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{{Short description|English diplomat (1581–1644)}}
{{other people}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2021}}
{{Use British English|date=May 2012}}
{{Infobox person
{{Infobox person| name = Sir Thomas Roe | image = SirThomasRoe.jpg | image_size = | caption = | birth_name = | birth_date = {{circa}} 1581 | birth_place = Low [[Leyton]] near [[Wanstead]] in [[Essex]] | death_date = 6 November 1644 (aged 62–63)| death_place = | death_cause = | resting_place = | resting_place_coordinates = | residence = | nationality = | other_names = | known_for = | education = | employer = | occupation = | title = | networth = | height = | weight = | term = | predecessor = | successor = | party = | boards = | religion = | spouse = Lady Eleanor Beeston | partner = | children = | parents = Sir Robert Rowe <br> Elinor Jermy | relatives = | signature = | website =| footnotes = }}▼
| honorific_prefix = Sir
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'''Sir Thomas Roe''' ({{circa}} 1581 – 6 November 1644) was an English [[diplomat]] of the [[Elizabethan era|Elizabethan]] and [[James I of England|Jacobean]] periods. Roe's voyages ranged from Central America to India; as ambassador, he represented England in the [[Mughal Empire]], the [[Ottoman Empire]], and the [[Holy Roman Empire]].
==Life==
[[File:SIR THOMAS STOOD BEFORE THE MOGUL.gif|thumb|left|''Sir Thomas standing before the Great Moghul'', {{circa|1908}}]]
Roe was born at Low [[Leyton]] near [[Wanstead]] in [[Essex]], the son of Sir Robert Rowe of Gloucestershire and Cranford, Middlesex, and his wife Elinor Jermy, daughter of Robert Jermy of Worstead, [[Norfolk]]. He matriculated at [[Magdalen College, Oxford]], on 6 July 1593, at the age of twelve. In 1597 he entered [[Middle Temple]]<ref name="Williams">{{Cite book|last=Williams|first=William Retlaw|url=http://archive.org/details/cu31924030494953|title=The parliamentary history of the county of Gloucester, including the cities of Bristol and Gloucester, and the boroughs of Cheltenham, Cirencester, Stroud, and Tewkesbury, from the earliest times to the present day, 1213-1898|date=1898|publisher=Hereford : Priv. print. for the author by Jakeman and Carver|others=Cornell University Library}}</ref> and became [[esquire]] of the body to Queen [[Elizabeth I of England]]. He was [[knight]]ed by [[James I of England|James I]] on 23 July 1604, and became friendly with [[Henry Frederick Stuart|Henry, Prince of Wales]], and also with Henry's sister [[Elizabeth of Bohemia|Elizabeth]], afterwards briefly Queen of Bohemia, with whom he maintained a correspondence and whose cause he championed.
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===Family===
Roe married Eleanor, [[George Beeston|Lady Beeston]], the young widowed daughter of [[Cave-Browne-Cave baronets|Sir Thomas Cave]] of [[Stanford-on-Avon]], Northamptonshire in 1614, just weeks before embarking for India.<ref>Michael Strachan, ''Sir Thomas Roe 1581-1644. A Life'' (Michael Russell, Salisbury, Wiltshire, 1989), p. 58.</ref> Eleanor did not go to India, but did accompany Roe on the subsequent embassy to [[Constantinople]]. The couple were childless and adopted Jane Rupa, an orphaned girl introduced by Queen Elizabeth of Bohemia.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Akkerman |first=Nadine |title=Elizabeth Stuart: Queen of Hearts |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2021 |pages=570}}</ref> When Eleanor died in 1675 she was buried alongside him in the parish church of St. Mary, Woodford.<ref>Strachan (1989), pp. 279-80.</ref>
==Career==
===Amazon
In 1610, Roe was sent by Prince Henry on a mission to the [[West Indies]], during which he visited [[The Guianas|Guiana]] and the [[Amazon River]]. He tried to reach the [[Lake Parime]] location of the fabled [[El Dorado]], that was represented in the map of [[Thomas Harriot]] in 1596. However, he failed then, and in two subsequent expeditions, to discover the gold he was seeking.
