matters.” He has therefore given strict orders that no one shall be allowed to transport arms or victuals into Muscovy, and begged the queen to ensure that none of her subjects would go to the country either. 33
If Ferdinand had heard rumors that the Queen of England was providing Ivan the Terrible with his dark materiel of war, then most likely Ivan, too, would have expected armaments in the English merchants’ wares. There is no precise record of Jenkinson’s inventory that survives, but in view of the huge delay in Ivan’s receiving him, it seems unlikely that whatever war materiel may (or may not) have been provided at the outset was deemed inadequate by the tempestuous czar. The fact that only upon “the intervention” of the former English ambassador was Jenkinson allowed not onlyto meet Ivan, but also to become the czar’s gem and silk merchant to Persia, indicates that some favors in the form of weaponry were most likely exchanged. Ivan made no secret about his “love” of the English in his struggle against Poland after this, and it is doubtful that this love would have been as steadfast as it became throughout the 1560s in commercial and political terms without an English trade in weaponry.
By June 1562, Jenkinson was finally given a safe conduct from court and allowed once more to journey down the Volga to the Caspian Sea, but aside from a sumptuous welcome and friendly relationship that developed with Abdullah Khan in Shirvan, the trading mission to Persia proved a disaster. He had once again landed himself in a war zone on the turn:
For the Turk’s Ambassador being arrived and the peace concluded, the Turkish merchants there at that time present, declared to the same Ambassador that my coming thither…would in great part destroy their trade, and that it should be good for him to persuade the Sophia not to favor me, as his highness meant to observe the league and friendship with the great Turk his master, which request of the Turkish merchants, the same Ambassador earnestly preferred, and being afterwards dismissed with great honor he departed out of the Realm with the Turk’s son’s head (the rebel Bajazet) as aforesaid, and other presents. 34
Jenkinson was lucky to escape back to England without being made a “present” himself, and only returned at all through the good auspices of Abdullah Khan, who persuaded the shah that it would bring bad luck to kill a stranger “in that fashion.” While Jenkinson made five further voyages to the region, and his voyages were persistently marred by great misfortune, murder, and failure, the overwhelming desire to trade directly with Persia and Cathay would become an English mantra and obsession over the next twenty years. What Jenkinson’s adventures highlighted was that England’s strengths lie not in overland trade, but in somehow dominating the seas.
Trade had become the promoter of new ideas as well as the generator of economic growth, and helped England to emerge fromits mediocrity into the Renaissance. English merchants, mostly Londoners, learned quickly the refined art of the long-distance business gurus, the Italians, combined with the crucial strategy of controlling the Channel and Narrow Seas. Control of the Channel’s shipping lanes meant domination—both economic and political—of Spain’s trades with the Low Countries, and this in itself became a goal from the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign.
By the end of 1560, the English navy was already evolving into an efficient machine. The country’s seamen were putting out to sea to “harvest” from England’s enemies (and sometimes her friends) while the English Merchants Adventurers often benefited directly from their forays, though often claiming the reverse.
The country’s merchant fleet plying the Channel was not only well protected by the queen’s ships, as required, but also by a growing breed of fearless and daring seamen out to take prizes from hostile shipping in payment for
If Ferdinand had heard rumors that the Queen of England was providing Ivan the Terrible with his dark materiel of war, then most likely Ivan, too, would have expected armaments in the English merchants’ wares. There is no precise record of Jenkinson’s inventory that survives, but in view of the huge delay in Ivan’s receiving him, it seems unlikely that whatever war materiel may (or may not) have been provided at the outset was deemed inadequate by the tempestuous czar. The fact that only upon “the intervention” of the former English ambassador was Jenkinson allowed not onlyto meet Ivan, but also to become the czar’s gem and silk merchant to Persia, indicates that some favors in the form of weaponry were most likely exchanged. Ivan made no secret about his “love” of the English in his struggle against Poland after this, and it is doubtful that this love would have been as steadfast as it became throughout the 1560s in commercial and political terms without an English trade in weaponry.
By June 1562, Jenkinson was finally given a safe conduct from court and allowed once more to journey down the Volga to the Caspian Sea, but aside from a sumptuous welcome and friendly relationship that developed with Abdullah Khan in Shirvan, the trading mission to Persia proved a disaster. He had once again landed himself in a war zone on the turn:
For the Turk’s Ambassador being arrived and the peace concluded, the Turkish merchants there at that time present, declared to the same Ambassador that my coming thither…would in great part destroy their trade, and that it should be good for him to persuade the Sophia not to favor me, as his highness meant to observe the league and friendship with the great Turk his master, which request of the Turkish merchants, the same Ambassador earnestly preferred, and being afterwards dismissed with great honor he departed out of the Realm with the Turk’s son’s head (the rebel Bajazet) as aforesaid, and other presents. 34
Jenkinson was lucky to escape back to England without being made a “present” himself, and only returned at all through the good auspices of Abdullah Khan, who persuaded the shah that it would bring bad luck to kill a stranger “in that fashion.” While Jenkinson made five further voyages to the region, and his voyages were persistently marred by great misfortune, murder, and failure, the overwhelming desire to trade directly with Persia and Cathay would become an English mantra and obsession over the next twenty years. What Jenkinson’s adventures highlighted was that England’s strengths lie not in overland trade, but in somehow dominating the seas.
Trade had become the promoter of new ideas as well as the generator of economic growth, and helped England to emerge fromits mediocrity into the Renaissance. English merchants, mostly Londoners, learned quickly the refined art of the long-distance business gurus, the Italians, combined with the crucial strategy of controlling the Channel and Narrow Seas. Control of the Channel’s shipping lanes meant domination—both economic and political—of Spain’s trades with the Low Countries, and this in itself became a goal from the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign.
By the end of 1560, the English navy was already evolving into an efficient machine. The country’s seamen were putting out to sea to “harvest” from England’s enemies (and sometimes her friends) while the English Merchants Adventurers often benefited directly from their forays, though often claiming the reverse.
The country’s merchant fleet plying the Channel was not only well protected by the queen’s ships, as required, but also by a growing breed of fearless and daring seamen out to take prizes from hostile shipping in payment for
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