Courting India: England, Mughal India and the Origins of Empire

‘A sparkling gem of a book … Beautifully written and masterfully researched, this has the makings of a classic’ Peter Frankopan, #1 bestselling author of The Silk Roads

When Thomas Roe arrived in India in 1616 as James I’s first ambassador to the Mughal Empire, the English barely had a toehold in the subcontinent. Their understanding of South Asian trade and India was sketchy at best, and, to the Mughals, they were minor players on a very large stage. Roe was representing a kingdom that was beset by financial woes and deeply conflicted about its identity as a unified ‘Great Britain’ under the Stuart monarchy. Meanwhile, the court he entered in India was wealthy and cultured, its dominion widely considered to be one of the greatest and richest empires of the world…

In Nandini Das’s fascinating cultural history of Roe’s four years in India, she offers an insider’s view of a Britain in the making, a country whose imperial seeds were just being sown. It is a tale of ventures and adventure, lotteries and wagers, of men and women in Britain and India – from queens and emperors, to merchants, opportunists, artists, and the occasional drunk chaplain. In the middle of them all is Roe, uncertain about his position both at the Mughal court and among the East India Company merchants whose cause he was supposed to further.

A brilliant, accessible work of scholarship, Courting India reveals Thomas Roe’s time in the Mughal Empire to be a turning point in the history of both nations.