Words of majesty: a brief history of royal correspondence between England and Asia, 1600–1858
Abstract
Diplomatic historians have downplayed the English Crown’s role in Asian diplomacy and over-emphasized the actions of merchants and military officers on the spot, but royal letters and associated materials suggest a different interpretation. The sending of such letters and the complexities of their creation and interpretation shows that English diplomacy in Asia was a collaboration between English Monarchs and the East India Company, and the mode of delivery of royal letters indicates that they played a crucial role in negotiations conducted by men on the spot.
Summary
Morel challenges the prevailing diplomatic historiography that attributes English engagement with Asia primarily to merchants and military officers operating on the ground. Drawing on hundreds of surviving letters in the British Library, National Archives, and other UK institutions, he demonstrates that the English Crown maintained a sustained, collaborative partnership with the East India Company in Asian diplomacy from 1600 to 1858. The Crown’s motivations were multifaceted: trade taxation provided essential revenue, European prestige demanded parity with Portuguese, Dutch, and French rivals, and the letters themselves served as instruments of legitimacy for both English and Asian rulers (pp. 2–3).
The article traces the institutional evolution of royal letter production in detail. Initially, the Company’s chairman and deputy chairman petitioned the Secretary of State for letters, providing draft content for the monarch’s signature. Presentation copies were written on vellum and lavishly decorated at the Company’s expense by specialists such as Sir William Segar (Garter King of Arms) and Edward Norgate (Windsor Herald), who were granted exclusive rights to embellish royal letters under Charles I (pp. 4–7). After the Pitt ministry established the Board of Control in 1784, the India Board assumed responsibility for drafting and coordinating royal correspondence, with its secretary Benjamin Hobhouse composing letters such as the 1804 draft to Emperor Jiajing (p. 4). The post of “Embellisher of letters to Eastern Princes” was institutionalised after the Restoration, held successively by George Tomlyn and Gideon Royer, before being absorbed into the Foreign Office and abolished around 1800 (pp. 7–8).
The article further examines the linguistic and ceremonial dimensions of this correspondence. Portuguese served as an intermediate language in early exchanges, while Latin was used for the three embassies to China between 1787 and 1816, with Jesuit missionaries at the Beijing court providing the final translation into Chinese (pp. 19–20). Company servants such as William Marsden, George Thomas Staunton, and Munshi Abdullah provided essential translation services, while graduates of Fort William College and Haileybury handled later correspondence (pp. 20–21). Upon delivery, letters were treated as sovereign proxies, presented with elaborate ceremony ranging from elephant-back processions in Banten to grand litters under royal umbrellas in Siam (pp. 23–24).
Key Findings
- The Company’s 1607 petition to Lord Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, enclosing draft letters to the “Kings” of Surat, Java, and Tidore for James I’s approval, demonstrates that the Company initiated and shaped the content of royal correspondence from the earliest period (p. 3, Image 1).
- The golden letter from Burmese King Alaungphaya to George II (1756), engraved on solid gold and studded with twenty-four red rubies, represents the most ostentatious royal letter ever dispatched to an English monarch and is now on UNESCO’s Memory of the World register (p. 12).
- The India Board’s secretary Benjamin Hobhouse composed the 1804 draft letter from George III to Emperor Jiajing, which was then presented to both the Board’s president and the Company’s chairman and deputy chairman for approval, evidencing the post-1784 shift in institutional responsibility (p. 4).
- During the Macartney Embassy, Johann Huttner translated George III’s letter into Latin specifically “to afford the Missionaries in his service at Pekin an opportunity of correcting any error which might have crept into the Chinese translation,” revealing a multi-layered verification process (p. 19).
- The Siamese letter from King Narai to Louis XIV (1687) led a formal procession on a grand litter under three royal umbrellas at Versailles, with the ambassador Kosa Pan and the entire delegation following behind in reverent order, while Europeans carried their hats as a mark of respect (p. 23).
- Mughal Emperor Shah Alam II was reportedly “disconcerted and uneasy” in 1769 at receiving no reply from the King of England, while his subject the Nawab of Arcot had been “honoured by our King with an answer accompanied by a complimentary present,” prompting an urgent Royal Household investigation (p. 24).
Conclusion
Morel’s central argument is that the material and procedural complexity surrounding royal correspondence—its drafting, decoration, translation, packaging, and ceremonial presentation—demonstrates that English diplomacy in Asia was never merely a matter of men on the spot. The royal letter functioned as a sovereign proxy whose creation required sustained institutional collaboration between the Crown and the Company, and whose delivery demanded elaborate diplomatic choreography that no individual factor or military officer could have managed alone. The Crown’s role was neither peripheral nor merely symbolic; it was structurally embedded in every phase of the diplomatic process.
Context
- The article is based on a talk delivered in Hong Kong in 2011 and draws extensively on the India Office Records and India Office Political and Diplomatic Papers held at the British Library, including the Raffles and Bowring Collections of Asian royal correspondence (p. 1).
- Morel’s professional background as a former curator of the India Office Records and later of Philatelic Collections at the British Library positions him as an insider with direct access to the primary materials discussed throughout the article (p. 1).