The English Chan and the Mughal Dom

Abstract

This chapter analyses the Mughal and Jesuit reactions to the presence of William Hawkins, the first emissary from the EIC to the Mughal court. Besides focusing on Hawkins’ attempts to be integrated into the Mughal courtly apparatus as a ‘Mughalised’ firangi and his role in Jahangir’s diplomatic manoeuvres to pressure the Estado da Índia, the chapter will also compare and contrast the two accounts on the Mughal court produced by Hawkins and Jerónimo Xavier.

The 1606 annual letter of the Mughal mission reported that Jahangir was planning to send an embassy to Lisbon and Madrid that would be headed by Naqib Khan, a courtier ‘who is not hostile towards the Portuguese’.¹ Despite the emperor’s friendly overtures, the Portuguese authorities remained suspicious. On 18 January 1607, Philip III instructed Viceroy Martim Afonso de Castro to continue the improvements works of the fortress and wall of Daman due to the city’s proximity ‘to bellicose enemies like the Mughals’.² Lisbon and Madrid also feared eventual Mughal ambitions in Ceylon. On 12 January 1607, Philip III informed the viceroy that he had received intelligence reports suggesting that Jahangir ‘now has his eyes set on occupying Ceylon when there is an occasion’.³

In December 1607, Jerónimo Xavier informed Claudio Acquaviva that Jahangir wanted ‘to establish friendship with the Lord Viceroy and acquire curious things that could be found among the Portuguese’.⁴ The mission to the capital of the Estado da Índia would be led by Muqarrab Khan, the emperor’s ‘great favourite (privado)’ and a rising figure in the Mughal polity.⁵ Also known as Shaik Hasan Hassū, he started his career at the Mughal court around 1596 as an assistant to his father, Shaik Bhīna, a highly reputed surgeon. He served as his father’s assistant and seemed to have gained access to the court after helping his father in bleeding Akbar.⁶ By the end of the Akbari years, Shaik Hasan was among a group of Indian Muslims (Shaikhzadars) who had joined the inner circle of Prince Selim. After Jahangir’s accession, Shaik Hasan benefited from the emperor’s strategy of promoting trustworthy Shaikhzadars within the imperial elites and apparatus.⁷ He received the title of Muqarrab Khan, ‘Royal Confidant’, a designation that reflected his proximity to the emperor, and in 1608 was appointed mutasaddi (governor) of Surat.

Jahangir’s decision to appoint his ‘Royal Confidant’ to head a diplomatic mission to Goa and administer Khambhat at the same time reveals an intention to entrust the development of Mughal maritime activities in the Western Indian Ocean to a trustworthy agent. The possession of Surat and Khambhat made Gujarat a painful point for Mughal trade and geopolitics. The Gujarati ports were a gateway that allowed the empire to access the maritime routes of the Indian Ocean that linked the subcontinent with the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf and the Swahili Coast. Muqarrab Khan’s task was thus to find an equilibrium between Portuguese and Mughal interests that could enhance the Gujarat as the main commercial hub in the western coast of India.

To ensure a balanced exchange between the two sides and facilitate communication between the Mughal ambassador and Portuguese officials, the emperor wanted Muqarrab Khan to be accompanied by a member of the Jesuit mission. The Jesuits opted for Manuel Pinheiro, a choice celebrated by Jahangir who, according to Xavier, ‘knows and loves him for many years’.⁸ Xavier’s references to the proximity between Manuel Pinheiro and Jahangir indicate that the emperor regarded the missionary as a reliable agent who could safeguard his interests.

Shortly after being appointed to the embassy, Pinheiro travelled to Khambhat to join Muqarrab Khan. His departure from Lahore was regarded as a setback for the mission. In one letter from 1608, Jerónimo Xavier mentioned that Pinheiro’s absence ‘caused many sorrows among the Christians, because he was most known in Lahore and he raised those who lived there’.⁹ While at Khambhat, Manuel Pinheiro continued his proselytising activities. Following the modus operandi developed in Lahore, he used a painting of the wise kings sent from Rome as a gift to Jahangir to attract large crowds of curious Muslims and Hindus. According to Du Jarric, throughout thirteen days around 13,000 persons visited the Jesuit church at Khambhat to see the painting. Pinheiro also organised a private display for Muqarrab Khan and his family.¹⁰

This private session seemed to have forged a friendship between the Jesuit and the Mughal nobleman. According to the Jesuit sources, their friendship evolved after Pinheiro cured Muqarrab Khan’s adoptive son, Masih-i-Kairanawi, from a mysterious illness. Omitting the fact that Jahangir’s protégé was a reputed physician, Fernão Guerreiro’s Relaçam mentions that a desperate Muqarrab Khan asked the Jesuit to ‘give some remedy’ after the frustrated attempts of local physicians and ‘sorcerers who applied to the boy some ceremonies of their superstitions’.¹¹ Pinheiro read the Gospel of St Mark and exhibited a ‘cross with relics’. The exposure to Christian symbols and words immediately improved Masih’s feverish state, and after a few days he was fully recovered. Impressed by Pinheiro’s intervention, Muqarrab Khan decided to baptise his adoptive son. Fernão Guerreiro’s account follows the tropes of many edifying Jesuit narratives in which a non-Christian begins a path towards his conversion through miraculous acts performed by missionaries. Pinheiro emerges thus as a vehicle of divine intervention. His agency not only cured a seriously ill child, but above all, through a direct comparison with the previously failed attempts of Muslim physicians and Hindu healers, exposed the errors of Islam and Hinduism. This edifying story allowed Guerreiro to vindicate Muqarrab Khan’s sympathetic overtures towards the Estado da Índia, as well as justify Pinheiro’s activities as a diplomatic agent.

Muqarrab Khan’s interest in Christianity and apparent pro-Portuguese stance should be analysed with care. Like other members of the Mughal elites, the new mutasaddi of Surat frequently combined administrative duties with mercantile activities. Muqarrab Khan owned vessels and established strategic commercial partnerships with wealthy and well-connected Gujarati merchants such as Khwaja Nizam.¹² Besides, as mutasaddi of Surat, Muqarrab Khan competed with other Mughal ports to attract merchants and increase revenues from the overseas trade. Manuel Pinheiro had thus the potential to be a valuable partner who could help Muqarrab Khan to induce Goa-based merchants to trade in Surat or to participate in the Royal Confidant’s own private ventures. The conversion of the Royal Confidant’s adoptive son emerged as a gesture that aimed to establish a permanent point of contact with the Jesuits and suggests an inclination towards the Portuguese Estado da Índia. Masih-i-Kairanawi’s conversion seemed also to have created a partnership between Muqarrab Khan and Manuel Pinheiro.

I

It was during this precise moment, when Jahangir prepared Muqarrab Khan’s embassy to Goa, that on 24 August 1608 the Hector reached Surat. This was the first English ship to land in an Indian port. Encouraged by the successful first two voyages led by Sir James Lancaster (1601) and Sir Henry Middleton (1604), which allowed the setting up of a trading post in Bantam, the EIC prepared a third voyage with the intention of opening factories in the Red Sea, Cambaya, Sumatra and the Moluccas. In Surat, the ambitious plan designed by the London merchants was to be executed by the captain of the Hector, William Hawkins. His previous experiences in the Levant trade led the EIC to employ him in the hope of using Hawkins’ knowledge of Turkish—one of the languages spoken in the Mughal Empire—to promote English trade in the Red Sea and on the West Coast of India. In one set of court minutes, the EIC states that Hawkins, ‘on account of his experience and language’, had been instructed ‘to deliver His Majesty’s letters to the princes and governors of Cambaya’.¹³ To ensure that Hawkins would perform his role as an envoy of James I with the required dignity, the company ordered ‘scarlet and violet apparel’ and a cloak ‘lined with taffeta with silver lace’ that the captain of the Hector should use in his audiences with South Asian rulers.¹⁴

Although he was not a royal ambassador, Hawkins acted as if he was one. Immediately after arriving at Surat, he instructed one of the merchants sailing with him, Francis Buck, to head a small party of three messengers to inform the governor of Surat ‘that the King of England had sent me as his Embassadour vnto his King, with his Letter and Present’. This stratagem worked and the Mughal official sent three messengers as well to meet Hawkins and arrange an audience. Throughout his first contact with a Mughal official, Hawkins imitated the behaviour and habitus of a European diplomat. He staged a public entry ‘accompanied with my merchants, and others, in the best manner I could, befitting for the honour of my other King and Country’.¹⁵ Hawkins’ account does not dwell much on how he performed the rituals and bureaucratic formulas of Mughal diplomacy, which are laconically described as ‘barbarous manner[s]’, but he stressed that he was ‘kindly received’.¹⁶

The scarce information he provides is explained by Hawkins, who mentions that before arriving at the governor’s residence he was informed that the aged governor was indisposed and unapproachable for being ‘rather drunke with affion or opion’. Unable to meet the governor, Hawkins had a brief audience with the ‘chiefe Customer’ who was ‘the onely man that Sea-faring causes belonged unto’. This meeting, however, was rather unproductive. The chief-customer was a junior official who directed the English envoy to Muqarrab Khan, identified as the governor or ‘Viceroy of Cambaya’. Despite this apparent failure, Hawkins stated that he attracted ‘multitudes of people’ who followed his retinue ‘desirous to see a new come people, much nominated, but neuer came in their parts’.¹⁷

The heavy rains of the monsoon forced Hawkins to wait twenty days for Muqarrab Khan’s reply. The ‘Viceroy of Cambaya’ allowed Hawkins and his companions to trade in Surat, but also stated that the establishment of a factory and the future conditions of English trade in the region could only be granted by Jahangir. Hawkins mentioned that Muqarrab Khan suggested that if he travelled to the Mughal court, the emperor would favourably accept the requests made by James I and the EIC. After receiving Muqarrab Khan’s reply, Hawkins decided to call a ‘Councell’ to discuss the next steps. All present concluded that there was no one more suitable than Hawkins ‘for the effecting of these weighty affaires’ given his language skills and past experiences in the Levant. Besides, as Hawkins vehemently emphasised, ‘I was knowne to all to be the man that was sent as Embassadour about these affaires’.¹⁸ Meanwhile, Hawkins’ presence in Agra was also necessary to reduce the growing pressures of several tradesmen based in Surat. Hawkins mentions that Muqarrab Khan’s decision to allow the English merchants to ‘buy and sell’ was ‘against the will of all the Merchants in the Towne, whose grumbling was very much’.¹⁹

The pressures of the Gujarati merchants coincided with a Portuguese offensive against the EIC and Mughal ships in the region. The arrest of an EIC ship by a small Portuguese fleet led Hawkins, as would be expected from an ambassador, to write a letter of complaint to an unidentified capitão-maior, probably the governor of Daman, evoking the peace treaty signed by Philip III and James I in 1604. The reply from the Portuguese official was, according to Hawkins, nothing other than provocative, ‘most vilely abusing his Majestie, terming him King of Fishermen, and of an Island of no import’.²⁰ Meanwhile, the capitão-maior instructed the captain of the Estado’s fleet to demand the immediate arrest of Hawkins and the other EIC men by the Mughal authorities of Surat, under the pretext that they were Dutch. The presence of the Portuguese captain in Surat offered Hawkins another opportunity to act as an English diplomat. In a meeting arranged by the Mughal authorities, Hawkins confronted the Portuguese captain and accused the Estado da Índia of breaching the terms of the Treaty of London, suggesting that the arrest of any ship or employee of the EIC was an act of treason against the authority of Philip III. Hawkins claimed that his public shaming of the Portuguese captain impressed the Mughal authorities and forced the captain to leave the palace. Two hours later, the captain met privately with the English emissary and promised him that he would seek the release of the English ship, her crew and goods. However, despite these promises, the arrested men and goods were sent to Goa.²¹

Muqarrab Khan and Manuel Pinheiro emerge as Hawkins’ nemeses, two sinister figures that sought the destruction of the English ambassador. Before leaving Surat, Hawkins had an audience with Muqarrab Khan to receive the safe conduct that would allow him to travel to Agra. The meeting was tense. Despite receiving a gift from Hawkins, the Royal Confidant was reticent to release the confiscated goods from the Hector. Manuel Pinheiro, who according to Hawkins was also present, sought to provoke the Englishman with ‘vile speaches made by him of our King and Nation’.²² The Mughal official and the Jesuit missionary haunted every step made by the English ambassador. Hawkins accused Muqarrab Khan and Pinheiro of hiring three men to assassinate him while he attended a feast at Surat organised by a Mughal grandee. This failed attempt was followed by an assault on Hawkins’ house led by ‘a Friar, [and] some thirty of fortie of them’. After escaping from this attack, the Englishman was told by two sympathetic Mughal officials that Pinheiro offered Muqarrab Khan a bribe of 40,000 rials to ensure his capture.

