The Moghul Part 116

George Elkington, Chief Merchant,

to the Right Honorable Sir Randolph Spencer, Director of the Wors.h.i.+pful Company of the East India Merchants in London

Honorable Sir,

My duty premised, etc. and expecting your Wors.h.i.+p's favorable perusing of this letter. May it please G.o.d, the _Discovery_ will be fully laded within the month and ready to sail. In the meanwhile I forward this letter by Capt. Otterinck of the Spiegel, bound this day for Amsterdam, to advise you of certain New Conditions affecting the Company's trade.

I have inform'd you by earlier letter of our Entertainment provided the Portugals in the Surat Bay, with the two of their vessels set to fire, by which they were all consumed and between four and five hundred men slain, burnt, and drowned, and of ours (G.o.d be praised) only two and some few hurt, with all Commodity safe. I have reported also the loss of the _Resolve_ at Surat by lamentable Circ.u.mstance. Yet I maintain great Hope that we are like to discover profitable Trade with the Country of India.

I write now to advise you the Hollanders have late brought News of a new King of that Country. Reports have reached the Moluccas that the Moghul Arangbar died suddenly some two months past, to be succeeded by one of his Sons, whose Pleasure toward England is uncertain. The full Events are not clearly known here, but this will doubtless require our new Pet.i.tion for license to trade.

As is oft the way in Heathen lands, the story of the Son's succession is a marvelous convoluted Tale. There were said to be two Sons in contention, belike both Knaves, and the Hollanders have deduced that the late Arangbar's Queen, named Janahara, favor'd one Son over the other, for reasons known best to her Self, and intrigued in his succession. They have concluded thus because the new Moghul is said to have promptly rewarded her with a large secluded Estate of her own outside of Agra, with his personal Guards to protect her, something the Dutchmen claim has never before been done for a Moorish Queen in India.

The Hollanders further deduce that this Queen effected the favored Son's succession through her Prime Minister, a subtle Rogue called Sharif, who, when the Moghul Arangbar died, secretly arranged the a.s.sa.s.sination of the other Son before he could reach Agra and make his own claim for the Throne. This said Sharif was again appointed Prime Minister by the new Moghul, doubtless a Reward for his cunning Service.

So it is His Majesty King James may now desire to dispatch another Amba.s.sador to Agra, to pet.i.tion this new Moghul to grant English trade.

If a Pet.i.tion is to be sent, know that before taking the Throne this Son was called by the name Prince Jadar, though doubtless he is now to be addressed formally as The Moghul.

I have as yet been unable to discover whether the Mission of Capt.

Hawksworth to Agra, authorized by Your Wors.h.i.+p in your Wisdom, met success. (Though his Mission will no longer a.s.sist the Company in any instance, since he would not be known to this new Moghul, Jadar.) However, the Hollanders have advised that an English seaman named Hawksworth was taken from an Indian vessel off Malabar one month past, in company with a Moorish woman, by a Frigate of theirs that later was caught by a Storm off the same Malabar Coast. Her mainmast split in that Storm, and the vessel was lost sight of soon after, leaving the Hollanders to lament it may have sunk or gone aground on the Coast, together with over five hundred ton of their Malabar pepper. If this was our former Captain-General, he is either gone to G.o.d or is now again in India (if the vessel haply made landfall and saved the Hollanders' pepper).

In closing (for the Dutchmen advise they are preparing to hoist sail), I am content to report that Indian commodity is readily vendable at the port of Bantam, particularly fine calicoes and indigo, and I adjudge the Company would be well advis'd to dispatch a new Voyage to Surat upon receipt of this letter. The Monopoly of the Portugals holds no more, esp. after their Humiliation in the late engagement off Surat. On condition the Company post a Gentleman of Quality to Agra (One less susceptable to Moorish ways than Capt. Hawksworth, and therefore, in my Judgement, like to be better respected by the new Moghul) our Subscribers stand to enjoy great Profit in the Company's Indies trade.

