John Mendenhall, II

According to tradition, John Mendenhall (or Mildenhall) was born about 1560 in Little Bedwyn, Wiltshire, England. He married Elizabeth Bates and they had at least one child. He later fathered two children with an Indian woman in Persia. He died in 1614 and was buried in Agra, India. John Mendenhall (or Mildenhall) is believed to be the son of John Mendenhall. His mother might have been Helena Pembroke. These are both guesses. He had a brother, Robert.

Little is known of John Mendenhall's life before 1598. At that point there were letters written by John and others that shed quite a bit of detail about him. Also, records of the East India Company reveal his transactions with them.

John was a merchant in London, England. He had gained a good deal of experience on merchant ships and became a ship's captain in the employ of Richard Staper, another merchant of London. He had traveled as far as Constantinople and the Mesopotamian region by 1598. Late that year he decided to go to India, probably prompted by the news of an attempt to launch the East India Company in London. John arranged to go to India with the idea of getting the Mughal Emperor to sign a commercial treaty and to obtain from him some trading concessions for his countrymen. John believed that he would be able to sell these trading rights to the East India Company for a handsome profit.

He is often referred to as the "Ambassador to India," but this is not quite true. He was an unofficial promoter of trade for the East India Company, who traveled to India with the thought of establishing trade between the East India Company and India.

John left London 12 Feb 1599 in the ship, Hector, with Richard Parsons as its master. On 27 Apr they arrived at Zante, stayed but a short time and continued on to Smyrna and Constantinople. After staying there for six months, John hired a carriage and resumed his journey and on 24 May 1600 arrived at Aleppo. He left Aleppo along with about six hundred people and arrived at Bir upon the edge of the river Euphrates. He continued on to Urfa and Van. He finally reached Kandahar in what is now Afghanistan. There he sent letters to the Mughal Emperor, Akbar, in Agra, India seeking permission to present himself and acquaint the Emperor with his mission. Permission was granted and John left Kandahar and proceeded to Lahore, Ajmer and finally to Agra which he reached in 1603. Agra is located in the northern part of India about 100 miles south of Delhi.

In his first interview, John presented Akbar with horses and a variety of jewels, rings and earrings. This interview was primarily for purposes of introduction and getting acquainted with Akbar. In the second interview, Akbar demanded to know what John wanted and what his business was. John told him that the Queen of England wanted to have trade with Akbar and that she wanted Akbar to avoid interfering in the battles between England and Portugal. Whether John had actually been sent by Queen Elizabeth is open to some question. It’s clear that he was not an official ambassador of the Queen. Akbar consulted some trusted Jesuits regarding John's demands. Anxious to discredit the English, the Jesuits told Akbar that the English were all thieves and that John was a spy sent there for no other purpose than to establish a friendship with the Emperor so that the English could get control of his ports. John's friends at the court succeeded in procuring approval for all of John's demands except one; the English were not permitted to seize Portuguese ships and ports. This did not satisfy John and he again went to the Emperor and asked for permission to include the last demand in the privileges he had been granted. After a long period of time, the Emperor ordered expensive garments to be made for John and Akbar yielded to all of John's requests and commanded his chief minister to concede all the privileges without any more delay. However, before any formal agreement was presented to John, Akbar died. Supposedly, his son, Jahangir, presented John with the agreed privileges. John thereupon left India and returned to England.

There is no convincing evidence, other than his own statement, that John obtained any trading privileges. He did not obtain any sort of treaty in the usual sense of the term. Upon his return to England, John tried to interest the East India Company in purchasing the trading rights that he had supposedly negotiated with Akbar, but the East India Company put him off, saying that his demand of £1500 for the rights was unreasonable.

In the meantime, John petitioned King James, who had succeeded Queen Elizabeth, and asked £3,000 for the trading concessions from the Mughal Emperor. Upon hearing that John had petitioned the King, The East India Company turned down his request but subsequently granted John some compensation in the form of a commission. Within a couple of years the East India Company began trading with India and soon dominated the far eastern trade. But John remained at odds with the East India Company and he went to India again, this time with a large shipment of goods on consignment from London merchants. John left England on this second journey sometime in early 1611.

John had agreed to sell the merchandise in the Levant, the region on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea, but instead proceeded on into Persia. Hearing of this, the merchants sent two agents after him. John was overtaken and forced to sell most of the goods at a fraction of their value to pay the agents. He then proceeded to Lahore where he became ill.

John had learned the art of poisoning from the Jesuits and the cause of his illness may have been due to accidentally ingesting some of the poison or he may have been poisoned by the Jesuits, themselves. In any event, he continued his trip and arrived at Ajmer in Apr 1614. However, he had not recovered from his illness and he died in Ajmer in June. His body was taken to Agra for burial through the services of a London merchant, Thomas Kerridge.

John Mildenhall, merchant and world traveler, was buried in Ajmer, India. About 1900, the local government ordered a marker be placed at his grave. This marker reads “Here lies John Mildenhall, Englishman, who left London in 1599, travelling to India through Persia, reached Agra in 1603 and spoke with the Emperor Akbar. On a second visit in 1614 he fell ill at Lahore died at Ajmer and was buried here through the good offices of Thomas Kerridge, merchant. R.I.P.”

Child of John Mendenhall and Elizabeth (Unknown):

Thomas Mendenhall+ b. circa 1580, d. 17-Mar-1638

Links to additional material:

• http://www.mendenhall.org/mfa/reunion/slide-presentations/JohnMilde...
• http://www.conovergenealogy.com/ancestor-p/p147.htm#i30842