, but isn't this all a bit naff? I mean, it's like a newly rich London merchant's wife who puts her fancy shoes in the dresser alongside her Chinese porcelain so that people can see how rich she is.

I take what you're saying, but because it's so sort of nakedly stupid, you know, the most beautiful woman in the world turns out, yeah, but, you know, I think she's had a nose down. That colour. I mean, I was thinking more of which sort of struck me as different, particularly from Hawkins, I suppose, comparing it to. He talks about Jahangir, and he says he's a man to be won by outward ceremonies and pomp more than solid arguments. The customs of these people, he says about the cultural difference, you know, the customs of these people are not to be despised for by then we must trade or not at all. So he sort of talks in that way, rather than writing back, go, do you know what these weirdos do here, which was seen to be what the ambassadorial missives were before? And also he's aware of his own poverty compared to the moguls.

He knows how shabby he is. And then there's that moment when the worst of all the presence he's been given are these wooded animals. And the emperor says they look ridiculous and ill-shaped and of no beauty other than a lump of wood. Oh dear. Yeah, his reaction to English artistry. Roe is so conscious. I think what is really interesting about Roe's account is that he is, he is so prepared not to like Jahangir because he knows he's a man, he's seen all the

films basically, or rather the theatre of the period, he's fully prepared to find a tamburane. Christopher Marlow writes this play about an Eastern tyrant, Tambalane who crushes all the other kings of the world and then dies at the end of his player miserable death, but let's forget that bit. So Roe is fully prepared to find an Eastern tyrant. And then, he goes to India, he stays there for these four years hanging on to the margins of the court and slowly he gets to know Jahangir as a human being. So by the end of his journal, there's this wonderful moment where he talks about the heart of the king. And I find that really touching because he is a bystander at this point in the giant drama that is unfolding in Jahangir's

court, all the kind of factional infighting going on within the family. And Roe understands Jahangir's own pain in not being able to bring that family together in a way. And he says, you know, all these people are fighting around him. No one understands the heart of the king in this matter, which I find really touching. He also talks about Jahangir's, you know, sheer pleasure in talking to people about Jahangir's generosity, his ability to talk to Hindu hermits and sense of humor. They bond about over the making of English beer. That's right.

Can I read the passage? So with many passages of jests, mirth and brags, BRAGGS, Braggies concerning the arts of his country, he failed to asking me questions, how often I drank a day and how much and what. What in England? What beer was, how made, and whether I could make it here. So he's going to try a good pint of best better.

in all of which I satisfied his great demands of state. All that Roe wants to talk about is trading privileges and getting a place at the table. And all Jahangas are interested in what people are drinking down at the pub in Essex. But what's really admirable, I think, about Roe, is that he watches and he doesn't judge, he tries to work him out. He tries to work out Jahangir,

like, you know, with all his crappy presence that he's always lamenting, oh, the bloody East India Company that gave me another piece of crap to give it, I've got to think of something. He starts supplementing it with his own things. He starts giving away like little amulets that he has that he thinks. And they're not as much value, but they think, you know, they might amuse Jahangir because he's starting to work out that this is a man who has the world's wealth. So sometimes little sort of, you know, chochies, which are different, will amuse him. And he's right, isn't he?

Absolutely. I mean, he takes a tactical decision where he actually writes to the East India Company, not that they listen to him, saying, you know, don't try to compete with the Persians and the Rajputs in. wealth, because frankly, you're not going to be able to do that, just send someone with 200 quid to the German tech fairs, essentially, to the German fairs and buy some curiosities. Because that's what Jahangir is interested in. And when they don't do that, poor Roe has to delve into his own suitcases and take out stuff that he thinks vaguely that Jahangir might like and he constructs these things. So there's one point during a New Year's, festival when everyone gives gifts to the emperor and the emperor gives gifts back, Roe has run out

of presents by that stage. He's even given his own gloves away. So he takes a little box that he had bought in Ajmir and puts a little jewel inside an emerald, a white emerald that he had bought in South America and got carved in London inside it. So it becomes a little box within a box, within a box. And Chehung is quite, you know, pleased with that little curiosity. in a sense. But it is a struggle for Roe all the way through. The lifesaver for him is art, really. His picture of his girlfriend.

Yes, his little miniature. One thing that the English did really well in this period was not art on a grand scale, but little intimate miniature portraits. And they're easy to carry. They survive terrible weather, frankly. So Roe has quite a few of those, and he takes the same. this picture of a woman, and I love the fact that Rose Victorian editor has a little note saying, well, this must be a picture of his wife.

Yes, may well not have been. But it's probably the picture of a painting of a woman he had fallen in love with who had died very, very young, that he had taken with him. And he has a little bet with Jahangir about the relative merits of Indian artists versus. English artists. He says he can copy it, doesn't he? And that Ro won't be able to tell the difference? Yeah. So Jahangir places Abat says,

look, I'll get my best man to make multiple copies. If you can pick out your original from the copies, you can have all of them. And if you can't, then you have to give my best painter. And I suspect it's probably Abil Hassan. You have to give him some reward, suitable for his standing in court. Would he like a virginal?

