Courting India: England, Mughal India and the Origins of Empire

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Change the plan you will roll onto at any time during your trial by visiting the “Settings & Account” section. What happens at the end of my trial? Lincolnshire without a trial. James’s English nobles were concerned – not because the king had sentenced a man to death, but because he had claimed the right to sentence him at all. ‘I hear our new King hath hanged one man before he was tryede,’ Sir John Harington had cuttingly announced, ‘’tis strangely done: now if the wynde bloweth thus, why may not a man be tryed before he hath offended?’ And, I wanted to do this both politically and economically, when the subsequent fortunes of the British Empire were by no means a certainty. So, it made me think hard about the craft that lies behind communicating both the narrative and the ideas to a wider readership. The power of good writing and a well-told story in getting people to understand each other should not be underestimated. This book does just that, drawing on the best of the academic and the literary traditions to shed light on how we are today.”

The historian Natalie Zemon Davis, whose work on the lives of the marginalised, on people whose traces only remain in fragments, has been an abiding influence on generations of scholars, including me. How do you feel about winning the British Academy Book Prize? In this fascinating history of Roe’s four years in India, Nandini Das offers an insider’s view of Britain in the making, a country whose imperial seeds were just being sown. It is a story of palace intrigue, scandal, lotteries, and wagers that unfold as global trade begins to stretch from Russia to Virginia, from West Africa to the Spice Islands of Indonesia. When Thomas Roe arrived in India in 1616 as James I's first ambassador to the Mughal Empire, the English barely had a toehold in the subcontinent. Their understanding of South Asian trade and India was sketchy at best, and, to the Mughals, they were minor players on a very large stage. Roe was representing a kingdom that was beset by financial woes and deeply conflicted about its identity as a unified 'Great Britain' under the Stuart monarchy. Meanwhile, the court he entered in India was wealthy and cultured, its dominion widely considered to be one of the greatest and richest empires of the world. This leads to some of the most memorable moments of both personal and diplomatic encounters, including a striking bet about the relative merits of Indian and English artists.From here, it was possible to piece together a startlingly complete picture, not just of the intricate political negotiations, but the far more elusive details of everyday life. On behalf of the British Academy, it is my honour to congratulate Nandini Das on this exceptional work. Just before leaving, after four years of efforts to engage with the Mughal regime, he was granted the concession that would enable the East India Company to establish its foothold in India. Jahangir’s consort, Nur Jahan, who from her position in the royal zenana wielded immense power, gave the English permission to establish the base in Calcutta that would become the heart of the East India Company a hundred years later. Typically, Roe had no idea that his diplomatic victory was actually a move in a complex game of political chess being played by Nur Jahan with her rival and stepson, Shah Jahan. It marked the inauguration of the long and complicated relationship between England, the East India Company and the subcontinent, whose riches its members eyed so covetously. At the same time, she grants us a privileged vantage point from which we can appreciate how a measure of mutual understanding did begin to emerge, even though it was vulnerable to the ups and downs of Mughal politics and to the restless ambitions of the British,” he said. Roe though was also performing for an audience - he knew that both his employers and future English generations were likely to read his journal. As an English ambassador he must have felt some pressure to present himself in his writings as an upright figure whose head wasn’t turned by foreign ways, no matter how impressive. Where does it all begin?

There are some great anecdotes about the discomforts and indignities suffered by Roe, in part self-inflicted (such as refusing to learn the language or give up wearing British-style clothes in the extreme heat) but also due to the penny-pinching ways of the East India Company. In the face of a lavish court where relationships were built on exchange of gifts, Roe had to resort to handing over his most prized personal possessions to get a hearing. Beautifully written and masterfully researched, this has the makings of a classic'- Peter Frankopan the thudding footsteps of the royal elephants outside, the animal scent of hay and leather from the Persian horses snorting their impatience, mingled with the cool water sprayed in the air, perfumed with the attar of rose and jasmine, the music of the naubat floating from the naqqar khana, ‘solemn, grand, and melodious’

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To think that Courting India may have contributed even marginally towards that goal at some level is a wonderful impetus towards my future work. What inspired you to delve into the origins of the British Empire in India? Nandini Das from Courting India, England, Mughal India and the Origins of Empire, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2023 We also get the other side of the story, as the Mughal Emperor Jahangir also kept a daily diary which has survived. The English ambassador goes almost completely unnoticed in this journal - a curiously dressed impoverished representative of a small far-off land. The mind's eye When Thomas Roe arrived in India in 1616 as James I’s first ambassador to the Mughal Empire, the English barely had a toehold in the subcontinent. Their understanding of South Asian trade and India was sketchy at best, and, to the Mughals, they were minor players on a very large stage. Roe was representing a kingdom that was beset by financial woes and deeply conflicted about its identity as a unified ‘Great Britain’ under the Stuart monarchy. Meanwhile, the court he entered in India was wealthy and cultured, its dominion widely considered to be one of the greatest and richest empires of the world…