The Sultan and the Queen

by Jerry Brotton

  At the very end of December, Sherley’s party was summoned to a royal audience four miles outside Qazvin. The Sherley brothers were attired in lavish Persian outfits, “Sir Anthony himself in rich cloth of gold, his gown and his undercoat, his sword hanging in a rich scarf to the worth of a thousand crowns, being set with pearls and diamonds, and on his head a turban according, to the worth of two thousand [Spanish] dollars, his boots embroidered with pearl and rubies.”27 As they approached, Abel Pinçon was given a sickening insight into the shah’s ruthlessness. Shah Abbas was making a “triumphal entry” into Qazvin: “He caused to be carried on the end of strong and heavy spears twenty thousand heads of Tartars whom he had defeated in Uzbek.” Mainwaring estimated that it was only twelve hundred, but whatever the number it was “a hideous spectacle” designed to impress Qazvin’s inhabitants, which also unsurprisingly intimidated the newly arrived Christians.28

  At this point, Shah Abbas appeared. Pinçon described him as “about thirty years of age, small in stature but handsome and well proportioned, his beard and hair is black . . . he has a strong and active mind and an extremely agile body, the result of training.”29 Mainwaring claimed that “at our first encounter of the king, Sir Anthony and his brother did alight off their horses, and came to kiss the king’s foot; for it is the fashion of the country. . . . After that was performed the king did look upon them both very stately, and afterward did look upon us all, giving never a word unto Sir Anthony.”30 Sir Anthony glossed over such servility, recalling he “kissed his stirrup; my speech was short unto him, the time being fit for no other.” He was keen to stress that Abbas told him that the Englishman “had done him infinite honor, to make such a journey for his sake.”31 Other sources say he delivered a more fulsome and obsequious oration to Abbas, which sounds more in keeping with his characteristic verbosity. “I am a soldier whose profession is clean contrary to words, which shall sooner fail me,” he is reported to have begun. He then offered to act as “a subject for your majesty’s most excellent virtues, if my devotion and observances were not sealed with my blood, the which I do humbly and freely offer at your majesty’s feet, to be shed and spent, at the least sign and token of your majesty’s pleasure.”32

  Again, accounts differ as to Abbas’s response, but as they were all from Sherley’s party they were unanimous in stating that it was positive. Mainwaring claimed that the shah embraced and kissed the brothers, “and taking Sir Anthony by the hand, swearing a great oath that he should be his sworn brother, and so he did call him always.”33 Parry went so far as to claim that Sherley immediately “possessed the king with such a burning desire to invade the Turk’s dominions” that he threatened to launch a campaign there and then.34

  Whatever the truth of these accounts, the English were certainly welcomed royally. They received sumptuous entertainment, spending over two months feasting, drinking and hunting with the shah’s court. Gifts of horses, camels, mules, weapons and jewels were exchanged, and if the reports are to be believed, Sir Anthony and Shah Abbas became virtually inseparable “in sporting and banqueting,” walking arm in arm through the city’s streets. The Englishman was even made a mirza, a title originally reserved for Muslim princes. It was hardly surprising that in return Sir Anthony extolled Abbas’s virtues, describing him as “excellently well shaped, of a most well proportioned stature, strong and active . . . his mind infinitely royal, wise, valiant, liberal, temperate, merciful, and an exceeding lover of justice.” He even praised the Persian ruler’s approach to political succession: in contrast to the Ottomans, rather than strangling his siblings upon his accession, the magnanimous Abbas only blinded them.35

  It is difficult to assess the genuineness of the two men’s friendship. There are no known records from the Persian archives to tell us what Shah Abbas thought of Sir Anthony, while the Englishman’s memoir and the reports of his supporters are either too vague or deeply biased. Nevertheless, though doubtless exaggerated, subsequent events suggest that Sherley and Abbas’s closeness went beyond that of any other Elizabethan Englishman and Muslim ruler. Certainly men like Jenkinson, Hogan and Harborne had never managed such a personal rapport with a Persian, Ottoman or Moroccan ruler. But they had been lowly merchants pursuing ignoble commercial agendas. Sherley would have recoiled in horror at such a comparison. His diplomatic brief was unofficial, possibly not even sanctioned by Essex, but he reveled in proclaiming his aristocratic status. The relationship between the two men was closer in spirit to that of the Portuguese king Sebastian and the English renegade Sir Thomas Stukeley. Both Sherley and Stukeley regarded themselves primarily as warriors with little time for unseemly discussions of money or commerce.

