AT the end of 1597 Anthony left his native shores never to return. Under the orders of the Earl of Essex he was sent into Italy with a company of twenty-four officers and men, to aid Don Cesare d’Este, the illegitimate son of the Duke of Ferrara, against the Pope, who laid claim to that principality. On reaching Augsburg, however, they learned that the Duke had submitted to the Pope and that consequently the services of Anthony and his company would not be required. Anthony therefore changed his plans and instead of proceeding to Ferrara, travelled to Venice. This journey, which started apparently from Sole (Southwold) in Suffolk, is fully described by Parry and Manwaring.
Nearly every expedition of the many that Anthony embarked upon in his lifetime was doomed to failure, and now we see him stranded in Venice with his brother Robert and twenty-three others, with nothing toward and no excuse for his remaining there. Essex, on learning what had happened, was nevertheless opposed to his return, and there followed a correspondence between him and Anthony which finally led to the latter’s voyage to Persia. The party, according to Parry, spent ten weeks in Venice, during which time, as we know from Manwaring, Anthony had many conversations with Michel Angelo Corrai who afterwards became his interpreter (see p. 176), and with a Persian merchant, and it was no doubt these men who inspired the idea of his going to Persia, though he himself attributes this to the Earl of Essex. Essex apparently considered that such a visit might further the policy of persuading the Shāh of Persia to unite with the Christian princes against the Turks,1 and might also lead to the improvement of commercial relations between England and Persia, while Anthony hoped he would thereby have an opportunity of distinguishing himself and thus gain the approbation of Essex.
Of the voyage to Aleppo, which was full of exciting adventures, we have the three first-hand accounts of Anthony, Manwaring, and Parry, which are in general agreement, Such discrepancies as we find seem to indicate that none of these narratives was based on written notes.
The party which left Venice in a ship called by Anthony a morizell2 on May 24th or 25th, 1598, now comprised twenty-six persons,3 of whom the following are known to us by name: Anthony Sherley, Robert Sherley, George Manwaring (the “Marshall”), John Morris, Thomas Davis, Arnold Roldcraft, Abel Pinçon (the Steward), William Parry, Gabriel Brookes, John Ward, John Parrott, Edward Vanthivier (a Dutchman) and Michel Angelo Corrai of Aleppo (the interpreter). There were six gentlemen attendants, four upper servants, and “the rest inferior servants including some Persians”. Among the servants we must include a page-boy in the service of Anthony, of whom we hear again in Rome.
From the three narratives of the voyage to Antioch it seems that the passage to Zante oceupied twenty-four days, in the course of which the Englishmen came to blows with the Italians by reason of disrespectful remarks made by an Italian passenger regarding Queen Elizabeth, and, although there were no fatalities, relations on board were thereafter so strained that on reaching Zante, Anthony and his company were sent on shore and their baggage after them, and were not allowed to return.1 They eventually hired a carramosall2 and proceeded to Candia, and thence to Cyprus. From this point the narratives are conflicting, but it is clear that the party having touched at Tripoli in Syria proceeded to Alexandretta (Scanderoon) whence they sailed up the Orontes to Antioch. From Antioch they were able to proceed, thanks to the interpreter Angelo who had friends among the local Janizaries, to Aleppo, where they were hospitably entertained by the English merchants from whom we hear Anthony borrowed a large sum of money.3 Anthony and Manwaring both refer to the drinking of coffee here as something quite strange to them, for it was indeed then unknown in England.
From Aleppo, after a stay of six weeks, the party set out on a four days’ journey to Bīra on the Euphrates, and here, before embarking on their boats for the downstream journey to Baghdad, they were joined by two Turkish officials: a “Tafderall” (Daftardār) or treasurer, and a Qādi; and certain English and other merchants. For this part of the journey we can now add to the other narratives the diary of Abel Pinçon, which begins with the departure from Aleppo on September 2nd, 1598.