Hawkins departed to Agra, as Finch noted in his journal, on 1 February 1609 ‘with fiftie peons [footmen] and certaine horsemen’.²³ Hawkins claimed that he had to overcome a series of conspiracies and traps engendered by Muqarrab Khan and Pinheiro on his journey from Surat to Agra. For instance, after leaving Surat, the Englishman discovered that his coachman and broker were hired by the Mughal official and Pinheiro to poison him.

On 16 April 1609, Hawkins finally arrived at Agra ‘in a very secret manner’. Jahangir, however, had been informed of the arrival of an English envoy and instructed his ‘horsemen and footmen’ to find Hawkins and escort him to the royal palace.²⁴ Apparently, Hawkins was not expecting to be called into the presence of the emperor immediately after his arrival, confessing that he ‘could scarce obtayne time to apparel my selfe in my best attyre’. After parading the streets of Agra ‘with great State (…) as an Embassadour of a King ought to be’.²⁵ Indeed, the annual letter sent by the Jesuit missionaries in 1610 reported Hawkins’ ‘splendid and magnificent’ entry to Agra under the title of English ambassador (Legati Anglicani).²⁶ Another Jesuit report mentioned that Hawkins arrived in Agra ‘in a lavish way, richly dressed, and under the title of his King’s ambassador, carrying a letter written in Spanish’.²⁷ Unlike his non-official predecessor, John Mildenhall, the Jesuits duly noted that Hawkins presented a letter certified by James I’s seal and signature. The document requested Jahangir’s ‘permission for the English ships to visit and trade in his ports’.²⁸

Jahangir requested the presence of Jerónimo Xavier to translate the letter from James I. To the padre’s surprise, the English envoy was also fluent in Turkish—one of the languages mastered by Jahangir. If Mildenhall relied on interpreters to overcome the language barrier, Hawkins was able to negotiate and converse with Jahangir and other Mughal luminaries without a mediator.²⁹ This not only posed a problem for the Jesuits to monitor the activities of an agent from a rival power, but also had the potential to disturb their proselytising activities. As the letter from Agra reported, one of the first things that the English emissary did in his first audience with the emperor was to chastise the Catholic Church and praise the Protestant doctrine of the Anglican Church. Indeed, following his conversations with the Jesuit missionaries and the theological debates staged at the court, Jahangir questioned Hawkins about the doctrine of transubstantiation and the Englishman replied, according to the Jesuits, in the manner of ‘a great Heretic’.

This abrupt mention of the Reformation—an event that was relatively unknown at the Mughal court—was a serious challenge to the work of the Jesuit missionaries, who promoted a perception of Christianity as a homogenous religious system presided over by the Pope. Indeed, the effects of the Reformation were still unknown in Mughal India, and the Jesuits preferred to present Europe as a part of a relatively united Christendom under the spiritual guidance of the Pope. The political and spiritual role of the head of the Catholic Church was of particular interest to Akbar and Jahangir, who considered the Pope as a potential model to support the religious authority of the Mughal emperors. Hawkins’ negative remarks had an obvious damaging effect for the prestige of the Jesuits at the Mughal court.³⁰ Hakwins’ anti-Catholic, anti-Jesuit and anti-Iberian stances at the Mughal court were in line with the approach made by the EIC men in Japan who, in order to undermine local favourable perceptions of Catholicism and Iberian interests, invested in an aggressive anti-Papist propaganda that highlighted English independence from the Church of Rome and the links between the expansion of Catholicism and Iberian imperialism.³¹

Another moment of tension during this first meeting between Hawkins and Jahangir was Xavier’s remarks about the poor style of the letter Hawkins’ had brought, noting that Jahangir was addressed as Vestra without Majestad. Hawkins replied that the comments made by the Jesuit came from an enemy of the English Crown and asked Jahangir if the letter was poorly written if James was asking a favour to the Mughal emperor. Deliberately or not, Hawkins’ reply positioned the English as foreign supplicants who relied on Mughal imperial favour and protection. By posing as an emissary from a subordinated foreign policy, Hawkins’ presence and requests fitted into the Mughal imperial project of universal rule. Besides, Hawkins’ knowledge of Turkish also allowed him to insinuate himself as a useful and reliable intermediary between Jahangir and the English authorities.

After this first audience, the English emissary received instructions to have a ‘daily conference’ with Jahangir. ‘Both night and day’, wrote Hawkins, ‘his delight was very much to talke with mee, both of the Affaires of England and other Countries, as also many demands of the West Indies’.³² Like the Jesuit missionaries, Hawkins was regarded by Jahangir as both an envoy from a foreign distant ruler and a privileged informer on the world outside the Mughal Empire. Hawkins’ warm reception also coincided with yet another tense moment between the Estado da Índia and the Mughals caused by the Portuguese efforts to enforce the cartaz system. At the same time that Hawkins left Surat, the Mughal authorities had to deal with the arrest by a Portuguese fleet of a ship bound for Mocha owned by Jahangir’s mother. According to William Finch’s journal, the ship was sailing without a cartaz and would only be released after the payment of 20,000 reais and ‘divers presents which the Mogolls were faine to give them’.³³ This episode of Portuguese maritime violence, which sought to impose the Estado’s maritime monopoly on Mughal ships, should also be taken into account in the willingness demonstrated by the padshah and some relevant courtiers to listen to Hawkins’ propositions.

Hawkins interpreted Jahangir’s interest in him as a sign of favouritism and decided to petition the emperor for a firman conceding trade privileges to the EIC, including permission to establish a factory. Jahangir replied that he was planning to send an ambassador to England, and that Hawkins should remain at the Mughal court until the arrival of a new English ambassador following the conclusion of the planned Mughal embassy to James I. Jahangir guaranteed that Hawkins’ presence ‘would be highly for the benefit of thy Nation (…) swearing by his Fathers Soule that if I would remayne with him, he would grant me Articles for our Factorie to my hearts desire’.³⁴ To persuade the English emissary to accept his proposition, Jahangir offered him a mansabdar of £3,200 per year and 400 horses. Hawkins presented this sudden promotion to the Mughal nobility as a courteous gesture from Jahangir to ‘doe service both to my naturall King and him’ that was difficult to refuse since the emperor’s promises were ‘beneficiall both to my Nation and myself’.³⁵ According to the Jesuits, Hawkins’ mansabdar involved a ‘grand gift’ of a precious stone estimated to be worth 20,000 cruzados, which seemed to have convinced the emperor to favour the Englishman.³⁶

III

The rapid rise of the ‘English Chan’ (sic), an honourable title that Hawkins proudly explained was the Persian equivalent of a duke, was viewed by the Jesuits with suspicion, as well as by a group identified by Hawkins as the ‘principall Mahometans’, who apparently resented the growing influence of a Christian foreigner. The Englishman’s rise could be problematic to some sections of the Mughal court. The rebellion led by Prince Kushrau encouraged Jahangir to pursue his intention to redefine the composition of the Mughal elites through the inclusion of new elements that guaranteed the emperor’s control of the Timurid polity. The decision to grant a mansabdar to Hawkins should therefore be considered bearing in mind the emperor’s domestic and foreign policies.

Hawkins’ integration into the mansabdari system was both part of the ongoing structural transformations of the Mughal elite and an attempt to establish new channels of communication with Europe. According to Norbert Elias’ model, Jahangir used the courtly ‘economy of honour’ to manipulate Hawkins according to the emperor’s foreign and courtly policies.³⁷ The rise of the English Chan was integrated into a strategy that sought to develop a cosmopolitan and diversified Mughal nobility that could secure political alliances between Jahangir and the different ethnic and religious communities under Timurid rule. During the first years of his reign, and following the policies adopted by Akbar, Jahangir promoted the integration of members of different ethnic and religious groups, including those regarded as hostile to Mughal rule, such as the Afghans and the Rajputs.³⁸ The Mughal harem, for example, included women from the Persian, Rajput and Indo-Muslim elites who were recruited to confirm political allegiances.³⁹ Mughal diplomatic practices also sought to incorporate foreign ambassadors into the Mughal imperial apparatus. The intention was to prolong the presence of foreign diplomats both as a demonstration of Mughal grandeur and power, but also to convert the delegates of foreign rulers into Mughal agents, acting as de facto double agents.⁴⁰ The cosmopolitan element also included individuals from outside Mughal India, especially Persians and Central Asians. Hawkins was thus another case of a foreigner incorporated by the emperor into the Mughal nobility to cement his political authority.

In the same way that the Jesuit padres at the Mughal court held the dual role of mullah-like figures and intermediaries between the padshah and the Portuguese Crown, the English Chan was both a Mughal mansabdar and a useful mediator between Jahangir and another firangi ruler. There was also another significant advantage. Hawkins’ presence and the eventual concession of trading privileges to the English had the potential to destabilise the Portuguese Estado da Índia. Jahangir used the English Chan to pressure the Portuguese authorities to conform to Mughal interests.

The mansubdar was also a solution that established a political bond between Hawkins and Jahangir, one that enhanced the Englishman’s status but also secured his subservience to the Mughal padshah. As the anonymous Jesuit author of the Ajuda manuscript noted, Hawkins’ rise had a price. The mansabdar meant that he would be ‘so attached to the King’s service that he was not allowed to return to England without his permission’.⁴¹ The career of the English Chan would thus be reliant on his ability to balance Mughal and English interests.

Another example of Jahangir’s interest in incorporating Hawkins into the Mughal courtly milieu was the emperor’s plan to arrange a marriage between the English Chan and one of the ‘white Mayden’ of the Mughal court. The marriage sought to provide an appropriate household for the new member of the imperial court. Hawkins’ wife would be accompanied by ‘all things necessary, with slaves’, ensuring a domestic structure that would allow Hawkins to dissipate his fears of being poisoned by the Jesuits or other rivals. As he noted in his account, his new wife and slaves meant that ‘my meates and drinkes should be looked unto by them, and I should live without fear’.⁴² Although tempted by Jahangir’s proposal, Hawkins feared that his matrimonial options would be reduced to Muslim women, a prospect that could raise some questions about the political and religious allegiances of the English Chan. After informing the emperor that he could marry a Christian woman, Jahangir suggested Mariam Khan, the daughter of Mubarak Khan, a recently deceased Armenian courtier who had a mansabdar of 1000 horses. Mariam Khan’s connections to the Mughal imperial apparatus and Christian pedigree as an Armenian, or as Hawkins’ would put it ‘[a member] of the Race of the most ancient Christians’, made her a suitable choice.⁴³ As Karen Robertson noted, the marriage with Mariam Khan not only had the advantages of preserving Hawkins’ Christian credentials, but also allowed him to engage with the Armenian community and its mercantile networks.⁴⁴ This possibility might also have been behind Jahangir’s suggestion. By sponsoring the matrimonial union between the representative of a new group of firangi tradesmen and a relevant figure of the Armenian community, Jahangir could foster the articulation between two different commercial structures and thus develop new avenues to expand Mughal overseas trade.

Hawkins seemed to have been aware of the emperor’s intentions to integrate him into the Mughal courtly milieu and rapidly adopted an Indo-Persian habitus in an attempt to be fully integrated and accepted in the Timurid court. According to the Jesuit sources, Hawkins started to wear Mughal clothes ‘although he publicly claimed that he dressed liked a Moor, but he did not follow their religion’.⁴⁵ Such remarks hinted at Hawkins’ predisposition to change religious and political allegiances. Dress is an important external marker of identity and a part of a ‘collective fashioning’ regulated by specific social norms and codes of civility. As Fernand Braudel noted, many early modern Europeans perceived dress to reflect ‘the energies, possibilities, demands and joie de vivre of a given society, economy, and civilisation’.⁴⁶ This perception echoes the observations made some centuries later by a long line of sociologists and anthropologists such as Terence S. Turner who examined the ways in which individuals use dress to form a ‘social skin’ that constructs personal and social identities.⁴⁷ By adopting Mughal dress, Hawkins sought to alter his ‘social skin’ to reflect his new status conferred by the mansabdar, but also to promote his integration into the Mughal courtly milieu and enhance his position by conforming to local mores.

