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A Letter from James I to the Sultan Ahmad

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

Extract

The main object of this article is to explain the circumstances which induced James I to write to Sultan Ahmad the letter which is here reproduced. These circumstances cannot fail to be of interest to students of Oriental history, constituting as they do a kind of footnote to the relations existing between England and Turkey at the beginning of the seventeenth century. I cannot here recount in detail the many adventures of Sir Thomas Sherley, for they would occupy far too much space in the Bulletin; but I shall confine myself to an outline of the events which culminated in his falling into the hands of the Turks, who held him prisoner for a period of nearly three years (January, 1602, to December, 1605), and the correspondence that passed between Constantinople and London regarding his captivity.

Type
Papers Contributed
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1934

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References

page 299 note 1 The original of this letter some years ago came into the hands of Messrs. Maggs Bros., and recently my friend Mr. Sigismund Goetze, knowing of my interest in the Sherley brothers, very kindly made me a present of it, and it is now exhibited in the Library of the School of Oriental Studies.

page 300 note 1 For his life I would refer to my Sir Anthony Sherley and his Persian Adventure,“Broadway Travellers Series,” Routledge, 1933.

page 300 note 2 The only copy known to me of this little Black Letter book is the one in the British Museum, catalogued under G. 6672.

page 301 note 1 S.P. Foreign, Turkey, 4, f. 160.

page 302 note 1 S.P. Foreign, Turkey, 4, f. 209.

page 303 note 1 In 1590 Shāh ‘Abbās I had concluded a truce with Sultan Muhammad with the object of being able to give his undivided attention to the suppression of the Uzbegs on his eastern frontier.

page 303 note 2 S. P. Foreign, Turkey 5, f. 17.

page 304 note 1 S.P. Foreign, Turkey 5, f. 18.

page 305 note 1 S.P. Foreign, Turkey 5, f. 44. Lello to Salisbury, dated 19th December, 1605.

page 305 note 2 S.P. Foreign, Turkey 5, f. 46.

page 306 note 1 S.P. Foreign, Turkey 5, S. 38, 39.

page 306 note 2 Lambeth MS., 514.

page 306 note 3 S.P. Foreign, Turkey 5, f. 251.