No one would like that virginal. Cop out of eight in the back. Oh, the thing that I forgot to say earlier, not about the virginal, but about the carriage is Jahangir's politeness. I mean, he's the perfect party host, really. He says politely thank you for this carriage,

which is falling to bits, and then completely remakes it. So Roe, the next time he goes to He gives it a new trim inside, doesn't he? He's fine with the woodwork, but he doesn't like the trim. He doesn't like the seats inside. Willie, he didn't even like the nails used. So he replaces all the English iron nails with gold and silver nails.

Oh my God, it's so brilliant. So it basically replaces everything and says, thank you for your lovely gift. It's gorgeous. And then he copies. He makes an exact copy for Nujian. I really, you didn't say, did he manage to pick out the right painting or not, or did he have to give a present over to the best painter? There are two stories to this.

So, Rose says that he didn't. His chaplain, Edward Terry, says, well, the ambassador actually did, but he pretended he didn't. Oh, okay, he went. He lost the bet. Oh, he lost the bet. Which would have pleased, Jahangir. Rose says that Jahangir was so pleased.

He craaked like a northern man. Well, that's a lot of cracking, as we know. Yeah, okay. Can I just read, there's a wonderful description at the peak of the embassy when they go to Mandu, which is one of my favorite places in India, this wonderful mountaintop in Madhya Pradesh. And it's at this point that I think Roe is most dazzled. And he suddenly realizes quite how rich, quite how magnificent, quite how he can never, ever, ever even hope to begin to equal one of the courtiers, never mind one of the main mogul nobles.

He said, even if I squandered five years of pay, it would not have furnished me with one indifferent suit comparable to the others around the emperor. He spent five years buying the right bling. He couldn't even look like one of the serving boys, he's saying. And he looks with envy at his English coachman, who came with the coach and who defects to mogul service, and is raised with great estate to very fine clothes and a great pension. And then he just describes this incredible ceremony, which is, just one of the great moments of his account. He says the celebrations were held in a very large

and beautiful garden. The square within all water, on all sides, flowers and trees, in the midst a pinnacle where we're prepared scales of massy gold, in which the emperor would be weighed against jewels. Here attended the nobility all round it on carpets until the king came, who at least appeared clothed, or at least laden with diamonds, rubies, pearls and other precious vanities, so great, so glorious. His head, neck, breast, arms, all above the elbows at the wrists, his fingers, each one, at least two or three rings, are fettered with chains of diamonds. Rubies as great as walnut, some greater, and pearls such as mine eyes, were amazed at. in jewels, which is one of his felicities,

he is the treasury of the world, buying all that comes, and heaping rich stones as if you would rather build with them than wear them. So they've taken on quite a guy. Yeah, we haven't really said whether all of, you know, Rose Wileness has managed to yield anything. Does he manage to get stuff from Jahangir that he needs? I mean, he sort of comes armed with these sort of bits of paper

with his signature, which, you know, that's not how the moguls do business. But does he get the treaties that he's after? Does he manage to turn the tide of the Portuguese influence? Because certainly he does confront Jangir's son, Khoram, about it, who's not really giving him the time of day. And he says, well, you know, I think you might be under the spell of the Portuguese, if you don't mind me saying. I mean, he just push back a bit, doesn't he? He does push back. I mean, the problem with Roe at this point is that although the East India company had just asked him to get a trading license, essentially, this is a license that would allow them to have a permanent base in Surat so that they could stock up throughout the year at low periods of price

and then send goods home. What Roe thought he would want to achieve is just kicking the Portuguese out completely, kicking out the Catholic competitors. So he takes on a little bit more than he had to really, and he doesn't get that. And you're absolutely right. the main problem, the main on in Roe's side throughout is Curam, who will later become the emperor Shah Jahan. Shah Jahan, right, right, right, right. And Roe is wonderful.

I mean, I think it's really astonishing the level of insight we get into this man. Shah Jahan later is wonderful at creating his own myth, his own history, in a sense. But from Roe, we get a really interesting insight into the young man he was. very uptied, very quiet, extremely private person. Roe doesn't like this at all. Compared to Jahangir, this is worlds apart. You know, Jahangir is affable and ready to joke and laugh and drink. Kurum did not drink till this point at all. He kept himself to himself. He is extremely suspicious of these new Europeans. And what he does throughout is he keeps playing the Portuguese and the English off against each other. He knows absolutely well that he can't let one European power monopolize the seas.