This was also a strategy developed by other English agents who operated in the Levant, a region where the English Chan worked before travelling to India. In the Ottoman Empire, English merchants and diplomats often adopted Ottoman garb to facilitate their activities by camouflaging a potentially problematic Christian and European identity. Fynes Morrisson, for example, noted that, like his French and Venetian counterparts, the English ambassador at Istanbul ‘wore a loose Turkish garment’ during his public appearances.⁴⁸

Another interesting example, and perhaps closer to Hawkins’ case, is that of Robert Shirley, the English aristocrat and adventurer employed by Shah Abbas as a diplomatic agent between 1608 and 1628. As Ann Rosalind Jones and Peter Stallybrass noted, Shirley’s adoption of Persian dress annulled his Englishness and certified his incorporation into the Persian body politic and courtly milieu.⁴⁹ By appearing in public in full Safavid attire, which included a robe of honour offered by Shah Abbas, Shirley was able to insinuate himself as a legitimate representative of the Persian ruler, an ambassador who emulated his prince. Shirley’s agency relied on his turban and robes of honour. As Thomas Fuller noted, Shirley was ‘much affected to appear in foreign Vestes, and as if his Clothes were his limbes, accounted himself never ready till he had something of the Persian Habit about him’.⁵⁰ Shirley’s Persianate persona, however, often incorporated Western or Christian elements that showed his aristocratic status and Catholicism. For example, after being granted the title of Count Palatine by Pope Paul V, Shirley wore a gold chain to stress his membership to the papal nobility. His turban was also topped by a gold crucifix that stressed his Christianity. Such strategies of hybridisation sought to make Shirley a reliable interlocutor between the European powers and Safavid Persia, someone who was able to efficiently connect two different political, cultural and religious worlds.

His hybrid persona, however, could also be problematic. Shirley’s ‘Persian Habit’ questioned his Englishness and thus his credibility, even if it suggested a taste for extravagance. James I, for example, was suspicious of Shirley’s real political allegiances. The fact that he was an Englishman employed by a foreign ruler cast a shadow over Shirley’s trustworthiness in promoting English interests. Indeed, during his first audience with the king, Shirley asked for James’ forgiveness for being at the service of Shah Abbas. Although he was pardoned, his reluctance to wear English dress maintained the suspicions.

As in the case of Robert Shirley, Hawkins’ adoption of Mughal dress seemed to be part of an attempt to develop a fluid identity that articulated his Englishness with a membership to the Mughal imperial apparatus. The cases of Hawkins and Shirley can also be analysed as examples of ‘physical capital’, the notion developed by Chris Shillings to examine the ways in which the specific value attributed to bodily features within given social fields can be used as a resource to obtain rewards or exhibit status.⁵¹ Physical capital can be converted into economic capital (money, estates), cultural capital (i.e., accumulated cultural knowledge) or social capital (i.e. interpersonal networks). As Nick Crossley noted, ‘agents create and mould their bodies in accordance with the fields in which they are involved and the demands of those specific fields’.⁵² In other words, as the holder of a mansabdar, Hawkins adopted local garb to embody his status as a member of the imperial apparatus and display his obedience to Jahangir, imitating thus the other members of the Mughal courtly milieu to facilitate his interactions and improve his position.

The apparent success of Hakwins’ Mughal persona led the Jesuits to depict him as an ambitious arriviste with roguish behaviour: ‘an enemy of the Estado da Índia, who has no faith and does not care about the afterlife, but only on this one and the privileges he receives from this infidel King’.⁵³ The Jesuits accused the English heretic of taking advantage of the emperor’s favours to carry out insolent acts against the missionaries. Although the Ajuda manuscript is rather laconic in its description of Hawkins’ hostile behaviour towards the Jesuits, there are mentions of acts of ‘haughtiness’ (sobranceria) intended to undermine Jesuit proselytising activities by repeatedly exposing the division between Catholics and Protestants. More worryingly, Jahangir discussed the possibility of English involvement in a Mughal attack against the Portuguese fortress of Diu with Hawkins, calculating that ‘four English vessels would be enough to take Diu by force’.⁵⁴

Despite his attempts to discredit the Jesuits and undermine Portuguese interests, Hawkins sought to be associated with the missionaries. A first attempt to establish a connection was when Hawkins asked Jerónimo Xavier to bury one of his English servants in the Catholic cemetery of Agra—a request immediately rejected by the padre due to the servant’s religious affiliation. Although the Jesuits mentioned that ‘the Heretic was very resented’,⁵⁵ Hawkins made a second overture to the missionaries when he asked them to celebrate his marriage with Mariam Khan. The missionaries mentioned that the Englishman made this ‘a case of honour’ and ‘sought all the possible means to get what he wanted’.⁵⁶ The solution found by the Jesuits to avoid a reprimand from Jahangir was to celebrate the wedding ‘with the condition that he would publicly confess in front of everyone that the Pope is the head of the Universal Church’.⁵⁷ The terms proposed by the missionaries were rejected, and Hawkins was married by Nicholas Ufflet.

The members of the EIC that remained in Surat received the letters sent by Hawkins with news of his success at the Mughal court with enthusiasm. Troubled by deadly diseases and with no real prospects of trade due to Portuguese pressures, many merchants were considering the possibility of returning to England. An unidentified English merchant confessed that he was contemplating the possibility ‘to take some course to get me home, as likewise the rest which are here’. Other EIC men were also making plans to travel to Goa ‘to take passage in the Portugal fleet’. Pressured by these merchants, the anonymous authors decided to send ‘a man to Goa with a letter to the Fathers, and a petition to the Vice Roy to give them licence’. Even if the Portuguese authorities were not receptive to issuing a safe conduct, the English merchants were ‘determined to go’.⁵⁸

Before this bleak scenario could occur, the sudden promotion of Captain Hawkins to the Mughal nobility generated some enthusiasm. On 12 July 1609, William Finch wrote to Hawkins celebrating the ‘further honours done you by the King’, which were considered a great achievement given ‘the small means and helps that your Worship hath had for the procuring of such and so great favours from so mighty a prince’.⁵⁹ This unexpected success was seen by Finch as an act of ‘God’s great providence and your Worship’s wise and discreet carriage in the managing of so weighty a matter’.⁶⁰ Such admiring words reveal both a genuine surprise, but also a special concern in keeping Hawkins close to the EIC. Indeed, the meteoric rise of the English Chan posed some questions regarding his reliability. Although he was still regarded as a trustworthy representative of English interests due to his regular correspondence with the EIC men in Surat, his new status as a Mughal courtier suggested that Hawkins enjoyed a new degree of agency that allowed him to actively pursue his own personal interests rather than those of the company. Despite this risk, the activities of the EIC on the Western coast of India relied on Hawkins’ exploits and inside knowledge of the Mughal court and many believed that he had the ability to resolve the precarious situation faced by the English merchants in Surat. The abovementioned unidentified English merchant noted, for example, that the EIC figure in charge in Surat, William Finch, ‘will not do anything without order from Captain Hawkins’.⁶¹

IV

If Jahangir hoped that Hawkins would cause some anxiety in the Estado da Índia, the English Chan performed his role with satisfaction. The news of the arrival of an emissary from James I at the Mughal court and the reports of Jahangir’s receptivity to conceding trade privileges to the English alarmed the Portuguese authorities. In an attempt to pressure Jahangir, the Estado’s interim governor, André Furtado de Mendonça, decided to cancel the embassy on the grounds that the negotiations to establish an English factory in Surat annulled all the previous treaties between the Estado da Índia and the Mughal Empire.⁶² The governor instructed Pinheiro to return immediately to Goa, and issued an edict banning all trading activities between Portuguese and Mughal ports. The boycott was followed by a series of skirmishes between Portuguese and Mughal troops near Daman.⁶³

The suspension of Luso-Mughal commercial and diplomatic exchanges instigated many Gujarat-based merchants to pressure both sides to restore contacts.⁶⁴ The Portuguese boycott on Mughal ports also prompted some violent reactions against English tradesmen in Surat. Finch mentioned in his journal that he ‘had no small adoe with the townsmen of Surat’ after a mob seized eight crewmembers of the Ascension instigated by the locals ‘fearing the Portugalls’.⁶⁵ To make things worse, a Portuguese fleet was awaiting the Ascension. The ship cast off and, according to William Finch, the 70 members of the crew had no option but to ‘lye without amongst the trees and tombes’ to avoid the hostility of the inhabitants of Surat.⁶⁶ Finch sought to negotiate with the local authorities. Despite possessing ‘letters from the King himselfe’, Finch’s approaches had no effect. He blamed the Mughal’s ‘slavish awe of the Portugalls’ and two unnamed Jesuits stationed in Surat who dissuaded the local merchants from contacting the EIC men by ‘threatening fire, faggot, and utter desolation, if they received any more English thither’.⁶⁷ Unable to remain in Surat, the survivors of the Ascension survivors scattered into separate groups, each exploring different routes by which return to England. One group, led by the commander of the Ascension, Alexander Sharpey, and which included Robert Coverte, opted to travel to Agra. As Coverte explained, the intention was to obtain Jahangir’s aid and ‘certifie him of our great distresse and misfortunes’.⁶⁸

According to Robert Coverte, the great obstacle to solve the problems of the survivors of the Ascension was the mutasaddi of Surat, Muqarrab Khan, who had been bribed by the Portuguese and told that the English ‘were a kind of turbulent people that would make mutinies, and sow civil dissension in the Town’.⁶⁹ Coverte’s comments on the bribes received by the mutasaddi were probably alluding to the gifts (sagoates) usually offered by the Estado to the representatives of South Asian polities during diplomatic exchanges. Indeed, Muqarrab Khan was involved in negotiations with the Estado da Índia regarding the end of the Luso-Mughal conflict in Gujarat.

Fears of a rapid escalation of the conflict into a full-scale war prompted Furtado de Mendonça to instruct Manuel Pinheiro to return to Khambhat and negotiate a reconciliation with Muqarrab Khan. The Jesuit missionary was vested ‘with powers to discuss war and peace’ and, in what was meant to be a gesture to express Portuguese goodwill towards the Mughals, also received orders to make announcements across Gujarat that the Estado’s boycott on Mughal trade was being ended.⁷⁰ According to Fernão Guerreiro, Pinheiro received an ecstatic reception in the main Gujarati port cities, being ‘applauded by Muslims and Hindus who thanked him for bringing news of peace’.⁷¹

During the negotiations with Manuel Pinheiro, Muqarrab Khan reported to Jahangir that the Portuguese would again refuse to receive the Mughal embassy if the emperor opted not to annul the concession of trading privileges to the EIC. The reports from the mutassadi seemed to have persuaded the emperor to accept the conditions of the Estado da Índia. Jahangir’s apparent plans to send an embassy to the Iberian Peninsula were a part of a strategy that aimed to enhance Mughal international prestige, but above all sought to ensure the Estado’s neutrality in the Deccan at the precise moment that Mughal troops sought to annexe Ahmadnagar. Thus, Jahangir preferred to gain some time. The emperor decided to cancel the firman, but he retained William Hawkins at the Mughal court with his mansabdar of 400 horses and a rent of 30,000 rupees, guaranteeing a channel of communication with the EIC.⁷²

Robert Coverte, who arrived at Agra on 8 December 1609, highlighted the privileged status of the English Chan and his proximity to Jahangir, as well as Hawkins’ role as a mediator between the English and the Mughal authorities. According to Coverte, Hawkins introduced the Ascension survivors to the emperor, ensuring that the EIC men followed the ‘the custom and manner of the Country. For no stranger must stay above twenty-four hours before he be brought before the King to know what he is, and wherefore he cometh’.⁷³ Although Hawkins sought to perform his role as a representative of English interests at the Mughal court, he seemed to not be able to obtain the safe conducts necessary to facilitate the return of his compatriots to England. Apart from mentioning Hawkins’ role in arranging an audience with Jahangir, Coverte does not allude to any démarche made by the English Chan to facilitate the safe conducts sought by his group. Indeed, in his account, Coverte mentions another meeting with Jahangir where the emperor invited him and two other Ascension crewmembers, Joseph Salebancke and John Frencham, to serve in the Mughal army ‘offering us what maintenance we would ask of him’.⁷⁴ Although the three Englishmen refused the proposal, Jahangir granted them the necessary safe conducts to travel across all Mughal territories all signed ‘under his hand and great Seale’.⁷⁵ Coverte mentions that the Jesuits also helped the Ascension survivors. After contacting Jerónimo Xavier, described as ‘the chief Friar’ and ‘a man of great Credit there, and greatly esteemed and well known in other Kingdoms’,⁷⁶ Coverte and his companions obtained a series of letters addressed to the rulers, senior officials and clergymen of the territories that would be crossed by the three Englishmen. According to Coverte, Xavier granted all these letters ‘most willingly’.⁷⁷

