‘Put my dear Lord Harvey’s body on board the Centurion. The great Cabin was hang’d and the floor cover’d with mourning; round about were fasten’d scutchions; the Steerage was hang’d likewise. My Lord’s body was taken of the Dogger into the Centurion’s long boat, there cover’d with a rich velvet Pal, bordered with white Sarsenet and satin.’ Some 350 years ago this very day, Dr John Covel - who had been appointed chaplain to the ambassador at Constantinople - was overseeing the ambassador’s corpse being made ready for its return to England. Covel’s diaries - which provide a rare first hand and detailed report of Ottoman politics, culture and society - lay buried in the British Museum for many years before being published by the Hakluyt Society more than two centuries after they were written.
After his return to England, Covel spent the winter of 1680/1681 in Suffolk suffering with fever, before being made Chaplain to the Princess of Orange in The Hague (1681-1685). He was then elected the 15th Master of Christ’s in 1688, a position he held until his death in 1722. In his later years, he continued to correspond with a wide range of English scholars, including Isaac Newton, John Locke, and John Mill, and is said to have helped develop the study of fossils. Further information is available at Wikipedia and the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (modern version with log-in required or out of copyright edition).
Covel kept a diary during his travels in the 1670s but this was not edited or published until 1893 in The Hakluyt Society’s Early Voyages and Travels in the Levant (edited by J. Theodore Bent). The tome - freely available at Internet Archive - contains two sections: The Diary of Master Thomas Dallam 1599-1600; and Extracts from the Diaries of Dr. John Covel (1670-1679). Here are Bent’s (entertaining and informative) notes on Covel and his diary.
‘The writer of the second MS. we have before us is mentioned by Evelyn in his Diary (ii, 338) as “Covel, the great Oriental traveller”. Evidently he intended either to publish a work himself, or that his diary should be published shortly after his death, for he divided part of his MS. into chapters, put in illustrations, and collected together everything connected with himself, every scrap of letter and paper that would be of use, even down to his testamur when he took his B.A. in 1657; but this mass of MS. has remained hidden in the British Museum, and has never yet seen the light of day. It is easy to see why any publisher would recoil from bringing out so prolix a work, for the Doctor is wearisome in the extreme. Before we leave Deal, in his first chapter, at the outset of his travels, we are treated to at least thirty closely-written pages on the wonders of the deep, which he picked up there; soon follows a long dissertation on sea-sickness, and its supposed causes; and whenever he came near any place of archæological interest, such as Carthage, Ephesus, Constantinople, etc., he gives us enough information to fill a good-sized volume on each spot. Consequently, it has been found necessary to eliminate much in Dr. Covel’s exceedingly bulky diaries.
His narrative is, however, extremely interesting on many points: during the six-and-a-half years he resided at Constantinople, from 1670 to 1677, he noticed everything; his sketches of life, costumes, and manners are minute and life-like. Sir George Wheeler says, in his volume of travels: “Dr. Covel, then chaplain to his Majesty’s ambassador there, amongst many curiosities shewed us some Turkish songs set to musick; which he told us were, both for sense and music, very good: but past our understanding.” Being, as he was, intimately connected with the embassy, he had ample opportunity for studying the politics of the time. Dr. Covel was present at the granting of the capitulations of 1676, which gained for the Levant Company privileges which established it, for the ensuing century and a half of its existence, on an unapproachable foundation.
[. . .] During his residence at Constantinople he witnessed many important sights, notably the great fêtes at Adrianople in honour of the circumcision of Prince Mustapha, and the marriage of the Sultan’s daughter, which were the most noted fêtes of the century in Turkey, and also the granting of the capitulations during the time of the plague.’
And here are several dated extracts (though most extracts in the work are, in fact, undated)
10 April 1674
‘At 8 at night we weigh’d (being upon the Dogger), and next day 3 1/2 in afternoon we came to Anchor at the Asia side over against the little conduit within shot of that most innermost castle. We went on shoar and dispatcht our business with the Aga there. My Ld. had sent each of them a vest of cloth; we had our audience without the castle, in a house on purpose, by the draw bridge. Our Jew Druggerman, 10 or 12 dayes before, had shew’d some strangers up and down without the Castle, and at last, venturing to peep in, was catch’t and soundly drubb’d. Notwithstanding this, I went round about the outside and past it.
Several guns on the ground play up and down the Hellespont; on that side are 14 port holes, where lye great guns chamber’d to shoot stone shot, very big, near 2 foot diameter, all fixt and immovable, and therefore to be charged only without. They will fling a shot crosse the Hellespont with ease. In the night they have lights on either side, and watch if any ship steals down; just as they eclips those lights, they can see them and so fire upon them. Bellonius makes it but 1/4 mile over; it is near a mile at least. I was not on the other side Castle, but I counted just 23 gun holes and thre sally ports between them ; it seem’d a farre bigger castle than Abidos above said.’
12 April 1674
‘By reason of our present, with leave, we weigh’d at 10 o’clock, and within lesse then an houre we passt the other outward castles, but at too great a distance to say any more then that they are fairer and greater, and built according to modern formes. At night we rcacht the N. end of Mitilene about 8 o’clock.’
26 April 1674
‘Put my dear Lord Harvey’s body on board the Centurion. The great Cabin was hang’d and the floor cover’d with mourning; round about were fasten’d scutchions; the Steerage was hang’d likewise. My Lord’s body was taken of the Dogger into the Centurion’s long boat, there cover’d with a rich velvet Pal, bordered with white Sarsenet and satin. At the Head of the Corps was fixt a Hatchment, my Lord’s armes, in a square frame standing on one of the corners. At the head of the boat was his six trumpeters and his drummer. The Advise’s long boat tow’d it forward, and in it was his 6 Trumpeters likewise, and his drum, all sounding a dead march, went slowly forward in a round; the Consul’s (Mr. Ricaut’s) boat followed; after that many of the festoons in other boates. At its reception into the Centurion there was 3 voleyes of small shot and 30 Guns fired. The Advice fired 28; all the General ships and others in port fired, some 12, some 14, some 16 guns. Worthy Capt. Hill, who brought him out, fired every minute all the while we were going on the Dogger. The Body was put down into the hold, and a Cenotaph stood in the great cabbin, cover’d with the pall. The great Scutcheon displayed at the head six great tapers burning by in six great silver candlesticks. I gave away about 40 dwt. weights among the officers of the Centur., and sent a cask of 19 Meters of wine among the Seamen. We din’d aboard, treated civilly. The Consul brought flasques of Smyrna wine; Mr. Temple brought 20 flasques, and several fresh provisions. At 6 at night we all returned to Smyrna.’
No comments:
Post a Comment