  Religion was a far more complex matter. Sherley’s party certainly progressed beyond Anthony Jenkinson’s limited grasp of the distinction between Shi’a and Sunni Islam. William Parry understood that the Safavid faith was “as the Turk’s, but somewhat different in religion. As the Persian prayeth only to Mahomet and Mortus Ally [‘Ali ibn Abi Talib], the Turk to those two and to three other that were Mahomet’s servants. Against which three the Persian still inveighs.”36 Parry also learned that “their conceit of Christ is that he was a very great prophet and a most holy and religious man, but in no way comparable to Mahomet: for Mahomet (say they) was that final prophet by whom all things were and are to be perfected and consummated.” Parry did not condemn this belief; he only observed, “They further say that because God never had wife, therefore Christ cannot possibly be his son.”37

  Pinçon felt that his Christian readers were familiar with the schism between Sunni and Shi’a and it was thus “unnecessary to treat of the hatred and discord which exist between them [the Persians] and the Turks over the explanation of the Alcoran and over the precedence and dignity of their false prophets,” only saying that “the Persians hold the Turks in great abomination.” He also made a token gesture to reclaim Abbas for Christianity, acknowledging that he was a “Mahometan” but that “round his neck he always wears a cross, in token of the reverence and honor which he bears toward Jesus Christ.” Pinçon’s attempted assimilation only went so far: just a few paragraphs earlier he had succumbed to more familiar stereotypes, damning Abbas as a tyrant who tormented his subjects, “behaving toward them inhumanely and cruelly, cutting off their heads for the slightest offense, having them stoned, quartered, flayed alive and given alive to the dogs, or to the forty Anthropophagi [a mythical race of cannibals] and man-eaters that he always has by him.”38

  Sir Anthony of course had his own view on Abbas’s religion. He had already found the shah’s “government differing so much from that which we call barbarousness” that he compared it flatteringly to Plato’s Republic.39 After many weeks in his company, conversing in a mix of Latin, Persian (Farsi), Italian and possibly even Spanish, he reflected on Abbas’s theological beliefs, which he saw as positively Machiavellian:

  For the king knowing how potent a uniter of men’s minds the self-same religion is for the tranquility of an estate: and the like disuniter several religions are for the disturbance of the peace of an estate, he is exceeding curious and vigilant to suppress through all his dominions, that religion of Mahomet which followeth the interpretation of Ussen [Uthman] and Omar [Umar], and to make his people cleave to that of Aly: not (as I judge) through any conscience, which carrieth him more to the one than the other; but first to extirpate intrinsic factions, then to secure himself the more firmly against the Turks.40

  It made sense for Sherley to conclude that the shah’s Shi’a beliefs were as politically strategic as his suppression of the Sunni followers of Uthman and Umar, but his judgment may have revealed more about his own religious predisposition than about that of Shah Abbas.

  After Sherley’s party had spent nearly three months reveling in Qazvin, the shah invited them to accompany him to his new royal capital of Isfahan. When they arrived, Sir Anthony began the delicate task of finding a way to broach the subject of his political mis
sion. For once in his life, he seems to have grasped the sensitivity of a Christian proposing an alliance with a Persian shah “to move him to war in so fit a time against the Turk,” and he prevaricated while Abbas showed him the splendor of his new city. Finally, “taking the opportunity of the king’s being alone with me and my brother in a garden” and using increasingly cryptic and periphrastic language, Sherley raised what he called “the enterprise.” He argued that “the extreme tyranny of the Turk” continued to threaten the Persians, and that if Abbas wanted “the recovery of that which was by force and violence usurped from his state,” there was a solution: “If it pleased him to invite the princes Christian to his amity,” Abbas could forge a Shi’a-Christian alliance that would defeat the Ottomans and give the shah control over central Asia.41

  Once the shah’s advisers heard of Sherley’s proposals, they were furious, and a protracted debate ensued. Many warned Abbas that “these Christians . . . were sent to disquiet your majesty’s tranquility of your state.” He should not jeopardize a hard-fought peace with the Turks nor intimate any military weakness by having to “beg an amity of the Christian princes.” Besides, despite Abbas’s recent victory over the Uzbeks, his army was still not strong enough to face the mightier Ottomans.

