- Thomas Roe
Sir Thomas Roe (or Row) (c. 1581 –
November 6 ,1644 ) was an Englishdiplomat of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods. Roe was an accomplished scholar, a patron of learning, and of upright character.Life
The son of Robert Rowe, and of Elinor, daughter of Robert Jermy of Worstead in
Norfolk , he was born at Low Leyton nearWanstead in Essex, and at the age of twelve (1593), matriculated atMagdalen College, Oxford . Shortly afterwards, he joined one of theInns of Court , and becameesquire of the body to QueenElizabeth I of England . He wasknight ed by James I in 1605, and became intimate with Henry, Prince of Wales, and also with his sister Elizabeth, afterwards briefly Queen of Bohemia, with whom he maintained a correspondence and whose cause he championed. In 1610 he was sent by Prince Henry on a mission to theWest Indies , during which he visitedGuiana and theAmazon River . However, he failed then, and in two subsequent expeditions, to discover the gold he was seeking.In 1614, he was elected
Member of Parliament forTamworth . His reputation resulted mainly from the success of his embassy in 1615-18 to the court atAgra of the Great Mogul,Jahangir , the principal object of the mission being to obtain protection for an English factory atSurat . At the Mughul court, Roe became a favourite of Jahangir, indeed he was his drinking partner. This greatly enhanced Roe's status with the Mughuls.Appointed ambassador to the
Ottoman Empire in 1621 (which he described as "irrevocably sick"), he distinguished himself further. He obtained an extension of the privileges of the English merchants, concluded a treaty withAlgiers in 1624, by which he secured the liberation of several hundred English captives, and gained the support, by an English subsidy, of theTransylvania n PrinceBethlen Gabor for the European Protestant alliance and the cause of the Palatinate.Through his friendship with the
Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople ,Cyril Lucaris , the famous "Codex Alexandrinus " was presented to James I, and Roe himself collected several valuable manuscripts which he subsequently presented to theBodleian Library . In 1629, he was successful in another mission undertaken. to arrange a peace betweenSweden andPoland . In so doing, he was able to help freeGustavus Adolphus of Sweden to intervene decisively in theThirty Years War on the side of the Protestant German princes. Roe also negotiated treaties with Danzig andDenmark , returning home in 1630, when a gold medal was struck in his honour. In 1631, he sponsored theArctic exploration ofLuke Fox ;Roes Welcome Sound was named in his honor. [cite web |url=http://www.google.com/search?q=Since+Fox+penetrated+to+the+western+part+of+Hudson+Bay%2C+discovering+the+strait+and+shore+known+as+%22Sir+Thomas+Roe%27s+%281581+%3F-1644%29+Welcome%2C%22+it+seems+likely+...&btnG=Search&hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs=Qg4 |title=JSTOR: The History of American Ornithology before Audubon |accessdate=2008-04-09 |last= |first= |coauthors= |date= |work= |publisher=]In January 1637, he was appointed chancellor of the
Order of the Garter , with a pension of £1200 a year.Subsequently, he took part in the peace conferences at
Hamburg ,Regensburg andVienna , and used his influence to obtain the restoration of the Palatinate, the emperor declaring that he had "scarce ever met with an ambassador till now." In June 1640, he was made aprivy councillor , and in October was returned to parliament as member for theUniversity of Oxford , where his unrivalled knowledge of foreign affairs, commerce and finance, together with his learning and eloquence, gained for him in another sphere considerable reputation.He married Eleanor, daughter of Sir Thomas Carr of Stamford.
Works
His "Journal of the mission to the Mogul Empire", several times printed, has been re-edited, with an introduction by W Foster, for the Hakluyt Society (1899). This is a valuable contribution to the history of India in the early 17th century. Of his correspondence, "Negotiations in his Embassy to the Ottoman Porte, 1621-28, vol. i". was published in 1740, but the work was not continued. Other correspondence, consisting of letters relating to his mission to
Gustavus Adolphus , was edited by SR Gardiner for the "Camden Society Miscellany" (1875), vol. vii., and his correspondence with Lord Carew in 1615 and 1617 by Sir F. Maclean for the same society in 1860.Several of his manuscripts are in the
British Museum collections. Roe published a "True and Faithful Relation ... concerning the Death of Sultan Osman ...", 1622; a translation fromPaolo Sarpi , "Discourse upon the Resolution taken in the Valteline" (1628); and in 1613 Dr T Wright published "Quatuor Colloquia", consisting of theological disputations between himself and Roe; a poem by Roe is printed in "Notes and Queries , iv. Ser. v. 9". "The Swedish Intelligencer" (1632-33), including an account of the career ofGustavus Adolphus and of theDiet of Ratisbon (Regensburg), is attributed to Roe in the catalogue of the British Museum. Several of his speeches, chiefly on currency and financial questions, were also published. Two other works in manuscripts are mentioned by Wood: "Compendious Relation of the Proceedings ... of the Imperial Diet at Ratisbon and Journal of Several Proceedings of the Order of the Garter". There is a modern biography, Itinerant Ambassador: the Life of Sir Thomas Roe, by Michael J. Brown (University of Kentucky Press, 1970.)References
*1911
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