At Baghdad, which they reached on September 29th, Anthony had a series of misfortunes, which nearly brought the expedition to an untimely end: for before they entered the city their goods, to the value of 6,000 crowns, were confiscated by Hasan Pasha, the Governor, and shortly after, orders arrived from Constantinople that the party should be seized and sent to the Sultan. In his Relation Anthony tells how they were saved by the amazing generosity of a Florentine merchant named Signor Victorio Speciero, who not only helped them to get away secretly and to attach themselves to a caravan of Persian pilgrims, but also supplied Anthony with money and gifts to compensate for what he had lost. It is evident that Anthony kept the exact circumstances of this generous deed very carefully to himself: for neither Manwaring, Pinçon nor Parry report it; Manwaring indeed attributes their escape to a totally different agency.
They left Baghdad on November the 4th, and reached Qazvīn in the first week of December. We owe to Pinçon a very detailed account of this journey, including an interesting allusion to the Behistun Inscriptions which he took to be Christian (see p.). The route followed was the main route over the passes via Qasr-i-Shīrīn and KirmānShāh, although the party appear to have made a detour on leaving Baghdad in order to avoid the territory of Haydar Beg. At Mastarabad [?], which they reached on November the 27th, Anthony sent forward an advance party composed of John Ward, Angelo and Pinçon to Qazvīn to prepare their lodging. On reaching Qazvīn, Anthony and his party were well received by Marjān Beg, the master of the Shāh’s household. Don Juan states that Anthony “gave himself out as cousin of the Scottish King James, saying that all the Kings of Christendom had recognized him as such and had now empowered him as their Ambassador to treat with the King of Persia”.1
In order to understand the warm welcome which Anthony received on his arrival and the manner in which he was able to ingratiate himself with the great Shāh ‛Abbās, we must examine the political situation in the Near and Middle East at the turn of the sixteenth century. Shāh ‛Abbās on his succession to the throne of the Safavids in 1587 was faced with two great problems; first, that of restoring order in the East, where the Uzbegs were in revolt, and secondly that of recovering the territory lost by Persia to the Turks under his predecessors. It was obvious that ‛Abbās could not engage both these enemies simultaneously, and thus when in 1590 the Turks, desirous of concentrating on the war in Hungary, made proposals for peace, ‛Abbās consented, and as a result of this treaty was able to devote his attention to the consolidation of his kingdom and the suppression of the Uzbegs in Khurāsān. Not until August, 1598, was he finally able to crush his elusive enemy, and when in December of that year Anthony arrived in Qazvīn, Shāh ‛Abbās was on the point of making his triumphal entry into that city. The English party could not have arrived at a more auspicious moment; for it seemed as if they had come on purpose to congratulate the Shāh on his victory, and Anthony himself, in his Relation, lays great stress on the fact that while he was in Qazvīn—indeed until they reached Ispahān—he made no allusion to the main object of his journey, which was to persuade the Shāh that an alliance with the European powers against the Ottoman Sultan would be greatly to the advantage of Persia.
It may be well here to explain the relative importance of Qazvīn and Ispahān. When Tabrīz, the first Safavid capital, fell into the hands of the Turks in the reign of Shāh Tahmāsp, Qazvīn had been selected as the new capital, and still was so when ‛Abbās I came to the throne of Persia in 1587. The new Shāh at the outset of his reign began to form plans for the removal of the capital to a centre more Persian in tradition and farther removed from the Turkish frontier. He was no doubt further prompted by the fact that the inhabitants of Qazvīn had been considered guilty of his brother Hamza Mīrzā’s death. No city seemed better suited to become the new capital than Ispahān in the heart of old Iran. Already, in 1590, he had for the first time celebrated there the festival of Naw Rūz, or New Year’s Day.