  Others were more supportive of Sherley’s proposals. One counselor pointed out that “this Christian hath brought with him a founder of artillery: let him be useful to your majesty”—although there are no records of such an expert in Sherley’s team. As weeks went by without agreement, Sherley complained that talk of the proposals “did aggravate both the grief of my mind, and unquiet of my body,” and he took to his bed.42 As he did so, a Turkish ambassador arrived in Isfahan, warning Abbas to respect their truce and demanding that he cede territory to Mehmed III and acknowledge his servility by sending one of his sons as a hostage to Constantinople. It seemed that like Jenkinson, Sherley might soon be unceremoniously ejected from Persia in the face of the Ottomans’ overwhelming political and military superiority.

  At this point Shah Abbas paid Sherley an unexpected visit on his sickbed. If Sherley is to be believed, an extraordinary conversation ensued. The shah began by saying “he had no great inclination” to demean himself by allying with a divided group of Christian powers, “God having given him so ample, so rich and so warlike a dominion” as Persia. Sherley responded by arguing that Abbas would have to confront the Turks sooner rather than later, as their political demands and military campaigns against Persia “were likely rather to increase than diminish.” He conceded that the Christians were divided, but contended that many, including the Spanish and the papacy, were already fighting the Ottomans, and would “embrace the amity, honor the name of your majesty, and unite themselves in any terms of princely alliance.” He also suggested that the shah could strike at Ottoman hegemony in another way: “In giving liberty of Christian religion, so much abhorred of their part, and security of trade, goods and person to Christians,” Abbas would circumvent Constantinople’s control over commercial and pilgrimage routes in the region, and he would gain access to European “founders of ordnance, makers of all sorts of arms, and munitions.”43

  Sherley’s proposals were optimistic to say the least, but, remarkably, Abbas responded to them. He agreed “to write to as many of the Christian princes as are greatest among them” to “apply themselves to our purpose” and allow “their merchants to repair to our dominions.” Abbas made it clear that it was Sherley’s responsibility to implement the initiative. “And because you have been the mover and persuader of this business, you also shall be the actor of it, assuring myself that my honor cannot be more securely reposed in any man’s hands, than your own.” Sherley was ecstatic: he now claimed the right to represent the shah’s interests in Europe and to act like a Persian mirza with the authority to mingle with kings and emperors. Having left England in 1598 in the service of the Earl of Essex, intent on disrupting Spanish and papal policy in Italy, Sherley was now proposing to broker a grand anti-Ottoman alliance between Persia and Europe’s Catholic rulers. Considering that official Elizabethan policy remained broadly pro-Ottoman, this was an extraordinary turn of events. As Sherley took on the mantle of the shah’s ambassador to Europe, he must have known he was turning his back on any possible rehabilitation with the queen or her counselors. Perhaps he believed he could single-handedly change the queen’s foreign policy. Perhaps his arrogance and hubris was such that he no longer cared.

  As before, it is difficult to assess the veracity of Sherley’s claims as little or no evidence has been found from the Persian side. The shah may have already decided to dispatch an embassy to Europe following the Turkish ambassador’s provocative demands. Mainwaring recalled that Abbas immediately “sent away the Turk’s ambassador . . . commanding him to tell his master the Turk [Mehmed III] that he would never rest until he were in the field with him.”44 Whatever actually passed between Sir Anthony and the shah at the Englishman’s bedside, in April 1599 Abbas began a lavish round of feasting in preparation for the departure of Sherley’s embassy. The shah prepared formal “Letters of Credence from the Great Sophy to the Christian Princes,” stating that Sherley had come “of his own free will, out of Europe, into these parts,” and that “when this gentleman comes unto your Christian princes, you shall credit him in whatsoever you demand or he shall say, as mine own person.” Sherley was also given commercial privileges by Abbas “for all Christians to Trade and Traffic into Persia.” These stated that Persia was “open to all Christian people and to their religion,” and included a “patent for all Christian merchants, to repair and traffic in and through our dominions, without disturbances or molestations.”45 These were remarkable concessions that, if set beside Elizabeth’s alliances with the Ottoman and Sa’adian rulers, gave England unprecedented commercial and diplomatic relations with the Islamic world, stretching over 4,300 miles from Marrakesh via Constantinople to Isfahan.

