The Humanist Scholar

Using the entries in the album amicorum and references to Strachan’s published works, this chapter illustrates the recognition he received as a humanist scholar of note while pursuing a career at the University of Paris. His persistence in seeking patronage gained him financial and academic support from Cardinal Maffeo Barberini (later Pope UrbanVIII) who was papal nuncio in Paris. Strachan acted as informer on British matters to Barberini after the cardinal’s return to Rome. Their relationship soured and financial support was withdrawn. Strachan could not remedy the change in material circumstances that this caused. His attempts to gain patronage from James VI and I in England (in which he was aided by his friend Thomas Dempster of Muiresk) and Henri IV of France failed and, at the age of forty, and almost on impulse after a conversation with the eastern traveller, William Lithgow of Lanark, he decided to travel to the Holy Land to learn eastern languages.

The English East India Company

Using company records and Della Valle’s journals, this chapter explains Strachan’s introduction to members of the East India Company in Isfahan. The struggles of the fledgling organisation to establish itself in Iran and India in the face of opposition from Portuguese and other western traders and its shortage of gold and silver are outlined and set against the background of Shah Abbas I’s reign and trade along the Silk Road. Strachan’s early involvement with the Levant Company in Aleppo and Baghdad did not overcome the suspicions that the English merchants in Isfahan held about Strachan because of his religion, nationality, friendship with the Carmelite friars in the city and, above all, his association with the Spanish ambassador, Don Garcías de Silva y Figueroa. Nevertheless, they employed him as physician and interpreter.

Among Friends

After leaving the East India Company’s employment for the second time, Strachan was dependent on the goodwill of the Carmelite friars; staying with them in their convent in Isfahan. Drawing on the Order’s archives, the circumstances under which Strachan entrusted his library to them for safe return to Europe are described. The extent of Strachan’s friendship with Pietro Della Valle is explored showing that after his return to Europe, the Roman traveller believed his friend had travelled to India and died there. A number of recently discovered manuscripts which belonged to Strachan are quoted which suggest that the Scotsman had become a member of the scholarly debating circle centred on the Iranian court headed by Shah Abbas’ son-in-law, the mathematician and philosopher, Mīr Dāmād. The importance of such an association helps explain Strachan’s decision to remain in the East.

To Constantinople

With reference to a range of recent scholarship, an outline is given of the political and mercantile relationships between West and East, particularly Venice and the Ottoman empire, which allowed freedom of movement between the societies.Lack of detailed records on Strachan’s movements between Paris and Constantinople via Sancta Terra (The Holy Land) has caused a lacuna in his life story which this chapter fills by accounts given by other western travellers of the time. Pietro Della Valle, who makes several references to his friendship with George Strachan, is a rich source, as is George Sandys. Their descriptions of travelling in the region, again together with the findings of modern scholarship, provide meaningful insights into Strachan’s likely experiences.

The Mission at Srinagar

Strachan’s personal copy of Raimondi’s published New Testament in Arabic was once part of the library of the Jesuit mission station in Srinagar. The chapter’s attempt to explain this includes a discussion of the history of Jesuit presence in the East with their headquarters in Goa and their missions to the Mughal court. Despite Strachan’s long established connections with the Society and the possibility of an introduction to the Mughal court, Goa was not a safe place for him due to the presence of the Inquisition. Following the death of Mīr Dāmād in 1632, Strachan remained in Iran until 1634 but the following year he appears to have participated in an ill-fated Jesuit expedition to Tibet in which he died. A summary of Strachan’s contribution to European understanding of Eastern societies and religions is given in which an appeal for wider recognition of his achievements is made.

Exile

Using the numerous entries in his album amicorum, this chapter describes Strachan’s peregrinations around the universities and courts of Europe in search of a patron. His meeting with Bishop William Chisholm of Vaison succeeded in his gaining employment as an intelligencer and courier between the bishop, James VI and the Jesuit missionaries who were resident in Scotland. In turn these contacts led Claudio Aquaviva, general of the Society of Jesus, to use Strachan for a similar purpose in 1602. On contacting his family, he was arrested by the Kirk authorities and arraigned before the Privy Council on charges of espionage and treason. The account of his trial gives insight into the tensions within the Calvinist Church as well as its attitude to Catholics. Strachan was cleared of the capital charges but permanently exiled by the king for his refusal to renounce Catholicism.

Aleppo

Strachan’s stay in Constantinople with his friend, the French ambassador to the Sublime Porte, Achille de Harlay, provided the Scotsman with his first opportunity of examining eastern texts in the ambassador’s personal library. However he could not find employment or engage in serious discourse with Muslim scholars. His next destination in Ottoman territory was Aleppo. The importance of Aleppo to Strachan was as a trading centre with a sizeable contingent of European traders. He was able to stay at the Franciscan convent in the city and met with a Flemish friend who was practicing as a doctor to the European community. Using the Venetian postal service, Strachan wrote to a friend in Paris saying that he intended staying for two years but that changed when he gained employment as the personal physician to Emir Feyyād Abū Rīsha, leader of the Anazzah tribe of Bedouin Arabs.

Strachan’s Library

The range of subjects and titles available to Strachan in eastern libraries is covered by reference to the library of the Ashrafiya Madrassa in Damascus. The affordability of manuscripts is also discussed in this chapter. Strachan’s choice of poetry and Islamic studies for his collection is contrasted with the dearth of these subjects available in Europe to scholars such as Erpenius. In manuscripts which have a date of purchase, an analysis of the Latin glosses entered by Strachan is used to assess his progress in understanding the Arabic language and eastern culture. The chapter concludes with an explanation of how Strachan’s manuscripts came to make a profound contribution to the work of later European scholars, especially Marracci.

Heritage

This chapter outlines the Strachan of Thornton family’s networks with ties of loyalty and religion to Mary Queen of Scots. George’s early education at home and subsequent training at Jesuit colleges in France is explained along with the difficulties that following a Catholic education abroad caused his family.The Strachan family’s involvement in the affair of the ‘Spanish Blanks’ and the threat of financial ruin which this caused, forced them to convert to Calvinism. This incident is used to exemplify the political dangers faced by noble families in late 16th-century Scotland. George Strachan’s options of jeopardising the family fortunes or adhering to Catholicism shows the problems of the divided loyalties in Scottish society of the time.

‘Stracan our Infernall Phesition’

Strachan spent two years as a servant of the East India Company during which the merchants were bitterly divided due to their lack of success in silk trading. This period saw the first of his recurring attacks of malaria. By contrasting accounts in the company archives with Della Valle’s journal, the chapter describes how unfounded accusations of murder against Strachan brought about his dismissal for incompetence as a doctor. Strachan spent months teaching the Carmelite friars Arabic and saving for onward travel to India but was secretly reemployed by the governor of the EIC in Iran, Edward Monnox, to act as interpreter and company representative during the negotiations with Shah Abbas for EIC naval involvement in the Iranian army’s capture of Hormuz in 1622. In this way he became intimate with the Shah’s court.