Besides the charitable obligations of the padres’ ministry, there were also other reasons behind the readiness of the Chief Friar to help Coverte and his companions. The presence of more Englishmen at the Mughal court, especially during a moment of crisis in Luso-Mughal relations triggered by the EIC exploits in Surat, could encourage Jahangir to endorse English trading activities and promote further diplomatic contacts with James I. By facilitating the return of the Ascension crewmembers to the British Isles, the Jesuits were able to eliminate the exposure of the Mughal court to English interests. At the same time, despite their commitment to promote the interest of the united Iberian Crowns, the Jesuit missionaries were equally zealous in developing a role as representatives of Christendom and the different firangis living in Mughal territories. While Hawkins and Mildenhall adopted a hostile approach, undermining the status of the padres by questioning their religious and diplomatic agenda, the Ascension crewmembers did not publicly challenge the Jesuits and actively sought to establish a rapport with Xavier and other missionaries to further their possibilities of obtaining safe conducts for their travels. Indeed, throughout the pages dedicated to his experiences in Agra, Coverte mentions several friendly conversations with the ‘Christian Friars’. By acknowledging the status of the Jesuits as de facto representatives of the firangis, Coverte’s group generated a perception that they did not pose a threat to Xavier and the other missionaries. The sojourn of the Ascension crewmembers in Agra reveals, thus, a possibility of collaboration based on a tacit recognition of the padres’ prominent status and a certain degree of acceptance of Iberian interests. In other words, as long as other firangis, including those from rival nations of the Iberian Union such as Robert Coverte, did not actively undermine Jesuit activities at the Mughal court, the padres were willing to assist them.

By helping the Ascension survivors, Xavier was able to affirm the prominent status enjoyed by the Jesuits at the Mughal court and among the firangi vis-à-vis the emergence of the rival English Chan. As Coverte discreetly insinuates, the Jesuits seemed to have been more effective than Hawkins in this mediating role. Indeed, Coverte is rather laconic about Hawkins’ démarches at the Mughal court. His final remarks about Agra, although dedicated to the English Chan, do not mention any relevant interference on behalf of the Ascension crewmembers, but highlight his mansabdar and proximity to Jahangir and some prominent courtiers:

Captain Hawkins, whom we left therein great credit with the King, being allowed one hundredth Ruckées a day which is ten pound sterling, and is intituled [sic] by the name of a Can, which is a Knight, and kept company with the greatest Noble men belonging to the King: and he seemed very willing to do his Country good. And this is as much as I can say concerning him.⁷⁸

Apart from this brief mention to an apparent willingness ‘to do his Country good’, Hawkins does not emerge in Coverte’s account as a crucial actor in assisting the Ascension survivors, as it was probably expected from an EIC emissary who had a privileged position at a foreign court. In fact, Coverte’s perception of Hawkins is that of an Englishman who had be fully incorporated into a foreign polity and, thanks to his mansabdar, enjoyed a new degree of agency that allowed him to act autonomously from the EIC. The English Chan’s willingness to promote English interests relied thus on his ability to navigate the Mughal courtly milieu, but also, as Coverte tacitly suggests, on the articulation between Hawkins’ personal agenda and the goals of the EIC.

V

One of the possible reasons for the apparent lack of attention given to the Ascension crewmembers by the English Chan was the news of the negotiations between the Estado and the Mughals. After learning about the end of the hostilities between Portuguese and Mughals, in January 1610, Hawkins summoned William Finch to join him in Agra to help him pressure different Mughal officials to obtain a firman. On 4 April 1610, Finch arrived at Agra and on the same day, during the afternoon, the English Chan presented him to Jahangir.⁷⁹ At Agra, Finch not only joined Hawkins but also met another Englishman, the mercenary Thomas Boys, who was accompanied by three French soldiers, a Dutch engineer and a Venetian merchant who had travelled to Agra with his son and one servant.⁸⁰ This entourage enhanced Hawkins’ role as a secular representative of different firangi at the imperial court, one that, unlike the Jesuits, was independent from the Estado da Índia.

Hawkins’ manoeuvres to restore the confiscated goods and undermine Muqarrab Khan seemed to have influenced the latter’s sudden downfall. After concluding the negotiations with Pinheiro, Muqarrab Khan presented himself in Agra in March 1610 carrying several European commodities and curiosities, as well as some goods prohibited by the Portuguese cartazes such as Persian horses and East African slaves. The return of the Royal Confidant to the court, however, was extremely troubled. During the summer months of 1610, Muqarrab Khan suddenly fell from grace. According to the Jahangirnama, one of the mutasaddi’s servants kidnapped a ‘Baniya’ girl. The abduction and eventual death of the girl instigated Jahangir to punish the Royal Confidant, reducing his mansdab by one half.⁸¹

The story of the abduction of the ‘Banyia’ girl, however, seemed to offer an acceptable pretext—one with moralist overtones—for the sudden downfall of one of the emperor’s closest aides. Jahangir’s decision to punish Muqarrab Khan coincides with Hawkins demands to be compensated for the confiscation of his goods by the Gujarati authorities, which instigated Jahangir to reprimand Muqarrab Khan for his hostile behaviour towards the EIC. Hawkins was not the only one to present complaints about the ‘tyrannical injustice’ of the Royal Confidant. Muqarrab Khan’s interference in the Gujarat mercantile scene damaged the interests of several merchants. As Hawkins noted, besides him, ‘many a man being undone by him (…) petitioned to the King for Justice’.⁸² The reduced status and brief imprisonment of the Royal Confidant, as Hawkins suggests in his account, offered an opportunity to push English interests at the Mughal court, although this favourable scenario would only last for some weeks.

While Muqarrab Khan had a troubled return to the Mughal court, Manuel Pinheiro continued his diplomatic activities. According Da Missam do Mogor, an anonymous Jesuit manuscript account on the Jesuit mission at the Mughal court for 1610–1611 held at the Biblioteca Ajuda, Jahangir wrote to the missionary to thank him ‘for pacifying his lands, with many words of gratitude, and asked him with urgency to go to the court where the emperor was anxiously awaiting him due to the very important businesses which he needed to discuss with him’.⁸³ The words chosen by the anonymous author of the manuscript to summarise the contents of Jahangir’s letter suggest again a Mughal perception of Pinheiro as a ‘Mughalised’ agent who, although serving the Estado da Índia, also acted on behalf of the emperor’s interests.

Before travelling to Agra, Pinheiro returned to Goa carrying a letter and present from Jahangir. After some time at the capital of the Estado da Índia, by July 1610, Pinheiro returned to the Mughal court with a letter and a gift from Viceroy Rui Lourenço de Távora. Jahangir ‘celebrated greatly’ the viceroy’s gift and revealed a particular enthusiasm for a collection of Iberian hats offered by Pinheiro. The emperor, according to the Jesuits, ‘removed his turban and put one of the hats on, and wore it for some hours, asking for a mirror to see how he looked’.⁸⁴ As Jorge Flores has argued, these acts of appropriation of foreign identities and material cultures performed by emperors such as Akbar and Jahangir often sought to express Mughal superiority, acting as a symbolic incorporation of other polities into the Mughal imperial imagintion.⁸⁵ In contrast, European agents and writers often tended to see these acts as a sympathetic gesture that demonstrated a special inclination towards their interests.

Apart from appreciating the gifts from Goa, Jahangir had several conversations with Manuel Pinheiro to discuss ‘the great travails which he [Pinheiro] had to endure on the king’s behalf’. Again, the Ajuda manuscript presents Pinheiro as a ‘Mughalised’ agent who integrated into the emperor’s inner circle. Pinheiro received public and ‘extraordinary demonstrations of his love and familiarity’ from Jahangir, leaving many Mughal courtiers and officials ‘stunned and amazed’ (attonitos e pasmados).⁸⁶ The favourable and friendly treatment conceded by the emperor to the missionary was another suggestion of an apparent proximity to the Estado da Índia. Indeed, following Pinheiro’s return to Agra, Jahangir performed two symbolic overtures towards the Portuguese.

Muqarrab Khan was probably one the subjects of the conversations between Jahangir and Pinheiro. The Jesuit seemed to have successfully persuaded the emperor to rehabilitate the Royal Confidant. His reintegration into the emperor’s inner circle is patent in a painting attributed to Manohar depicting Jahangir receiving one of his sons, Prince Parviz, surrounded by a restricted group of courtiers that included Muqarrab Khan. It was precisely during Pinheiro’s presence at Agra that Jahangir appointed Muqarrab Khan to head a new embassy to Goa. Indeed, his hostility towards the EIC, Christian sympathies and apparent alignment with Portuguese commercial and geopolitical interests made the mutasaddi, in the eyes of the Portuguese authorities, the preferred interlocutor to discuss Luso-Mughal affairs.

The rehabilitation of the Royal Confidant sought thus to ensure a Portuguese willingness to extend the diplomatic exchanges with Jahangir to direct contacts with Philip III. Besides ensuring that the embassy would be led by someone well regarded in Goa, Jahangir made a powerful symbolic gesture of proximity by allowing the conversion to Catholicism of his nephews, the three sons of Prince Daniyal—Thamuras, Baysungjar and Hoshang—who were under the tutelage of Francesco Corsi and Jerónimo Xavier.

The Ajuda manuscript insinuates that Jahangir decided to baptise his nephews after being impressed by a farewell gift offered by Pinheiro before his departure to Goa. The emperor was ‘grateful’ (penhorado) for the lavish present of a basket with silk flowers ornated with ‘artfully crafted’ gold threads. Taking advantage of the impact of his gift on Jahangir, Pinheiro requested the ‘privilege’ (mercê) of allowing him to baptise the three princes upon his return from Goa. To add a slightly dramatic tone to the request, the Ajuda manuscript mentions that if the emperor approved this request, Pinheiro promised to be an ‘eternal captive’ of Jahangir, a statement that exposed and reinforced the incorporation of the missionary into the Mughal polity. Jerónimo Xavier, who was also present at the audience, observed that Jahangir’s intention to baptise his nephews had already been reported to Goa, and if this promise never materialised the emperor’s word and reputation would be discredited in India. Jahangir replied ‘with his mouth full of laughter’ giving his permission to baptise his nephews immediately.⁸⁷

For the Jesuit missionaries, the conversion and baptism of three members of the Mughal royal family represented a coup that equated their mission in Agra to the more successful Jesuit exploits in China, Japan and Ethiopia. It was a much-welcomed achievement that ensured the continuity of a mission deemed as ‘fruitless’ and enhanced the triumphal narrative of Catholic global expansion promoted by the Jesuit propaganda.⁸⁸

For the padres, the baptism of the Mughal princes was a crucial symbolic event with the potential to improve the social status of Christians in Mughal India. A rather anecdotal example of the lobbying made by the padres is the permission given by Jahangir in 1609 allowing the Jesuits to celebrate the conversion of new Christians in public with the same honorary privileges granted to those who converted to Islam. The story behind this privilege reveals, however, the subaltern position of the Jesuit missionaries at the Mughal court. The request to surround Christian converts with the same elements of distinction conferred to Muslim converts derived from the honours granted by Jahangir to an Armenian Christian who converted to Islam in 1609. The emperor allowed the Armenian convert to parade the streets of Agra riding an elephant with great pomp. Aware of the implications of the symbolic dimension of the public honours granted to someone who converted from Christianity to Islam could have on the local Christian communities, Xavier asked the emperor for a similar privilege to those who decided to convert to Christianity. Jahangir accepted the proposal, but only under the condition that the convert should ride an ass, imitating the triumphal entry of Jesus in Jerusalem. Xavier noted that in Europe this could be considered as a humiliation. Jahangir reconsidered and allowed Christian converts to be carried by elephants, but only if the padres rode an ass, a condition accepted by the padres. The anecdotal story of the Jesuits and the ass thus reveals Jahangir’s intention to expose the subservience and dependence of the Jesuit missionaries. By forcing the padres to participate in a ceremony that involved elements that had negative connotations in the European symbolic repertoire, Jahangir stressed the fragile position of the Jesuit missionaries as figures that were utterly dependent on the goodwill and needs of the Mughal authorities.⁸⁹ Indeed, when on 5 September 1610 the three Mughal princes were baptised, they were transported by elephants to visit the Jesuit church on holy days.