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[[File:Jahangir investing a courtier with a robe of honour watched by Sir Thomas Roe, English ambassador to the court of Jahangir at Agra from 1615-18, and others.jpg|thumb|Jahangir investing a courtier with a robe of honour watched by Sir Thomas Roe, English ambassador to the court of Jahangir at Agra from 1615 to 1618, and others]]
In 1614, Roe was elected [[Member of Parliament]] (MP) for [[Tamworth (UK Parliament constituency)|Tamworth]].<ref name=Williams/>
The [[East India Company]] persuaded King James to send Roe as a royal envoy to the [[Agra]] court of the Great [[Mughal emperors|Mughal Emperor]], [[Jahangir]].<ref name="Anarchy">{{cite book |last1=Dalrymple |first1=William |title=The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company |date=2019 |publisher=Bloomsbury |location=London |isbn=978-1-4088-6437-1 |pages=15–19 }}</ref> Roe resided at Agra for three years, until 1619. At the Mughal court, Roe allegedly became a favourite of Jahangir and may have been his drinking partner; certainly he arrived with gifts of "many crates of red wine"<ref name="Anarchy"/>{{rp|16}} and explained to him "What beere was? How made?"<ref name="Anarchy"/>{{rp|17}}
The immediate result of the mission was to obtain permission and protection for an [[East India Company]] [[Factory (trading post)|factory]] at [[Surat]]. While no major trading privileges were conceded by Jahingir, "Roe's mission was the beginning of a Mughal-Company relationship that would develop into something approaching a partnership and see the
While Roe's detailed journals<ref name=Roe>{{cite book |last1=Roe |first1=Sir Thomas |editor1-last=Foster |editor1-first=W. |title=The Embassy of Sir Thomas Roe to the Court of the Great Mughal |year=1926 |orig-year=1899 |publisher=Humphrey Milford |location=London |edition=revised |url=https://archive.org/details/embassysirthoma03roegoog}}</ref> are a valuable source of information on Jahangir's reign, the Emperor did not return the favour, with no mention of Roe in his own voluminous diaries.<ref name="Anarchy"/>{{rp|19}}
===Indian Ocean and East African coast===
[[File:MogadishuMillerAtlas.png|thumb|right|The walled city of [[Mogadishu]] as depicted on the [[Miller Atlas]].]]
Prior to his arrival at the Mughal court, Roe explored the [[Eastern African]] islands and coastlines of the [[Indian Ocean]], where he met the [[Somali people|Somali]] navigator and ship pilot [[Maalim Ibrahim]] at one of the Islands of the [[Comoros]] in 1615. The latter influenced Roe’s cartographic knowledge of the Indian Ocean through his map which Roe summarised as a “graduated map of high quality” drawn on parchment and as a result began adjusting his own. Maalim invited Roe to visit the city of [[Mogadishu]], which at the time was the richest on the East African coast, and despite Roe appreciating the invitation, he could not split up the fleet heading for the [[Mughal Empire]].<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Embassy of Sir Thomas Roe to the Court of the Great Mogul, 1615-1619 As Narrated in His Journal and Correspondence. Volumes I-II|date=2017|page=22}}</ref>
===Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire===
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Through his friendship with the [[Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople]], [[Cyril Lucaris]], the famous ''[[Codex Alexandrinus]]'' was presented to James I,<ref>''Negotiations'', p. 618.</ref> and Roe himself collected several valuable manuscripts which he subsequently presented to the [[Bodleian Library]]. 29 Greek and other manuscripts, including an original copy of the synodal epistles of the council of Basle, he presented in 1628 to the Bodleian Library, after his letters of appointment had been revoked on 26 October 1627.<ref>Macray, ''Annals of the Bodleian'', 2nd de., pp. 70, 72.</ref> But Roe did not leave the [[Sublime Porte|Porte]] until June 1628. A collection of 242 coins was given by his widow, at his desire, to the Bodleian Library after his death. He also searched for Greek marbles on behalf of the [[George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham|Duke of Buckingham]] and the [[Thomas Howard, 21st Earl of Arundel|second Earl of Arundel]].<ref>{{cite DNB|wstitle=Roe, Thomas|volume=49|page=91}}</ref>
===Diplomat in the Thirty Years' War===
In 1629, Roe was successful in another mission undertaken, to arrange a peace between [[Sweden]] and [[Poland]]. In so doing, he
===Sponsor of Arctic exploration===
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=== Modern biographies ===
There are
* {{Cite book|last=Brown|first=Michael J.|url=https://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_european_history/12/|title=Itinerant Ambassador: The Life of Sir Thomas Roe|publisher=The University Press of Kentucky|year=1970|isbn=9780813151533|location=Lexington}}
* {{Cite book|last=Strachan|first=Michael|title=Sir Thomas Roe, 1581–1644. A Life.|publisher=Michael Russell Publishing Ltd|year=1989|isbn=9780859551564|location=Salisbury}}
* {{Cite book|last=Das|first=Nandini|title=Courting India.|publisher=Bloomsbury|year=2023|isbn=9781526615640|location=London}}
==References==
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{{Reflist}}
* {{EB1911|wstitle=Roe, Sir Thomas|volume=23|page=450}}
==Further reading==
* Anne-Valérie Dulac, « Miniatures between East and West: The Art(s) of Diplomacy in Thomas Roe’s Embassy », ''Études Épistémè'' 2014, http://journals.openedition.org/episteme/343 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/episteme.343
*[[Foster Rhea Dulles]], ''Eastward Ho! The First English Adventurers to the Orient: Richard Chancellor, Anthony Jenkinson, James Lancaster, William Adams, Sir Thomas Roe'' (John Lane, The Bodley Head, 1931)
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| after= [[Henry Poole (died 1652)|Henry Poole]]
| after2= [[William Master (
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{{Chancellors of the Order of the Garter}}
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[[Category:1580s births]]
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[[Category:Chancellors of the Order of the Garter]]
[[Category:Knights Bachelor]]
[[Category:Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales]]
[[Category:Year of birth uncertain]]
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