This, as you'll see from the title and length is a little bit of an unusual episode. It's a short one that answers a request to properly wrap up the end of the Thomas Dallam series. It’s Thomas Dallam, the journey home.
Thomas Dallam 1: Jenkinson and the Safavid Shah
The ship wherein I was to make my voyage to Constantinople, Lying at Graves End, I departed from London in a pair of ores, with my chest and such provision as I had provided for that purpose, the ninth of February 1599, being Friday.
So begins the travel journal of a man on the cusp of a 15-month adventure. Its writer was no professional sailor, soldier, merchant or ambassador, but he was entrusted with the international delivery of a very special package. He seems never to have left England before, but on that February day, he was leaving for the court of the Ottoman Sultan, Mehmed the 3rd.