Jahangir conceived of the baptism of the three princes not only as manoeuvre to undermine the ambitions of potential rival factions, but also as a public event in which the firangi and Christian communities were able to demonstrate their incorporation into the Mughal sociopolitical apparatus and submission to the emperor’s authority. The description made by William Finch of the lavish ceremonies staged by Jahangir and the Jesuits reveals a clear Mughal intention to use the baptism ceremony to expose the obedience of the firangi. Although Finch presented the baptism of Jahangir’s nephews as an act of ‘dissimulation’, his description highlighted William Hawkins’ prominent role in the ceremonies as a demonstration of the privileged position of the English nation at the Mughal court:

But to returne to this dissimulation (as since it hath to the world appeared) those three Princes were Christened solemnly, conducted to Church by all the Christians of the Citie, to the number of some sixtie horse, Captaine Hawkins being in the head of them, with S. Georges colours carried before him, to the honour of the English Nation, letting them flie in the Court before Sha Selim himselfe.⁹⁰

If Finch interpreted Hawkins’ prominent role as an illustration of the successful advancement of English interests at Jahangir’s court, a Mughal audience would probably read the presence of the English Chan in a different manner. He was, after all, a European who had recently received a mansabdar. His distinguished position in a parade of the Christian community of Agra represented thus his relevant status among the firangi, but not in the Mughal court or polity. Hawkins’ mansabdar made him a secular agent who was able to represent the firangi at the court, a ‘Mughalised’ Frank fully incorporated into the Mughal imperial apparatus. More than representing the English nation in the baptism of the three princes, Hawkins demonstrated the submission of the Franks to Mughal sovereignty.

Jahangir’s decision reanimated the hopes of the emperor’s conversion and the formation of a Luso-Mughal entente. The enthusiastic reports sent by the Jesuit missionaries in Agra are also mirrored in the correspondence of Viceroy Ruy Lourenço de Távora with Philip III. In one letter dated 29 December 1610, the viceroy reported the baptism of the three princes, baptised as Carlos, Henrique and Filipe—the names of the previous and current monarchs of Portugal and Spain. The connection with the Iberian Crowns was reinforced by Jahangir’s wish to have Philip III act as the godfather of his homonymous nephew. Távora believed that this was a unique opportunity to enhance the prestige and influence of the Iberian monarchy. The viceroy urged Philip III to be the godfather of the three boys, instead of just one, and send to them ‘velvets and clothes, so they could dress according to Spanish fashion, as well as black and coloured hats with plumes, and also swords’.⁹¹ More than symbolic tokens from their godfather, these were gifts that would transform them into true representatives of Catholicism and Iberian culture. As Távora explained, the goal was to ‘make each of their bodies appear [Iberian] and for them to esteem these [gifts], not because they use them, but because they were sent by Your Majesty’.⁹²

The conversion of Jahangir’s nephews was probably one of the most embarrassing misunderstandings of the Jesuit missionaries. Although Francesco Corsi and Jerónimo Xavier were initially apprehensive on the real intentions of the Mughal princes, their baptism in a public ceremony suggested a potential breakthrough to the mission. However, after a few years, the three sons of Prince Daniyal reverted to Islam. The Jesuits explained this setback as another case of Muslim untrustworthiness, but the meteoric conversion and defection of the three princes seemed to have been influenced by complex and subtle political manoeuvres that Corsi and Xavier were unable to grasp.

Jahangir’s surprising decision to allow his nephews to convert to Christianity should be analysed as a simultaneous attempt to thwart a rival faction of the imperial family and make a friendly overture to the Portuguese Estado da Índia, the patron of the Jesuit mission. According to William Hawkins, Jahangir’s interest in baptising the princes was not motivated by the emperor’s apparent growing Christian inclinations, ‘but upon the prophecy of certain learned Gentiles, who told him, that the sons of his body should be disinherited, and the children of his brother should reign’. The objective was thus to alienate three potential rivals to the Mughal throne by altering their religious affiliation and exploring the hostility of the Sunni orthodox faction towards Christianity. As Hawkins explained, Jahangir wanted to ‘make these children hateful to all Moors, as Christians are odious in their sight: and that they being once Christians, when any such matter should happen, they should find no subjects’. Some years later, while commenting on the conversion of Prince Dainyial’s sons in his Remonstratie, Francisco Pelsaert corroborated this perception, stressing that the emperor’s motivations were not based on his interest in Christianity but on pure political calculations:

He did so not because he thought well of or was attached to that religion, but in order to turn away the affections of everyone from them. He did not wish that they should enjoy the support of the great nobles for their father’s sake, who was much loved by everyone.⁹³

In fact, Jahangir had already previously taken even more aggressive measures against potential rivals. Mirza Hakim’s sons and grandsons were incarcerated, purged, and their status downgraded. Prince Khusrau, Jahangir’s son, was imprisoned and then blinded following his involvement in several plots to overthrow his father.⁹⁴ Although the Jesuits were aware of Jahangir’s violent treatment of his rivals, they often related this to a demonstration of royal authority and failed to detect a rather coherent strategy or behaviour that aimed to quash the political influence and ambitions of different branches of the Mughal royal family.⁹⁵

VI

It was with an atmosphere of enthusiasm that the Mughal embassy was received in Goa. The prospect of Jahangir’s conversion and the formation of a Luso-Mughal alliance encouraged Viceroy Rui Lourenço de Távora to prepare a sumptuous reception to Muqarrab Khan. The first meeting between the viceroy and the Mughal ambassador was attended by ‘all the nobility of Goa’ and culminated with a banquet that left ‘the ambassador and his Gujaratis in awe after seeing the style and ceremony in which the Portuguese nobility are served, because the pages were all lavishly dressed, the cutlery and plates (baixela) were the finest one could find in India, the delicacies the most delightful, and the sweets unbeatable’.⁹⁶ Muqarrab Khan’s presence in Goa served as pretext to stage a lavish celebration in honour of the baptism of the three princes, which included a jogo de canas performed by the member of the Goan elite.⁹⁷

Apart from formal and informal meetings with the viceroy, Muqarrab Khan’s days in Goa involved a good deal of exploring opportunities for his own private business. His contacts and trading ventures with local merchants and luminaries sought to expand his commercial network, but also to boost the activities of the Gujarati ports. One of the associates of the Royal Confidant was Dom Estevão de Ataíde, an aristocrat and high-ranking official of the Estado involved in the Portuguese expansionist campaigns in Mozambique and Monomotapa. This partnership, which reflects a Mughal interest in exploring the trade routes linking West India to East Africa, led the Mughal ambassador to present a petition to the viceroy requesting a pardon to one António Monteiro, the captain of a trade ship sent by Dom Estevão to Mozambique and Khambhat.⁹⁸ Muqarrab Khan’s petition was approved by Ruy Lourenço de Távora, probably as a gesture of goodwill towards the representative of the Mughal emperor, but in Lisbon and Madrid the involvement of a Mughal grandee in the East African trade was alarming enough to launch an inquiry.⁹⁹

Muqarrab Khan’s successful diplomatic and commercial dealings in Goa derived mostly from his secret conversion to Catholicism. Although the Mughal sources and the records of the English and Dutch East India companies do not mention the decision of the Royal Confidant to embrace Christianity, the Portuguese and Jesuit records, such as the Ajuda manuscript, have several references to what was perceived as a remarkable diplomatic and missionary achievement.

The ambassador’s move towards conversion was initiated in 1608 after Manuel Pinheiro’s intervention in the cure of his adoptive son, Masih-i-Kairanawi. According to the Jesuit documentation, Muqarrab Khan contacted the Jesuit hierarchy expressing his intention to baptise Maish in Goa. Initially, Viceroy Ruy Lourenço de Távora attributed the ambassador’s desire to baptise his adoptive son not to a genuine spiritual transformation, but to a symbolic gesture in which the Royal Confidant was expressing his proximity to the emperor by imitating Jahangir’s decision to convert his nephews to Catholicism.

Masih, however, due to his poor health and the saudades (profound melancholy, nostalgy) of his mother, would not travel to Goa. To ensure the conversion of his son, Muqarrab Khan asked the Jesuit superiors to send to Khambhat a Christian woman to ‘teach his wife the doctrine and how to dress in the Portuguese fashion’. The request was approved and a Japanese woman, probably a slave, ‘educated among the Portuguese’, was sent to Gujarat. The choice of a Japanese convert sought to exhibit a non-European dimension of Catholicism and promote what was still considered to be one of the success stories of the Jesuit overseas missions.¹⁰⁰ Besides, the Jesuits missionaries in Japan had successfully employed local women as informal catechisers to guarantee a continuous indoctrination of families or converts in more secluded or private domestic spaces.¹⁰¹ The choice of a Japanese Christian woman was thus a well-tested solution that ensured that Muqarrab Khan’s family would be correctly introduced to Christianity and Portuguese manners.

While in Goa, Muqarrab Khan continued his flirtation with the Jesuits. He visited the Jesuit Church and the College of St Paul several times. During these visits, the ambassador was, according to the Ajuda manuscript, ‘impressed with the Catholic ways and divine cult, temples and their majesty’.¹⁰² For the Jesuits, this continuous exposure to Christianity encouraged Muqarrab Khan to convert. After one of his visits, the Royal Confidant asked Manuel Pinheiro to discreetly communicate to the Jesuit visitor, Nicolau Pimenta, his decision to be baptised. The ceremony needed to be performed in absolute secrecy. Muqarrab Khan feared that the news of his conversion would cause an upheaval at the Mughal court and Khambhat, instigating the hostility ‘of some Mughal lords who would take it badly’.¹⁰³ Secrecy was required to protect the career and status of the Royal Confidant, but also to ensure that he would be able ‘to help Christians and encourage others to follow his example’.¹⁰⁴ In other words, Muqarrab Khan proposed acting as an undercover Christian agent who would use his status, wealth and political influence at the service of the Jesuit mission.

After consulting the viceroy, ‘who celebrated the conversion’, Nicolau Pimenta arranged a baptism ceremony ‘with absolute secrecy and dissimulation’.¹⁰⁵ During a meeting with the viceroy at the Jesuit headquarters, Muqarrab Khan was asked by Ruy Lourenço de Távora ‘to discuss confidential business in secrecy’. Then, he was taken to a chapel and baptised in a ceremony performed by Nicolau Pimenta, assisted by Manuel Pinheiro, who served as an interpreter. The ceremony was also attended by the viceroy who acted as Muqarrab Khan’s godfather and could not avoid ‘many tears of joy’ for witnessing the conversion of a Muslim.¹⁰⁶

Muqarrab Khan chose João for his Christian name as a homage to João III, the monarch who promoted the Jesuit missions in the Estado da Índia, and to St John the Baptist, ‘for the esteem that the Moors have for this saint’.¹⁰⁷ He also adopted the surname Távora to honour his godfather, Viceroy Ruy Lourenço de Távora. Due to his status as the Royal Confidant, both Portuguese and Jesuit sources identified the new convert with the honourable title of Dom, a mark of distinction intended to relate Muqarrab Khan to the Portuguese nobility. Dom João de Távora’s choice of names reflects a Jesuit intention to use Muqarrab Khan as a propaganda coup, but also the Mughal ambassador’s ability to manipulate familiar Christian elements such as the veneration for St John the Baptist, who is also one of the main Islamic prophets, and use his conversion to create an intimate link and forge a partnership with the viceroy.