Shortly after this the Shāh began to embellish this city, which was destined to become the most beautiful in all Persia. One of the first buildings he erected was his wonderful palace called Naqsh-i-Jahān. It was not, however, until March, 1598, that ‛Abbās declared Ispahān officially the new capital, and it was from Ispahān that he set out in May of that year for the east, to administer his crushing blow to the insurgent Uzbegs. Nevertheless, Qazvīn continued to be a place of importance all through the reign of Shāh ‛Abbās, who constantly made it the headquarters of his court and his army, and after his great victory at Ribāt-i-Pariyān (August 10th, 1598) he led his army to Qazvīn as was his practice after each campaign in the East. He had certain important affairs both military and political to dispose of in the north before he was able to dismiss his army and settle down in his new capital, Ispahān. Iskandar Munshi tells us1 that after his triumphal entry into Qazvīn his troops were disbanded and allowed to go to their homes. Manwaring, however, says that all the soldiers except those who lived in Qazvīn were sent to their homes before the Shāh entered the city “for fear of making any uproar”.2
According to Don Juan3 the Shāh found awaiting him in Qazvīn not only the Sherleys but also Muhammad Agha, Grand Chaush of the Sultan, who at once set forth his master’s preposterous demands. The presence of a Turkish ambassador in Qazvīn is also referred to in the True Report (1600) and by Anthony and Manwaring, but I think it was in Ispahān that his pourparlers with Shāh ‛Abbās took place, and not, as Don Juan says, in Qazvīn.
Anthony says that ‛Abbās set out for Kāshān in advance of his own party. Manwaring, on the other hand, says that Anthony and certain of his companions proceeded to Kāshān in advance of the Shāh, and were overtaken by him just before reaching that city. It was on the journey between Kāshān and Ispahān that they formed one party, and on this occasion Anthony enjoyed the constant companionship of the Shāh. We picture the Shāh, Anthony, and the interpreter, possibly Angelo, riding side by side while ‛Abbās told Anthony the story of his life and his reign,4 Before leaving Qazvīn the Shāh had conferred on Anthony the title of Mirzā, and thereafter always addressed him as Mīrzā Antonio.
They eventually reached Ispahān on January 25th, 1599. While at Ispahān the Shāh talked with Anthony almost daily, and it was now that Anthony revealed the real object of his coming to Persia. A very full account is given by Anthony himself of the arguments he used to persuade ‛Abbās to send an embassy to the Christian princes; of the willing ear ‛Abbās lent to his words.1 He gives also the speeches of the ministers who agreed with him and of those who opposed him. Anthony’s two great supporters were Allah Vardi Khān, and Tahmāsp Qulī Khān, both Christian-born Georgians, renegades to Islam.
While these discussions were taking place the Turkish ambassador mentioned above arrived in Ispahān. According to Anthony he was the commander of the janizaries of Baghdad; Manwaring tells us he had come to renew the peace treaty of 1590. His demands were outrageous; not only should the Shāh restore Khurāsān to the Turkomans, but he should also return the ten thousand families who had migrated to Persian Kurdistan.2 Don Juan says that the Sultan demanded that ‛Abbās should send one of his sons as hostage to Constantinople in the place of Haydar Mīrzā, his nephew, who had died there in 1594, and that the Shāh replied by cutting off the ambassador’s beard and sending it as a present to the Sultan. It is strange that Anthony should have made no allusion to the Sultan’s demand for a royal hostage, nor to the Shāh’s ill-treatment of Muhammad Agha, which is also referred to by Pietro Duodo in a letter to Venice dated Prague, December 18th, 1600 (see Schefer’s Du Mans, p. 284). While this mission was in Ispahān, Anthony was ill, and during the frequent visits which the Shāh is said to have paid him in bed, he no doubt had opportunities of finally inducing ‛Abbās to dismiss the Turkish ambassador. “The next morning”, writes Anthony, “the King came unto me and told me he had well considered of my proposition and approved it. ‘And because you have been the Mover and Persuader of this business, you shall also be the actor of it, assuring myself that my honour cannot be more securely reposed in any man’s hands’.”