So desiring G.o.d to add a blessing to all endeavours tending to this business of ours and of all that may succeed us to G.o.d's glory and the Company's benefit.

Your Wors.h.i.+p's faithful servant,

Geo. Elkington

AFTERWORD

For those curious how much of the foregoing tale is "true," perhaps it may be helpful to unmask the original inspiration for several of the characters. The Great Moghul Akman, his son Arangbar, and Arangbar's primary consort, Queen Janahara, had real-life counterparts in the Great Moghul Akbar, his successor Jahangir, and Jahangir's resourceful Persian queen, Nur Jahan. Nadir Sharif, for all his duplicity, had nothing on Jahangir's devious prime minister, Asaf Khan, the brother of Queen Nur Jahan. Similarly, Prince Jadar was no more ingenious, and no less wronged, than Asaf Khan's son-in-law, the subsequent Moghul and builder of the Taj Mahal, Shah Jahan. Prince Jadar's strategies and intrigues, first with and then against Queen Janahara, resemble in many ways those of Shah Jahan as he struggled to thwart the ambitions of Nur Jahan. The Shahbandar and the opium-sotted governor of Surat also had counterparts in real individuals, as did Jadar's beloved Mumtaz, his younger brother Prince Allaudin, Princess Layla, Malik Ambar, and Inayat Latif. The Sufi mystic Samad was re-created from the real-life poet Sarmad, who was admired by Shah Jahan and who was executed by a later Moghul for precisely the reasons given in the story. Of the Portuguese, Father Alvarez Sarmento was drawn in some part from the learned Father Jerome Xavier. It should be noted that the unofficial actions of the early Jesuits in India are remembered today primarily through the perceptions of English travelers, all of whom were all staunchly anti-Catholic. The role of Portuguese Jesuits in the preceding story was faithful in spirit to the English reports, although today these may seem mildly paranoid in their fear and suspicion.

Of the English characters, only Huyghen and Roger Symmes are beholden to single, recognizable individuals: being Jan van Linschoten and Ralph Fitch, respectively. Brian Hawksworth is largely a fictional composite, whose experiences recall in part those of William Hawkins (in India from 1608 to 1613) and in part those of other seventeenth-century European adventurers. His defeat of the four Portuguese galleons was only a slight dramatization of historic victories by severely outnumbered English frigates off Surat in 1612 and 1614 commanded by English captains Thomas Best and Nicholas Downton, both sailing for the early East India Company. Hawksworth's mercurial relations.h.i.+p with the Moghul and his experiences at the Moghul's court were re-created in part from the letters and diaries of William Hawkins and those of his successor, Sir Thomas Roe. As did Brian Hawksworth, William Hawkins adopted the Indian style of life in dress and diet, much to the astonishment of his European contemporaries. Brian Hawksworth's love affair with s.h.i.+rin was suggested by William Hawkins' marriage to an Indian women of n.o.ble descent, possibly a member of the Moghul's court, on the encouragement of Jahangir, who suspected the Jesuits of attempting to poison him and wanted his food monitored. Hawkins' wife later journeyed to London, where she caused the East India Company considerable disruption over their responsibilities toward her, and eventually she returned to India.

Although most of the early Englishmen in India resembled our George Elkington far more than they did Brian Hawksworth, there was one early traveler, Thomas Coryat, whose cultural and human sensibilities would not have clashed greatly with those of Brian Hawksworth at the end of his story.

The sudden appearance of the bubonic plague in India was taken from the court history of the Moghul Jahangir. Similarly, the capture of the Moghul's trading vessel by the Portuguese, intended to intimidate him and forestall an English trade agreement, and his retaliatory closure of Jesuit missions happened essentially as described. The Jesuits were allowed to reopen their missions a few years later, but the damage was done. There seems evidence that the Portuguese did conspire to a.s.sist the forces opposing the succession of Shah Jahan, whom they justifiably feared. The rebellion of Shah Jahan extended over several years, and did include at one point a stay on the Udaipur island of Jagmandir, where some historians now believe he first saw inlay work of the type that later became a distinguis.h.i.+ng feature of his crowning creation, the Taj Mahal.