For the Jesuits this was a genuine conversion. During the baptism ceremony, the Mughal ambassador expressed his inner desire to remain in Goa and join the Society of Jesus. After being baptised, he attended Mass every day in secret and ‘with much devotion’. He also ended his embassy with a favourable agreement for the Estado da Índia that established ‘perpetual peace and friendship’ with the Mughal Empire and obliged Jahangir to ban Dutch and English trade in Mughal ports. Besides his ability to protect Portuguese interests, upon his return to Khambhat, Dom João de Távora sought to enhance the status of the Jesuit missionaries. When Nicolau Pimenta visited Khambhat, Dom João honoured the Jesuits by ‘taking the Fathers around the city, which is very big, on elephants covered in gold and richly ornated’.¹⁰⁸ Some years after Muqarrab Khan’s baptism, in a letter to António Mascarenhas, Manuel Pinheiro praised ‘Dom João, the ambassador who became Christian in Goa’ for lobbying Jahangir to subsidise the acquisition of a Jesuit house.¹⁰⁹

More importantly, the metamorphosis of Muqarrab Khan into Dom João de Távora had Jahangir’s approval. The Ajuda manuscript mentions that upon his return to Agra, Manuel Pinheiro discreetly reported to the emperor that Muqarrab Khan had been baptised in Goa. Jahangir reacted positively, ‘saying in secret that he wished to be there, and that everything has its time’.¹¹⁰ In another conversation with Pinheiro, Jahangir suggested that he was delaying his conversion for fear of ‘riots and mutinies’, and implied that the baptism of his nephews sought to evaluate the reactions of the different Muslim factions at court. The emperor even voiced his desire to be baptised by Pinheiro.¹¹¹ However, the expectations of the secular authorities of Goa regarding Dom João de Távora dissipated quickly. In December 1611, the viceroy complained about the behaviour of Muqarrab Khan, describing him as a ‘a crooked Muslim’ (mouro velhaco), who promptly reverted to Islam and used his conversion to trick the Portuguese.¹¹²

VII

Muqarrab Khan’s rehabilitation seemed to have kickstarted the deterioration of Hawkins’ position at the Mughal court. The destiny of the English Chan seemed to have been linked to the outcome of the Mughal embassy to Goa. Jahangir’s decision to send an embassy to the capital of the Estado da Índia, according to Hawkins’ account, emerged after the arrival of ‘a Present of many rare things’ and a letter from the Portuguese viceroy. The contents of the letter dealt with two matters. The first was to remind Jahangir that the concession of trading privileges to the English would force Philip III to reconsider the ‘ancient amitie’ with the Mughal Empire. The other was to report the presence in Goa of a merchant who wanted to sell ‘a very faire ballace Ruby, weighing three hundred and fiftie Rotties’. The warning made by Viceroy Ruy Lourenço de Távora prompted Hakwins’ three nemeses (Muqarrab Khan, Manuel Pinheiro and Abdul Hasan) to arrange a meeting between the emperor and a group of Surat-based merchants to persuade the emperor of the disadvantages of allowing the EIC to operate in Gujarat. Besides the emergence of a new competitor, many in Surat feared that the presence of English merchants posed a serious risk of a prolonged naval blockade by the Portuguese armada, which would inevitably impede local tradesmen involved in the maritime routes of the Indian Ocean. Jahangir, according to Hawkins, agreed with this perception and like the Surat merchants shared the fears that ‘hereafter any toy could [not] come into this country, because the Portugal was so strong at sea, and would not suffer them to goe in or out of their Ports’.¹¹³ Hawkins thus presents this Mughal volte-face as a combination of a foreign policy dictated by flexible tacticism and Jahangir’s obsession for ‘toys’. Indeed, besides the negative impact of a prolonged conflict with the Estado, Hawkins suggested that the emperor was swayed in his decision to revoke the concession of a firman to the EIC by his desire to acquire the rare ruby reported by Lourenço de Távora, as well as by more ‘promises by the Fathers of rare things’.¹¹⁴

The courtly modus operandi and the emperor’s eagerness for ‘toys’ implied, as Hakwins noted, that ‘there is no man that commeth to make petition, who commeth emptie-handed’.¹¹⁵ Perceiving the emperor’s decision-making to be motivated by materialistic interests, Hawkins sought thus to anticipate the gifts that would arrive from Goa. Immediately after the departure of Muqarrab Khan and Manuel Pinheiro, the English Chan invested in a gift-giving campaign that targeted Jahangir and relevant courtiers, including those hostile to English interests. Despite the lack of support of many courtiers who, according to Hawkins, ‘had eaten of me many Presents’, the gift offered to Jahangir had a persuasive effect. In a gesture of appreciation for the gift, the emperor reaffirmed his intention to grant trading privileges to the EIC and ‘commanded that no man should open his mouth to the contrary: for it was his pleasure that the English should come into his Ports’.¹¹⁶ Hawkins’ paraphrase of Jahangir repeated the idea that the emperor’s predisposition to support the EIC was frustrated by the persistent opposition of influential actors who were able to manipulate the emperor. However, more than seeking to reassure Hawkins, Jahangir’s declaration of his ‘pleasure’ to have the EIC operating in Mughal ports was aimed at Goa. The timing of the emperor’s statement, while an embassy was en route to Goa, had the potential to pressure the Portuguese authorities to reach a quick and favourable agreement under the threat of a possible Anglo-Mughal entente.

Soon after Hawkins had his meeting with Jahangir, members of the imperial inner circle informed the Jesuits about the new firman and the news eventually reached Muqarrab Khan and Pinheiro. The two emissaries wrote to Jahangir and Abdul Hasan advising against the firman mentioning that, like in 1609, the Portuguese would not receive the embassy and possibly reject further negotiations. The letter persuaded Jahangir to annul the firman and frustrated Hawkins, who accused the emperor of inconstancy and frivolity for going against ‘his word, esteeming a few toyes which the Fathers had promised him, more than his honour’.¹¹⁷ Hawkins made a final attempt and mobilised some of his supporters to press Jahangir to reconsider his decision, but with no effect. According to the emperor, the progress made by the Mughal embassy in Goa meant that the concession of trading privileges to the EIC no longer served ‘my affaires in my Ports in Guzerat’.

Despite this final volte-face, Jahangir sought to maintain the English Chan at the Mughal court, albeit in conditions that Hawkins considered to be inadequate to his status serving in a post located ‘in places where Out-lawes raigned’. After being informed of the arrival of a new English fleet at Surat, Hawkins made a last attempt to regain a privileged position at court and presented another petition to Jahangir with ‘great hope, that the King would performe former grants, in hope of rare things that should come from England’. This manoeuvre, however, failed. The emperor directed Hawkins to Abdul Hasan, who informed the English Chan of the decision to remove his mansabdar and bar him from the red rayles, the restricted space of the Mughal court thatred, as Hawkins explained, was ‘a place of honour, where all my time I was placed very neere unto the King, in which place there were but fiue men in the Kingdome before me’.¹¹⁸

If Hawkins presented his ostracism from the Mughal court as the result of the machinations of his rivals and Jahangir’s flexible tactics, one English witness of his downfall, John Jourdain, described the demotion of the English Chan as the inevitable outcome of a series of miscalculations and erratic behaviour. Jourdain arrived at Agra on 16 February 1611, after being instructed by Hawkins to bring to Agra the monies obtained from the sale of all the lead transported from England to Surat. In his journal, Jourdain mentions that after his arrival at the Mughal capital he received the information that Hawkins ‘was in some disgrace’. Apart from his clashes with Muqarrab Khan, Manuel Pinheiro and Abdul Hasan, the English Chan was involved in two problematic episodes that caused irreparable damages to his reputation. The first was a diplomatic incident caused by William Finch, who provoked the ire of Jahangir’s mother, Maryam-uz-Zamani, after outbidding one of her agents for a considerable amount of indigo. Maryam-uz-Zamani complained to Jahangir and accused Hawkins of trying to ‘buye up all the indico’ against the interests of the imperial family.¹¹⁹ Finch’s aggressive business approach suggested that the English were not willing to act as subordinated supplicants of the Mughal Empire, but as competitors ready to thwart Mughal trading activities.

This was probably one of the reasons for the problems faced by Finch in Lahore, when he tried to sell the indigo with no success. Frustrated by these difficulties and Jahangir’s decision to cancel the firman granted to the EIC, he informed Hawkins of his intention to sell the indigo in Aleppo and then return to England. Believing that Finch’s real intention was to ‘runne away’, Hawkins discreetly sent a letter of power of attorney to a Jesuit missionary in Lahore authorising him to seize all goods carried by Finch. To avoid suggestions that he allowed the Jesuits to interfere in the company’s affairs, Hawkins also instructed Nicholas Ufflet to travel to Lahore to collect the indigo.¹²⁰

There was, however, another faux pas that triggered the end of Hawkins’ career at the Mughal court. In 1611, Jahangir instructed his courtiers to refrain from the consumption of wine. One day, however, Hawkins appeared at the emperor’s quarters with signs of ‘stronge drinke’ being reprimanded by Jahangir ‘in presence of the whole courte’.¹²¹ Although, Jourdain noted that this incident had the mark of one of Hawkins’ rivals, Abdul Hasan, who knew that the English Chan was a ‘great drinker’,¹²² the failure to follow Jahangir’s order revealed an absence of self-control that damaged the public image of the EIC emissary and ended his privileged access to the restricted spaces of the court. Indeed, the price for not conforming to the emperor’s code of conduct was that Hawkins ‘could not be suffered to come into his accustomed place neere the Kinge’.¹²³ Without direct access to Jahangir, the English Chan lost his capacity to influence imperial decision-making or interact with key actors in the imperial apparatus. This inability forced Hawkins to reduce his presence at the court and to contemplate a return to England.

After obtaining leave from the Mughal court, Hawkins mentions that he had no option but to ‘currie fauour with the Iesuites’ in order to obtain a safe conduct that would allow him and his wife to travel to Goa, where they would then embark for Europe. This initial plan, however, changed. Before leaving Agra, the family of Hawkins’ wife persuaded him to settle in Goa. Although Mariam Khan wanted to travel with his husband to Europe, Hawkins contemplated the possibility of living in the Estado and negotiated with the Jesuits for the concession of two safe conducts:

one concerning my quiet being, and ftee libertie of conscience in Goa, and to bee as a Portugall in all Tradings and Commerce in Goa: (this was to shew my Wifes Parents.) The other was an absolute grant for free passage into Portugall, and so for England, with my Wife and Goods, without any disturbances of any of my Wiues friends: and what agreements I made with them to be void and of none effect, but I should stay or goe, when I pleased with free libertie of conscience for my selfe.¹²⁴

This apparent dissimulative approach towards Mariam Khan’s family sought to dissipate suspicions of an intention to decamp to the Estado da Índia. However, according to Jourdain, Hawkins incessantly pressured him to travel to Goa as well, being ‘very desirous to have mee staye with him to goe (…) with his wife and familie’.¹²⁵ These pressures included promises of ‘greate wages’. Jourdain refused and doubted the veracity of Hawkins’ promises, a man that ‘was very fickle in his resolucion, as alsoe in his religion’. Indeed, making a connection with the promises of financial rewards in Goa, Jourdain mentioned that Hawkins’ had embraced Muslim and South Asian customs: ‘for in his howse he used altogether the custome of the Moores or Mahometans, both in his meate and drinke and other customes, and would seeme to bee discontent if all men did not the like’.¹²⁶ Indeed, Hawkins not only embraced local garb, but throughout his time at the Mughal court he also adopted a Indo-Persian habitus, a set of social practices that could facilitate his integration. Such a strategy of accommodation can be related to the processes termed by Irving Hallowell as ‘transculturalization’, where ‘individuals under a variety of circumstances are temporarily or permanently detached from one group, enter the web of social relations that constitute another society, and come under the influence of its customs, ideas, and values to a greater or lesser degree’.¹²⁷ These processes often allowed individuals to play a dual role as effectives member of different sociocultural realities, and thus able to serve as efficient mediators. By adopting an Indo-Persian habitus, the English Chan sought to become a more familiar and reliable figure to the Mughal courtiers, and thus improve his chances of success.