One would naturally have expected to find in the Persian histories of the period, more especially in Iskandar Munshi’s voluminous ‘Ālam-ārāyi-‛Abbāsī which often refers to embassies to and from Europe, some allusion to Anthony’s arrival in Persia or to his subsequent embassy to Europe; but as a result of careful search I have only discovered one passage which could refer to Anthony and his party. This occurs in the Ta’rīkh i Shāh ‛Abbās, a history of Persia from the death of Shāh Tahmāsp (1524) down to the twenty-fifth year of the reign of Shāh ‛Abbās I (1611), by Jalāl ud-Dīn Muhammad Munajjim Yazdī. Among the events of A.H. 1007 (1598–9) he records that “after the conquest of Khurāsān, envoys came from Europe saying ‘We have done much harm to the Turks, and have defeated them. You must now endeavour to regain your own territory so that the aspirations of us both may be realized.’”1
Much stress has been laid by European writers on the fact that Anthony had in his company a “gun-founder”, and it is claimed that this man was responsible for the introduction of artillery in the Shāh’s army. Anthony also relates that he had with him certain books with “Models of Fortifications” in which the Shāh was much interested. In a well-known passage Purchas,2 who was personally acquainted with Robert Sherley, writes as follows:
“The mighty Ottoman, terror of the Christian World, quaketh of a Sherley-fever, and gives hopes of approaching fates. The prevailing Persian hath learned Sherleian arts of war, and he which before knew not the use of ordnance, hath now 500 pieces of brass, and 6000 musketeers; so that they which at hand with the sword were before dreadful to the Turkes, now also in remoter blows and sulphurian arts are grown terrible. Hence hath the present Abas won from the Turk seven great Provinces, from Derbent to Bagdat inclusively, and still hath his eyes, mouth, and hands open to search, swallow and acquire more. In the renowned battle with Cigala Bassa, of 160,000, 2,000 only remained to flee with the General, who yet would not remain after that disaster but by poison prevented domestic shame: and there did our noble countryman receive three wounds, as a triple testimony of his love and service to Christendom.”1
1 The idea of an active alliance between Persia and the Western powers against the Turks had often been adumbrated in the past, and Shāh Isma‘il had in 1518 already suggested an alliance with Charles V against the Turks (see Karl Lanz, Corrispondenz des Kaisers Karl V. Vol. I, pp. 52 and 168. Leipzig, 1844.).
2 See p. of Relation. The Bodleian MS. reads here morisigne. Angelo the interpreter told the Signory of Venice that the name of the ship was Nana e Ruzzina (see p.).
3 Manwaring says twenty-one.
1 In the Bodleian MS. the following passage occurs in this place, and, having been deleted by the censor, does not appear in the printed edition: “…as the Italians generally, I know not through what humour, being people so far removed from us, that they have had least cause of offence so they have received least offence from us, yet are vile speakers of Her Majesty so to continue that vile condition…”
2 See also p. 30 and Index.
3C.S.P., Domestic, 1598–1601, p. 130.
1 Le Strange’s ed., p. 232.
1 See Ālam-ārāyi-‛Abbāsī, Teheran lith. A.H. 1314, p. 404.
2 See Manwaring, p. 206.
3 See Le Strange’s translation, p. 231.
4 See Appendix.
1 See Anthony’s Relation, pp. 80–120.
1 B.M. MS. Add. 27, 241, fol. 148b., and MS. Or. 3549, fol. 75a.
2 Purchas (Ed. 1905), X, p. 376.
1 Purchas has summed up in two sentences events extending over twenty years: the capture of Tabrīz in 1603; the death of Chighālazāda Sinan Pasha who poisoned himself by drinking powdered diamonds after the final conquest of the northern provinces by Shāh ‛Abbās in 1605; and the taking of Baghdad by the Persians in 1623.