For those who may wish to gain more familiarity with Moghul India, various sources can be recommended. Lively historical works on the Moghul period include Waldemar Hansen's cla.s.sic panorama The Peac.o.c.k Throne and the even more recent Cities of Mughul India by Gavin Hambly, to mention two of my favorites. For those still more curious, and adventurous, there are the original writings from the seventeenth century, which will require more digging but are decidedly worth the effort. Readers with access to a major library may be able to find reprinted editions of the diaries of several seventeenth-century English and European travelers in India. These are the works, with their trenchant firsthand accounts, that all students of the era find indispensable. Perhaps the most easily obtainable is a collection ent.i.tled Early Travels in India, William Foster, ed., which contains edited versions of the diaries of William Hawkins and several others.

Following this, the most thorough account of England's early diplomacy in India is contained in the diary ent.i.tled The Emba.s.sy of Sir Thomas Roe (1615-1619), written by England's first real amba.s.sador to India.

Many subsequent diaries and letters of seventeenth-century European travelers have been reprinted by the Hakluyt Society, whose publications comprise a virtual bibliography of the era.

The most relevant Indian writings, also obtainable in English translation from a fine library, are the memoirs of the Great Moghul Jahangir, ent.i.tled the Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri, and an encyclopedic description of court life in late sixteenth-century India ent.i.tled the Ain-i-Akbari, set down by Akbar's chief adviser and close friend, Abul Fazl.

In fas.h.i.+oning a story such as this, a writer must necessarily be indebted far beyond his ability to acknowledge adequately. The scholar who provided the greatest a.s.sistance was Professor John Richards of the Duke University Department of History, a widely respected authority on Moghul (he might prefer it be spelled Mughal) India, who graciously consented to review the ma.n.u.script in draft and offered many corrections of fact and interpretation. He is, of course, in no way accountable for any liberties that may have remained. Thanks are similarly due Professor Gerald Berreman of the University of California at Berkeley, a knowledgeable authority on Indian caste practices, who agreed to review the relevant portions of the ma.n.u.script. I am also indebted to Waldemar Hansen, who generously provided me with the voluminous notes acc.u.mulated for his own history, The Peac.o.c.k Throne.

Historians in India who gave warmly of their time and advice include Dr. Romila Thapar, Professor P. M. Jos.h.i.+, and Father John Correia- Alfonso, the preeminent Jesuit authority on the early Moghul era and a scholar whose characteristic integrity and generosity roundly revise the period depiction of his order in the story.

Thanks also are due Mrs. Devila Mitra, Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India, for special permission to study the now-restricted _zenana _quarters beneath the Red Fort in Agra; to Nawab Mir Sultan Alam Khan of Surat, for a.s.sistance in locating obscure historical sites in that city; to Indrani Rehman, the grande dame of Indian cla.s.sical dance, for information on the now-abolished _devadasi _caste; to Ustad Vilayat Khan, one of Indian's great sitar masters, for discussions concerning his art; and to my many Indian friends in New York, New Delhi, and Bombay.

I am also obliged to Miss Betty Tyres of the Indian Department of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, who kindly provided access to the museum's extensive archives of Indian miniature paintings, and to the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich for information on early English sailing vessels.

Finally, I am most indebted to a number of tireless readers who reviewed the ma.n.u.script in its various drafts and supplied many insightful suggestions: including my editor, Lisa Drew, my agent, Virginia Barber, and my patient friends Joyce Hawley, Susan Fainstein, Norman Fainstein, Ronald Miller, and Gary Prideaux. Most of all I thank Julie Hoover, for many years of a.s.sistance, encouragement, and enthusiasm.

GLOSSARY

affion--opium

aga--concentrated rose oil

akas-diya--central camp light