To Jourdain’s eyes, however, Hawkins had an unstable identity and was on the verge of apostasy, a renegade in the making. Indeed, his remarks reflect European anxieties about the prolonged effects of exposure to Islamic practices and the alluring promises of social mobility and material prosperity offered by Islamic polities.¹²⁸ ‘Renegade’ or ‘Renegadoe’ entered the English lexicon in the early 1580s, coinciding with the intensification of English commercial and diplomatic exchanges with the Ottoman Empire and the Sultanate of Morocco. In 1583, for example, Richard Hakluyt’s Principal Navigations explained that a ‘renegade’ was someone who ‘was first a Christian, and afterwards becommeth a Turke’.¹²⁹

The adoption of alien Islamicate customs by the English Chan raised questions about his adherence to Christianity and thus to the English national church headed by James I. Besides, Hawkins’ mansabdar aggravated these suspicions since his incorporation into the Mughal imperial apparatus implied an allegiance to Jahangir. Jourdain’s remarks on the ‘fickleness’ of his compatriot also sought to warn the EIC hierarchy about how Hawkins’ exploits at the Mughal court allowed him to enjoy a considerable degree of individual agency, which allowed him to pursue different avenues to achieve his goal and escape the control of the English authorities. Indeed, the mansabdar changed Hawkins’ status, offering him an autonomy that meant that his interests would not necessarily be the same as those pursued by the EIC. This conflict of interests is patent in the alleged negotiations between Hawkins and the Jesuits regarding his move to Goa. Jourdain’s reference to the ‘great wages’ offered by Hawkins indicates that the English Chan contemplated the possibility of collaborating with the Portuguese authorities.

At the same time that the safe conducts provided by the Jesuits arrived in Hawkins’ hands, Jahangir appointed Abu’l Hasan to the post of souba of the Deccan.¹³⁰ The new diwan-i-kul was Mirza Ghiyas Beg, also known by his title of I’timad-ud-Daulah, the father of Jahangir’s new wife, Nur Jahan. Ghiyas Beg’s son and Nur Jahan’s brother, Abu’l Hasan, the future Asaf Khan, was also promoted to the title of Itiqad Khan (Lord of Confidence). These changes in the courtly apparatus prompted by Jahangir’s marriage with Nur Jahan were duly noted by Hawkins and perceived as a window of opportunity. Ghiyas Beg and Itiqad Khan were among the courtiers who supported the English Chan’s petitions. If the rising Itiqad Khan was one of his ‘great friends, he hauing beene often at my house’, his father ‘was alwayes willing to please me, when I had occasion to use him’. This apparent relation of proximity with two key figures of a Mughal court undergoing a process of reconfiguration or ‘alteration’, as Hawkins put it,¹³¹ together with the news of the imminent arrival of an English fleet, prompted a final attempt to persuade the emperor to grant a firman and rehabilitate Hawkins. The plan involved the offer of lavish gifts to Ghiyas Beg, Itiqad Khan, Nur Jahan and Jahangir. First, Hawkins contacted the new diwan-i-kul and his son. Apparently persuaded by the gifts, the two men successfully lobbied Jahangir to grant another audience to the English Chan. The audience was apparently a success. The emperor agreed to issue a firman allowing the EIC to establish a factory ‘and that the English come and freely trade for Surat’.¹³² More than the sumptuous gifts offered by Hawkins, the Mughal predisposition to reconsider English petitions coincided not only with the news of the arrival of an EIC fleet at Surat, but also with Jahangir’s dissatisfaction with the progress made by the Mughal embassy to Goa. Indeed, as Hawkins mentioned, Muqarrab Khan ‘had not his full content as he expected of the Portugals’.

The emperor’s decision to restore the concession of trading privileges to the EIC seemed to be yet another attempt to pressure the Estado da Índia to conform to Mughal exigencies. This strategy, however, would be halted once again by the pro-Portuguese faction led by Muqarrab Khan and Abu’l Hasan. According to Hawkins, during his audience with Jahangir, one of the members of this faction, an unnamed courtier identified as ‘a great Nobleman and neerest Fauourite of the King’, alerted Jahangir to the risks that acting against the agreement made with the Estado posed to the emperor’s ‘honour’ and Mughal maritime trade.¹³³ The speech made by the unnamed courtier suggested that the timing of Hawkins’ firman was not ideal and that an open conflict with the Portuguese should be avoided until all possibilities of negotiation were explored. Indeed, the success of the Deccan campaigns relied on the non-interference of potential rivals with interests in the region such as the Portuguese and the Safavids. Although the Estado far from matched the military capacity of the Mughal Empire, the Portuguese could provide logistical support to the Deccani rulers.

The audience ended in another fiasco for Hawkins. The arguments presented by the unnamed courtier convinced the emperor of the ‘inconuenience’ of allowing English merchants in Gujarat. Nonetheless, Jahangir was willing to rehabilitate the English Chan and restore his privileges if he wanted to continue at the Mughal court.¹³⁴ The solution presented by the emperor sought to maintain Hawkins as an intermediary with the EIC, as well as an element that allowed the Mughals to pressure the Estado da Índia. The events of 1609 and 1610 revealed a Portuguese anxiety with the prospect of Mughal support to the activities of European rivals. This was, indeed, a very real threat, which Jahangir was willing to explore to reach a suitable arrangement with the Estado. Hawkins’ continuity at the Mughal court indicated thus the emperor’s readiness to collaborate with the enemies of the Iberian Crowns.

For Hawkins, however, this solution was no longer viable. His chaotic exploits and the difficulties in obtaining a firman significantly damaged the initial benevolent perception that the EIC had of its emissary. The doubts cast by John Jourdain regarding Hawkins’ ‘fickleness’ are an indicator of how the English Chan’s conduct raised questions among his colleagues. Without the confirmation of a valid firman granting trade privileges to the EIC, Hawkins’ continuity at the Mughal court as an Englishman employed by a foreign ruler had the potential to raise further questions as to his allegiances and trustworthiness in promoting English interests. As he explained to Jahangir, his presence was impossible ‘unless the English should come unto his Ports according to promise, and as for my particular maintenance, my King would not see me want’. Albeit this ‘patriotic’ explanation is given in a carefully constructed narrative presented in an account that validated the actions of its author, Hawkins’ words reveal an assessment that his autonomy and career at the Mughal court and the EIC relied on his ability to produce palpable results for both sides. Without a firman, Hawkins would become a minor actor of the Mughal courtly apparatus, a low ranked mansabdar with limited agency, utterly reliant on imperial goodwill, and unprotected from the vicissitudes of courtly rivalries. On 2 November 1611, the English Chan left Agra to join the fleet of Sir Henry Middleton, which was anchored near Khambhat on 18 January 1612.¹³⁵

The Jesuit documents are rather laconic about Hawkins’ departure. One letter from Jerónimo Xavier to the Jesuit provincial in Goa published in the Raguagli d’alcune missioni (1615) mentioned the disturbing presence of ‘some heretics (…) who tried to disturb the happy progress of the Catholic faith, but when the King became aware of their perfidy, he ordered them to be banished from the country, as their evil deeds deserved’.¹³⁶ The 1611 annual letter from the Mughal mission also noted that Jahangir banned English merchants from Mughal ports, a decision that was connected to the concession of privileges to the Jesuit mission at Surat.¹³⁷

VIII

Apart from the narrative on his days at the Mughal court, Hawkins also wrote ‘A briefe discourse of the strength, wealth of the Great Mogol’. Like the texts produced by his Jesuit rivals, Hawkins’ sought to provide a detailed assessment of the political and economic structures of the Mughal polity based on his observations and exchanges with relevant actors close to Jahangir, vaguely described as ‘his chiefe Officers, and Ouer-seers of all his Estate’.¹³⁸

Hawkins’ perception of the Mughal court is shaped by an understanding that Eurasian courtly milieus were organised along similar structural tenets. As in Europe, the Mughal elite was formed by a variety of titles ranked according to different degrees of status and wealth, as were their European counterparts. As Hawkins explained:

As Christian Princes use their degrees by Titles, so they have their Degrees and Titles by their number of Horses: unless it be those that the King most favored, whom he honored with the Title of Chan, and Immirza. None have the Title of Sultan but his Sons. Chan in the Persian Language is as much as a Duke, Immirza is the Title for the Kings Brothers Children.¹³⁹

The correlation established by Hawkins between European and Mughal nobile titles allowed him to frequently refer to European terminology while presenting his own census of a Mughal elite formed by ‘dukes’, ‘marquesses’, ‘earles’, ‘viscounts’, ‘knights’, ‘esquires’, ‘gentlemen’ and ‘yeomen’. The adoption of this terminology also had the advantage of facilitating the analysis of his readers by providing a familiar outline. However, Hawkins highlighted that all members of the Mughal elite were ‘called Mansibdars, or men of Liuings, or Lordships’.¹⁴⁰

Hawkins also presented a list of the main mansabdars, ordering them according to their zat ranks. The list, as M. Athar Ali has noted, has several inaccuracies, such as including Jahangir and his mother as holders of mansabs, which suggests that Hawkins followed unreliable sources or his own impressions on the hierarchisation of the imperial elite.¹⁴¹ Nonetheless, such effort to identify and rank prominent members of the Mughal nobility reveal a concern to inform the English authorities about other actors who, due to their political influence and proximity to the emperor, might be approached to promote English interests and successfully lobby Jahangir.

Another concern of the ‘discourse’ was to evaluate the revenues and resources at the disposal of the Mughal emperor. From the precious stones and silver stored in the imperial treasury to the variety of ‘beasts’ of the emperor’s menagerie, the ‘discourse’ presents Jahangir as the ruler of a vast and wealthy empire who took full advantage of the natural and fiscal resources provided by the different territories, as well as of the commercial routes that linked Mughal cities with the rest of the world and made India ‘rich in silver’.¹⁴² As Hawkins noted, Jahangir embodied the wealth of his empire:

He is exceeding rich in Diamonds, and all other precious stones, and usually wears every day a faire Diamant of great price, and that which he wears this day, till his time be come about to wear it again, he wears not the same: that is to say, all his faire Jewels are divided into a certain quantity or proportion, to wear every day. He also wears a chain of Pearle, very faire and great, and another chain of Emeralds, and ballace Rubies. He hath another Jewell, that comes round about his Turban, full of faire Diamonds and Rubies. It is not much to bee wondered, that he is so rich in Jewels, and in Gold and Silver, when he hath heaped together the Treasure and Jewels of so many Kings, as his forefathers have conquered, who likewise were a long time in gathering them together: and all came to his hands.¹⁴³

Another important source for the spectacular wealth at Jahangir’s disposal was the non-hereditary and temporary nature of the mansabdars, which allowed the emperor ‘to take possession of his Noblemens Treasure when they dye, and to bestow on his Children what he pleaseth’.¹⁴⁴ Anticipating the analysis made by François Bernier of the Mughal political system as ‘despotic’ structure that disregarded the principle of private property, Hawkins’ observations on the vulnerable position of the Mughal nobility presents Jahangir as a truly absolute ruler with ample powers to interfere in every sphere of Mughal life. The political organisation of the Mughal Empire depicted by Hawkins was thus, to paraphrase Stephen Blake, grounded on a ‘patrimonial-bureaucratic’ model that conceived the empire as an extension of the imperial household, a notion that subordinated all subjects to the emperor.¹⁴⁵

Despite Jahangir’s extraordinary wealth and powers, the Mughal Empire had a good deal of internal problems which weakened imperial authority. As Hawkins explained to his readers, the Mughal Empire was formed of five kingdoms covering most of the subcontinent: Punjab, Bengal, Malwa, Gujarat and the Deccan. Jahangir’s authority over all these territories, however, faced several challenges posed by ‘three Arch-enemies or Rebels’.¹⁴⁶ In the Deccan, although not a Mughal subject, Malik Ambar—identified by Hawkins as ‘Amberry Chapu’, a derivation from his original Ethiopian name, Chapu, and umra-yi Habshi, the title conferred in Ahmadnagar to commanders of African origin¹⁴⁷—threatened Jahangir’s expansionist ambitions in the region and launched several attacks in Mughal territories. In Gujarat, the son of the deposed sultan Muzaffar Shah, Bahadur, instigated the local populations to rebel. Another threat was Amar Singh, the ruler of Mewar, who opposed Mughal sovereignty in modern-day Rajasthan. The three ‘arch-enemies’ identified by the ‘Discourse’ reveal the difficulties faced by Jahangir to impose Mughal sovereignty in different territories. The scenario presented by Hawkins is indeed one of an empire troubled by the spectre of revolt and dissent in most of its provinces: ‘There are many risen at Kandahar, Kabul, Multan, and Sindh, and in the Kingdome of Baloch; Bengal likewise, Deccan, and Gujarat are full [of rebels]’.¹⁴⁸ Mobility across different cities was thus deeply affected. The unrest in many Mughal provinces also affected the circulation of persons and goods, an element of most importance to the EIC operations in India. The inability to affirm imperial authority increasingly exposed the routes linking the main Mughal commercial hubs to marauding groups. As Hawkins reported, Mughal roads were ‘so full of outlaws, and thieves, that almost a man cannot stirre out of doors, throughout all his Dominions, without great forces for they are all become Rebels’.