The Portuguese at this point essentially have a kind of cartel, a protection racket. They basically tell the muggles, if you give us money, we're not going to rob your ship when they go on Red Sea trade, essentially, or to the hodge. Roe tries to say, if you give us the exclusive trading license we want, we'll protect you from the Portuguese. Huram is having none of that. He keeps playing the two off against each other. And Rue doesn't quite understand that. He doesn't get that. For him, as a Protestant Englishman,

he's convinced that he has full rights to this trade. And of course, the Catholics are not to be trusted. He doesn't see why the Mughals would want to play. The prattling Jesuits he talks about, doesn't he? Yeah, exactly. You're right. I mean, it is interesting to have that insight of the man who will become. the known and remembered and pretty much only pegged with the construction of the Taj Mahal,

and we'll come to that later. I mean, what is the legacy, because we're coming to the end of our time together, what is the legacy of this first embassy to India? And what does he actually get at the end of it? After all this effort, after all these hunting dogs and carriages and virginals, what does he get to show his bosses back home? Well, the one thing that he should have got, really, and wanted to get was Nurjahan's offer. Norjahan actually, who's Jhanga's favorite 20th wife, says to him, look, stop dealing with

Khram on the western side of India. Why don't the English set up a settlement on the eastern side of India in this place which I know quite well called Bengal? And Roe writes back to the East India Company about this and they just ignore it. Of course, that's where the British Empire later will establish its base. So, you know, Roe kind of. of has an early dibs at that which he misses. What he gets is a kind of partial trading license. He gets temporary permission to set up base in Surat and in Ajmir, where he can have warehouses, the English can have warehouses, and that's all fine.

He definitely does not get that exclusive trading license that he had been rooting for. You asked about the kind of legacy of this embassy, and I suppose there's the tangible legacy, is the establishment of the warehouses, which would give the English a toehold, at least, in India. But the intangible legacy, the things that aren't material, is significantly more, I think. And that's through Rose Diary. I mean, this is the first detailed description of the Mughal Empire that will come to the English. And we know that the East India Company kept these diaries. You had to file your diary in order to get paid.

So everyone wrote pretty detailed diaries, and they would pass it on to later voyages. So in a way, all that grumbling from Roe that we've been laughing about absolutely sets the scene for later English dealings with India. And in a way, a lot of the assumptions that the English make in the late 17th, 18th century, about the Mughals, about India in general, stem from Roe, Roe's journals. Do they learn the lessons? Do they send out better presents in centuries to come in decades to come? Short answer? No, because, you know, the governors don't really take any of this to heart. They don't also take to heart another of Rose lessons. There's a wonderful moment 40 years on at the end of his diplomatic career when Roe is brought back to Charles I, who's James's son, Charles is on the brink of bankruptcy. England itself is on the brink of civil war at this point. And Roe is called back to the parliament to advise Charles on how to recoup English economy.

And in his final speech to his countryman, the comparison that Roe brings up is again of the Mughal emperor. And he says, the only advice I can give our king is to open up the gates for free trade and let people of different religions do business while preserving their religions, as indeed they do in India under the Mughal Emperor. And that's what makes the Mughal Emperor one of the greatest and well-beest emperors in the world. So interesting. One of the things that really gives the English the edge in the centuries to come is that they do eventually learn to operate skillfully within the Mughal system.

And to understand Mughal courtly idiom, its officials do learn. good Persian, the correct etiquette, the art of bribing with the right presence at the right time. And in the end, despite all this sort of slipshod stuff at this point, they actually do outmaneuver all their rivals, the Portuguese, the Dutch and the French, and managed to gain imperial favour. And you could even argue that in the long run, the company's success is facilitated by its scrupulous regard for mogul authority. Soon the company will begin portraying, itself to the Mughals, not as a sort of corporate entity, but as this sort of strange being company Baha'uadur, which is a sort of Indo-Mughal, English sort of construction, which is all

these things put together. And they get, thanks to, in a sense, the mistakes they make in Rose time. Absolutely. They become the real prose that this a century later. And thanks also to Rose insistence on courtly behaviour as well. He really understands by the end of his embassy, that there's a particular grammar of behavior in the Indian courts, just as there is a particular grammar of behavior in European courts. And he's really keen to convey that back to the East India Company, and that is one lesson that they do learn, that actually these things matter.

They carry weight. But what fascinates me even more about Roe is the little interpersonal relationships he also builds up. He draws his superiority as a young. European and a Protestant and a Christian around himself like armour faced with Mughal Grange. But there are chintz in that armour through which he has these chance friendships with his Hindu interpreter called Jadu with this other exiled Persian nobleman whom he treats like a father figure. So those moments of friendship also emerge and I think that's important to acknowledge.

I think we're out of time but just one line I want to sort of leave hanging in the air from Roe. which just sets the template of what it should mean to be a good ambassador. Roe once writes, It is better to lose time than temper in negotiation. They are wise words. Some of our leaders could do with learning them, even today. It's so very, very good to talk to you. Nandani Das' excellent, superb book is Courting India.

It is an outstanding book, and you'll have so much more than we've given you. just a taster of the writings and experiences of Roe. It's a really, really rich work. I absolutely loved it. Yeah, me too. How it didn't get the world surprise is a mystery, Landy, but he was robbed anyway. Thank you so much.

Anyway, till the next time we meet, it's goodbye from me, Anita Arnan. And goodbye from me, William Durember.