The Embassy of Sir Thomas Roe to the Court of the Great Mogul, 1615–1619
Overview
Published in 1899 by the Hakluyt Society as Second Series, No. I, this two-volume work edited by William Foster presents the complete journal and correspondence of Sir Thomas Roe’s diplomatic mission to Emperor Jahangir’s court. Volume I (x, lxviii, 271 pages plus map and illustrations) and Volume II (viii, 273-586, 20 pages plus map and illustrations) carry continuous pagination and document the first formal English embassy to the Mughal Empire from 1615 to 1619. King James I dispatched Roe in 1614, at the East India Company’s urging, with the primary objective of securing permission and protection for a Company factory at Surat, following the English naval victory over Portuguese forces at Swally Hole in 1612. The edition includes Roe’s detailed daily journal entries for the first two years (from the British Library manuscript published in full for the first time), correspondence with Company officials, letters to English nobility including Lord Carew and Lord Southampton, and diplomatic communications to King James I. For the third year, Foster relied on embassy extracts from Samuel Purchas’s Hakluytus Posthumus (1625), as the journal records were incomplete, while the fourth year is reconstructed primarily through surviving correspondence.
The work represents a landmark publication in early modern diplomatic history, offering unprecedented access to the mechanisms of Anglo-Mughal relations during a critical period when the East India Company, established by royal charter in 1600, sought to challenge Portuguese maritime dominance and secure commercial privileges from the Mughal imperial administration. While Jahangir granted no comprehensive trading treaty, Roe obtained a royal firman (imperial decree) permitting the establishment of English factories at Surat and other locations, initiating what would develop into a sustained Mughal-Company relationship. Foster’s editorial apparatus includes extensive footnotes identifying persons, places, and events mentioned in the text, contextualizing Roe’s observations within broader Mughal political and commercial networks, and cross-referencing with Persian sources and contemporary European travel accounts.
About Sir Thomas Roe
Sir Thomas Roe (c. 1581 – 6 November 1644) was born at Low Leyton near Wanstead in Essex to Sir Robert Rowe and Elinor Jermy. Matriculating at Magdalen College, Oxford at age twelve in 1593, he was knighted by James I on 23 July 1604. He served as Member of Parliament for Tamworth (1614), Cirencester (1621–1622), and Oxford University (1640–1644). The Mughal embassy marked his first major diplomatic appointment, undertaken when he was approximately thirty-four years old. He arrived at Surat in September 1615 carrying James I’s letters and spent four years navigating the complexities of Jahangir’s peripatetic court, initially at Ajmer from December 1615, then following the imperial retinue through Mandu, Burhanpur, and other cities. Roe reportedly became a drinking companion to Jahangir, arriving with extensive wine supplies and explaining beer-making processes to the emperor, though Jahangir’s own voluminous diaries make no mention of the English ambassador.
Following his return to England in 1619, Roe’s diplomatic career expanded significantly. He served as Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire (1621–1628), where he negotiated the 1624 Algiers treaty securing the release of several hundred English captives. In 1629 he successfully mediated a Sweden-Poland peace agreement that enabled Swedish intervention in the Thirty Years’ War. He was appointed Ambassador to the Holy Roman Empire (1641–1642). Roe became Chancellor of the Order of the Garter in 1637 and was named a privy councillor in June 1640. He died in 1644, leaving behind a substantial body of diplomatic correspondence that established templates for European diplomatic reporting in Asia.
About the Editor — William Foster
Sir William Foster, C.I.E. (19 November 1863 – 11 May 1951) was a British historiographer and India Office civil servant who became the foremost authority on early British-Asian relations. Born in Southsea, he attended Coopers’ Company’s Grammar School and London University before entering India Office service in 1882, where he remained until 1927. He served as Registrar and Superintendent of Records (1907–1923), then as Historiographer to the India Office (1923–1927), positions that granted him unparalleled access to East India Company archives spanning over two centuries.
Foster’s association with the Hakluyt Society shaped nineteenth and early twentieth-century scholarship on European expansion in Asia. Serving as Secretary (1893–1902) and President (1928–1945), he edited and annotated numerous critical editions of early modern travel narratives and diplomatic accounts. His thirteen-volume English Factories in India (1911 onwards) remains an indispensable reference work, transcribing and organizing Company correspondence chronologically. Other major editorial projects include The Voyage of Thomas Best to the East Indies, 1612–14 (1934), Early Travels in India, 1583–1619 (1921), and The English Factories in India, 1618–1669 (multiple volumes). He also compiled A Guide to the India Office Records, 1600–1858, systematizing access to one of the world’s most important colonial archives. Knighted in the 1925 New Year Honours and awarded the Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire (C.I.E.), Foster’s meticulous archival scholarship and editorial rigor established standards for documentary editing that influenced subsequent generations of imperial historians.