  Sherley, now drunk on his own grandeur, began planning his embassy. He agreed blithely with Abbas that his brother Sir Robert should stay behind in Persia, ostensibly to aid the shah in his military preparations, but obviously as a hostage to ensure that Sir Anthony would return. Perhaps as further insurance Abbas appointed a member of his trusted tribal cavalry, Husain Ali Beg Bayat, to join the embassy as an ambassador with Sherley, alongside four Persian secretaries, including Ali Beg’s nephew Uruch Beg. The most surprising member of the party was a Portuguese Augustinian friar named Nicolò de Mello, who had arrived in Isfahan claiming to be not only the Spanish procurator to the Indies (an agent responsible for liaising between the Curia in Rome and its missionaries in the Indies), but the long-lost brother of the dead Portuguese king Sebastian I. De Mello intrigued Sherley, who introduced him to the shah, but the friar promptly denounced the Englishman and his mission. Moving quickly to defuse the situation and “stop this priest’s mouth,” Sherley explained to him that he “was sorry that he had not understood my purpose which was the general service of all Christendom, and that he might make himself great, by bearing a part in such a holy service.”46 While acknowledging that it was a risky plan to travel with a hostile Augustinian friar as well as a Persian cavalry officer, Sherley invited de Mello to join his party.

  By May 1599, after spending five months in Persia, Sherley and his embassy were ready to leave. It was an ill-assorted crew of at least twenty-four, excluding servants, boasting two ambassadors (Sherley and Ali Beg), Augustinian and Franciscan friars, a retinue of Persians and the long-suffering Mainwaring, Parry and Pinçon, along with thirty-two crates of gifts for the Christian princes. Their political mission made returning via Ottoman territory impossible, so with Abbas eager to foster closer commercial relations with the new Russian tsar Boris Godunov, the embassy headed north toward the Caspian, and from there up the Volga toward Moscow. Divested of his semiregal status at the Persian court, Sir Anthony started behaving badly almost immediately, although on this occasion it seemed with some justifi
cation. Almost as soon as they departed, Parry learned that de Mello had “confessed he was but an ordinary Augustine friar, and in a gamesome vein he further confessed how he would bring men’s wives, after he had shriven them, to his bent.” He said he liked nothing more than to be “with a whore at night.” When the Franciscans revealed further details of de Mello’s duplicity, Sherley kept him under armed guard for the rest of the journey. He was also soon quarreling violently with Ali Beg and the Persians over various unspecified “misdemeanors.” When they reached the Caspian Sea, bad weather threatened to capsize the entire ill-tempered mission. As the storm hit, “one heard a dreadful medley of voices and prayers,” recalled Pinçon. “We of the [Protestant] religion prayed in one way; there were some Portuguese monks who threw figures of the Agnus Dei into the sea to appease it, and muttered certain words, repeating ‘Virgin Mary,’ ‘St. John’ and the In Manus [Evening Prayer]. The Mahommedans invoked ‘Ali, Ali Mahomet,’ but instead of all these I feared that the Devil would come to carry this rabble to Hell.”47 They survived to reach Moscow in November, but the mood in the party remained tense.

  If the plan was to incorporate the new tsar as the first member of a grand Euro-Persian alliance, it was a miserable failure. Godunov, a shrewd and capable politician, had succeeded to the tsardom following the collapse of the Rurik dynasty, and was suspicious of any diplomatic initiatives that might threaten his questionable accession to power. Upon his arrival Sherley was promptly arrested for ten days by a “crew of aqua-vitae-bellied fellows, clad in coats of cloth of gold.” When he and Ali Beg were granted an audience with the tsar, an ambiguity relating to the ambassadors’ status arose, causing the first of many diplomatic incidents. By appointing two ambassadors, neither with precedence over the other, Abbas had invited obvious confusion, which resurfaced when the tsar requested to see the Persians before Sherley, who “utterly refused to go in that order . . . especially he being a Christian and they pagans.”48 Sherley’s notorious sensitivity in matters of protocol alienated him from both the tsar and the Persian ambassador; Godunov “vexed and molested” him, while Ali Beg goaded de Mello into accusing Sherley of being a lowborn spy, with no desire to further anyone’s interests other than his own. Boris’s officials seized Abbas’s letters of introduction, whose studied vagueness seemed to confirm the Russians’ suspicions; once again Sherley was placed under arrest.