As in the Jesuit reports, Hawkins also included more or less detailed descriptions of Jahangir’s daily and ritual routine, highlighting the jharoka-i darshan (viewing window) and the daily open audiences. Regarding the latter, Hawkins noted the importance of the ‘red Rayle’ as an element that defined the status of the different courtiers and their proximity to the emperor.¹⁴⁹ The rites performed during Nawroz and the emperor’s birthday are also described as celebrations of imperial power where Jahangir exposed his wealth and demonstrated his authority by receiving ‘toyes and rare things’ from Mughal nobles.¹⁵⁰ Hawkins also dedicates a paragraph to the rites involving the audiences granted by the emperor to Mughal officials serving in posts outside the imperial court. All this information on the rites and ceremonies of Jahangir’s court, besides demonstrating Hawkins’ observational skills and successful incorporation in the Mughal courtly milieu, could be used to prepare future English emissaries to navigate the protocol and etiquette of a foreign court.

One of Hawkins’ probable sources of information were the Jesuit missionaries who, one year before the English Chan penned his ‘Discourse’, also produced a detailed survey of the Mughal court and imperial household. Written around 1610, the Tratado da Corte e Caza de Iamguir Pachá provided relevant information on the emperor and his family, the organisation of the court, the political rituals surrounding the figure of Jahangir, the economic organisation of the empire and its military power. The Spanish versions of the Tratado includes a brief reference to a conversation about Agra between the padres and Hawkins, ‘a well-travelled English captain, who had been to Constantinople’.¹⁵¹

Like the ‘Discourse’, the Jesuit Tratado lists the Mughal provinces, estimates imperial revenues and expenses, explains the organisation of the imperial elites, and presents the members of the imperial family, updating the information on the Mughal polity gathered since the first Jesuit mission in the early 1580s. While the Portuguese were more familiar with the Mughals, the Tratado seeks to expand Iberian knowledge on the political culture that shaped the functioning of the Mughal state, a concern that cannot be disassociated from the potential intensification of Luso-Mughal relations suggested by Muqarrab Khan’s embassy to Goa and Jahangir’s plans to send an embassy to the Iberian Peninsula. Besides assessing Jahangir’s power and wealth, the Tratado also delves into the ideological apparatus of the Mughal polity, describing in detail the rituals that promoted the sacralisation of the emperor and claims of Mughal universal rule. There was an intention to provide information on the ways in which the Mughal polity presented itself, offering elements that could aid Iberian officials to approach the symbolic representations of Mughal imperial power.

Composed five years after Jahangir’s accession, and coinciding with Muqarrab Khan’s embassy to the Estado da Índia, the Tratado offered officials in Goa, Lisbon and Madrid an assessment of the Mughal court under a new regime. The document thus followed the instruction given by Philip II to Viceroy Dom Francisco da Gama in 1598 that the Jesuit mission ‘should inform about everything related to the Mughal king and how it is done’.¹⁵² The fact that there are four known versions of the Tratado in Portuguese and Spanish, located in Lisbon (one at the Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo) and Madrid (one at the Biblioteca Nacional de España and two at the Real Academia de Historia), suggests that this report had reasonable circulation within the political and intellectual circles of the Iberian Union.¹⁵³

While two versions of the treatise ignore the question of authorship, the other existing versions suggest that one of Jerónimo Xavier or Manuel Pinheiro was behind the text. It is also possible, as Jorge Flores has suggested, that the Tratado was a composite text supervised by Xavier with contributions from other members of the mission such as Manuel Pinheiro, António Machado, Francesco Corsi and Giuseppe di Castro.¹⁵⁴ Questions of authorship aside, the author(s) of the Tratado had access to a specific type of information that circulated through the channels of the Mughal bureaucratic apparatus and was accessible to those who were at the imperial court, either in written form or through oral accounts provided by other courtiers or officials. Indeed, some of the contents of the Tratado are very similar to topics covered by Abu’l Fazl’s A’in-i Akbari (c. 1595), such as the emperor’s household, the treasuries, the harem, the imperial menagerie, the mansabdars and the imperial finances and administration, which suggests an influence of local sources in the contents and presentation of the information provided.

Unlike Antoni Montserrat, who provided a psychological and physical portrait of Akbar, the author(s) of the Tratado preferred to give a political portrait of Jahangir, which depicted an authoritarian and arrogant ruler whose religious affiliation was ambiguous, a man,

who no one can say if he is a Muslim, a Gentile or a Christian, because he does not firmly believe in any religion, he is a barbarian who lives according to chance, following his appetites, full of pride and the vainglory of the world, behaving like he is the lord of everything, and he is very cruel and vindictive, having no mercy.¹⁵⁵

Such a negative portrayal reveals a Jesuit frustration with the emperor’s ambiguous attitude towards Christianity and the increasing tensions caused by the antagonist interests of the Estado and the Mughal authorities in Gujarat and the Deccan.

Jahangir’s incredible wealth derived from the conquests made by his predecessors who ‘conquered prosperous and wealthy Kingdoms’. The Mughal authorities were, therefore, able to ‘collect many treasures and expand their revenues through taxation’.¹⁵⁶ The imperial treasury was also expanded through the confiscation of the estates of the deceased mansabdars, a custom presented by Xavier as an act of tyranny. Anticipating the negative comments of François Bernier on the absence of private property in the Mughal Empire, the Tratado mentions that Jahangir confiscated the assets of deceased Mughal noblemen. The emperor’s fabulous wealth was therefore based on ‘the sweat of his subjects’ and obtained ‘through one hundred thousand powers and insolences (…) taking all their wealth, leaving their sons and wives disinherited, with little more than nothing’.¹⁵⁷

The Tratado also sought to provide a meticulous account of the daily routine and rituals surrounding Jahangir, which are presented as an integral part of an effort of centralisation and affirmation of imperial authority. The Mughal emperor established ‘a prominent style of state (…) in order to show that his subjects serve him with such punctuality and respect, that all grandees and the common people are so dedicated to serve him in a way that no other king in the world is served’.¹⁵⁸ The ritual life of the Mughal court also contributed to sacralising Jahangir, inciting his subjects to ‘worship him like a God’.¹⁵⁹ This effort of sacralisation are detected, for example, in Jahangir’s salutations to the sun—a rite inaugurated by Akbar that explored Hindu, Jain and Zoroastrian traditions of sun worship. Another important element was the daily performance of the jharoka-i darshan, a ceremony consisting of a public appearance of the emperor at sunrise that, inspired by Indo-Persian kingship traditions, sought to exalt the emperor by making him visually accessible to all subjects.¹⁶⁰ These public appearances, as Azfar Moin noted, surrounded the emperor with a sacred aura, connecting his personal rites ‘to that of a deity venerated in a temple’.¹⁶¹

The Tratado estimated that Jahangir had 500 wives ‘with whom he is married according to their custom’. These women were usually the daughters of mansabdars and vassal Hindu rulers, revealing the political function of the harem as an instrument that allowed the emperor to forge matrimonial alliance to consolidate political, ethnic and diplomatic partnerships. Although Jahangir appreciated the political utility of the harem, the emperor was also obsessed in collecting women. Among his 500 wives were ‘persons of little standing and worth from their blood, with whom he only marries because of their beauty’.¹⁶² According to the Tratado, ‘whenever the king knows that there is some extremely beautiful woman, the people offer her to him as a gift, and then he takes her as his wife, making the daughter of a low caste a queen, sharing the same status as the other wives’.¹⁶³ The seraglio was also organised according to a rigid hierarchy. The women for whom the emperor had more affection were the ‘superior and heads’ enjoying a special jurisdiction. Despite this apparently rigid order, the seraglio was often disturbed by conflicts among various factions, which often forced Jahangir to intervene¹⁶⁴—an indicator of the harem as an arena of political competition formed by actors who, besides following their own agendas, were related to the different interest groups that constituted the Mughal courtly milieu.

Both the ‘Discourse’ and the Tratado sought to provide a systematic quantification of Jahangir’s court and the Mughal nobility. Although the Jesuit Tratado and Hawkins’ ‘Discourse’ share a similar analytic scope, the two works reflect distinct processes of apprenticeship of Mughal India. While Hawkins penned his ‘Discourse’ as someone involved in the first direct exchanges between the EIC and the South Asian world, the Tratado was a text produced by agents at the service of political and religious structures with accumulated experience in the South Asian geopolitical arena. English knowledge on Mughal India, as the letters sent by Elizabeth I and James I revealed, was scarce and inaccurate. The title of Robert Coverte’s account of his travels, for example, claimed the ‘Discovery of a Great Emperour Called the Great Mogoll, a Prince Not till Now Knowne to Our English Nation’, revealing the lack of information on Mughal lands. Indeed, Hawkins’ account seeks to provide detailed but concise information on a key but unfamiliar geopolitical actor. The concern in enumerating the extension of the Mughal imperial treasury and the organisation of the imperial elites sought to thus support the definition of English commercial and diplomatic strategies based on valuable first-hand experience and observations.

There was also another difference. The ‘Discourse’ was an account produced by someone whose exploits at the Mughal court raised some doubts. Hawkins not only failed to persuade Jahangir to concede trading privileges to the EIC, but also his adoption of a Mughal habitus became increasingly associated with political and religious ‘fickleness’. The ‘Discourse’ thus served two aims. The first was to inform the strategies delineated by the EIC and the English Crown vis-à-vis the Mughals. The second was to validate Hawkins’ exploits as a successful attempt to gather relevant knowledge on a non-European power with the capacity to support or block English interests.

By presenting himself as a relevant informer about Jahangir and his empire, Hawkins intended to alter the negative perceptions of his alleged ‘Mughalisation’, suggesting that his adoption of local customs was part of a dissimulative strategy. Indeed, th interconnected stories of Muqarrab Khan and William Hawkins offer an interesting glimpse into the different forms of dissimulation and ‘transculturalization’ explored by European and South Asian agents involved in cross-cultural exchanges.

Hawkins’ adoption of Mughal mores is very similar to the strategy adopted by his nemesis, Muqarrab Khan, regarding the Portuguese. Throughout his career, the Royal Confidant cultivated a useful religious ambiguity that, through the manipulation of different religious habitus, allowed him to successfully navigate within the Mughal polity while establishing a rapport with the religious and ideological apparatus of the Estado da Índia

The transformation of Muqarrab Khan into Dom João de Távora seemed not to be purely spiritual, but the result of a careful analysis of costs and benefits, a case study for the application of rational choice theory to religious adherence and belonging.¹⁶⁵ Indeed, Muqarrab Khan’s attitude towards Catholicism seems to be an example of ‘subjective conversion’, the concept proposed by Jason Wollschleger and Lindsey Beach to describe cases of individuals who adhere or belong to a religious faith without necessarily believing in its belief systems. In most of these cases, converts opt to be ‘subjectively hypocritical’ to ensure short-term gains and then leave the religious group when they perceive that their adherence is no longer useful or is too perilous.¹⁶⁶ ‘Subjective conversion’ is not far from Muqarrab Khan’s more familiar Islamic tradition of taqiyya, a doctrine primarily advocated by Shi’ite theologians (but also defended by Sunni ones) that encouraged a pious dissimulation to preserve one’s religious and private identity or avoid discrimination in a hostile environment.¹⁶⁷ This correlation between Christian and Islamic notions of religious dissimulation allowed the news of Muqarrab Khan’s conversion to be apparently well received by Jahangir, as well as Dom João de Távora’s alleged crypto-Christian behaviour to be accepted by the Portuguese authorities and the Jesuit missionaries.

In fact, European approaches to political and religious dissimulation were also similar to taqiyya.¹⁶⁸ To Jesuit and Portuguese eyes, Dom João de Távora could be perceived as someone who followed a strategy that resembled the ‘honest dissimulation’ conceptualised by Torquato Accetto in his influential Della dissimulatione onesta (1641), as well as the strategy of defensive dissimulation adopted by the Jesuits in challenging mission fields such as England or Japan during the first decades of the Tokugawa shogunate.¹⁶⁹