The Work
Scope and Methodology:
The edition presents Roe’s embassy through three primary documentary categories: daily journal entries recording court audiences, ceremonial observations, and diplomatic negotiations; official correspondence to the East India Company’s President and Council at Surat detailing commercial negotiations, local political developments, and strategic recommendations; and personal letters to English officials and nobility providing political analysis and requests for additional support. Roe’s journal documents his initial audience with Jahangir in January 1616, where he negotiated to perform triple European bows rather than traditional Mughal prostrations, establishing a precedent for maintaining diplomatic protocol while navigating cultural differences. He recorded detailed observations of Jahangir’s daily routines, including the emperor’s dawn appearances on a balcony approximately seven to eight feet above ground facing east for the Salaam ceremony, the periodic weighing ceremonies where Jahangir was measured against gold and silver for charitable distribution, public audiences (durbars) where subjects could petition directly, and evening entertainments featuring court musicians, dancers, and intellectual discussions.
Roe’s accounts describe the imperial audience chamber’s spatial organization, with Jahangir observing visitors from an elevated throne platform surrounded by ranked courtiers, and detail the presentation of diplomatic gifts—including an English horse-drawn coach, textiles, swords, and mechanical clocks—which Persian ambassadors’ offerings of horses, camels, and precious stones routinely overshadowed. The journal reveals Roe’s growing understanding that Mughal diplomatic culture prioritized personal relationships and imperial favor over written contractual agreements, contrasting sharply with European legal traditions. His correspondence addresses ongoing negotiations for trading privileges, disputes with Portuguese competitors who sought to undermine English commercial interests, conflicts with Company factors at Surat who sometimes pursued independent policies contrary to his diplomatic strategy, and requests for high-quality English manufactured goods suitable for presentation at court. Roe systematically recorded court factional politics, identifying key nobles (amirs) who supported or opposed English interests, and documented his cultivation of strategic relationships with imperial officials who could advance Company objectives.
Historical Context:
The embassy occurred during a critical transitional period in both Mughal imperial politics and European commercial expansion in the Indian Ocean. The East India Company, chartered on 31 December 1600 with monopoly trading rights east of the Cape of Good Hope, initially faced formidable Portuguese opposition. Portugal, established in Indian waters since Vasco da Gama’s 1498 arrival, controlled strategic ports including Goa, Diu, and Daman, and maintained fortified trading stations throughout coastal India. The Portuguese exercised de facto naval supremacy and enjoyed Mughal recognition at Surat, the principal port for Gujarat’s textile trade and the embarkation point for pilgrims traveling to Mecca. The English naval victory at Swally Hole in 1612 over Portuguese forces, whose control of pilgrim sea routes to the Hijaz provoked Mughal resentment, dramatically altered the strategic landscape and created conditions favorable for Roe’s diplomatic mission.
Emperor Jahangir (r. 1605–1627), fourth of the Mughal dynasty established by Babur in 1526, presided over an empire extending from Afghanistan to Bengal and from Kashmir to the Deccan sultanates. His court combined Persian administrative traditions, Central Asian political culture, and Indian regional practices into a complex ceremonial and bureaucratic system. Unlike his father Akbar (r. 1556–1605), who pursued aggressive territorial expansion and religious syncretism, Jahangir focused on consolidating imperial authority, patronizing the arts (particularly manuscript painting), and managing factional competition among the Mughal nobility. The emperor’s memoirs, the Jahangirnama (also known as the Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri), provide a parallel contemporary account of his reign, though they notably omit any mention of Roe’s presence, suggesting the English embassy’s relatively marginal position within Mughal diplomatic priorities compared to relations with Safavid Persia, Central Asian khanates, and Deccan sultanates.
Significance
Contemporary Reception:
For the East India Company, Roe’s mission produced mixed but strategically valuable results. While he failed to secure the comprehensive commercial treaty that Company directors sought—including fixed customs rates, legal jurisdiction over English subjects, and exclusive trading privileges—the imperial firman he obtained legitimized English commercial presence and provided a foundation for future negotiations. Roe’s extensive correspondence established him as the Company’s principal advisor on Mughal diplomatic protocol and commercial strategy. His recommendation that the Company avoid territorial acquisition and maintain a strictly commercial presence—“a war and traffic are incompatible”—influenced Company policy for decades, until military expansion in the mid-eighteenth century fundamentally altered Anglo-Indian relations. His detailed reports on Mughal court factions, provincial administration, and commercial networks provided intelligence that guided Company operations in Gujarat, Bengal, and South India.
Roe’s embassy established a precedent for resident English diplomatic representation at the Mughal court that subsequent ambassadors William Edwards (1615–1617) and Thomas Kerridge (1618–1619) continued, though the practice lapsed in the 1620s. His meticulous documentation of diplomatic protocol—including appropriate gift-giving practices, audience procedures, and methods for approaching imperial officials—created an institutional knowledge base for managing Anglo-Mughal relations. The mission demonstrated that sustained diplomatic engagement could secure commercial advantages without military confrontation, a lesson particularly relevant given the Company’s limited military resources compared to Portuguese Estado da Índia or Dutch Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC) forces.
Later Assessment:
Modern historiography recognizes Roe’s journal and correspondence as an essential primary source for understanding early modern Mughal-European diplomatic encounters. The work provides historians with detailed ethnographic observations of Jahangir’s court from an outsider’s perspective, documenting aspects of imperial ceremonial, administrative practice, and courtly culture that Persian sources often took for granted or described differently. Roe’s accounts of specific events—including Jahangir’s responses to military developments in the Deccan, his management of factional competition among Mughal nobles, and his patronage of artistic and architectural projects—can be cross-referenced with Persian chronicles, imperial farmans preserved in Company archives, and other European travel accounts to reconstruct court dynamics.
Scholars identify certain methodological limitations inherent in Roe’s account. As a foreign diplomat pursuing specific commercial objectives, he remained an outsider to many dimensions of Mughal society. His journal largely excludes women’s experiences (except occasional references to Nur Jahan, Jahangir’s powerful wife who exercised significant political influence), religious practices beyond court ceremonies, and the daily lives of common people outside commercial and diplomatic networks. His characterizations of Mughal “despotism,” “corruption,” and administrative practices were shaped by early seventeenth-century English political thinking and should be read as cultural commentary rather than objective description. Nevertheless, the detailed, contemporaneous nature of his observations, his extended residence at court, and his access to multiple informants including Company factors, Armenian merchants, and court officials make his account invaluable for reconstructing this historical period.
Value for Researchers:
The work serves as a foundational source for multiple scholarly fields. Historians of early modern diplomacy examine Roe’s negotiations to understand evolving conventions of intercultural diplomatic practice, the challenges of cross-cultural communication through interpreters (Roe relied on both Persian-speaking Europeans and multilingual Indian intermediaries), and the material culture of diplomacy including gift exchange protocols. Economic historians analyze his commercial correspondence to trace the development of English trade networks in South Asia, the commodities that structured Indo-European commerce (textiles, indigo, saltpeter), and the relationship between diplomatic privilege and commercial advantage. Scholars of Mughal history utilize his observations to supplement Persian sources on Jahangir’s reign, particularly for court ceremonies, imperial audiences, and the emperor’s daily routine. Art historians reference his descriptions of Mughal painting, architecture, and material culture, including his accounts of viewing the imperial painting ateliers and commissioning portraits from Mughal artists.
The edition’s continued scholarly utility reflects both Roe’s observational acuity and Foster’s rigorous editorial standards. Foster’s annotations identify obscure individuals mentioned in the text, explain technical terms from Persian administration and Mughal ceremonial, and cross-reference Roe’s accounts with contemporary sources. His introduction contextualizes the embassy within broader patterns of Anglo-Mughal relations and European commercial expansion in Asia. Modern researchers continue to cite this edition, though they supplement Foster’s work with subsequent scholarship on Mughal political culture, Persian sources that have become more accessible through translation, and theoretical frameworks from postcolonial studies that interrogate the cultural assumptions embedded in European diplomatic accounts.
Digital Access
Multiple digital copies are available through the Internet Archive, making this historically significant work accessible to contemporary researchers worldwide:
Note: This description was generated with assistance from Claude (Anthropic), utilizing historical research from Wikipedia, academic databases, and scholarly publications on early modern Anglo-Mughal diplomatic relations, the East India Company’s commercial expansion, and the Hakluyt Society’s editorial history.