"The eighty-three documents presented here, varied in length and character, are not all concerned with Suffolk, but they are all connected with the eventful lives of Sir Thomas (later Viscount) Savage and his wife Elizabeth Savage (later Countress Rivers), who married in 1602 and whose homes included Melford Hall." "Thomas and Elizabeth both inherited considerable estates in Suffolk, Essex and Cheshire. Within a tight circle of aristocratic Catholics, they became prominent servants of the royal family during the reigns of James I and Charles I. After Thomas's death in 1635, Elizabeth remained an intimate of the queen, but her two houses of St. Osyth's and Melford Hall were sacked in 1642, and she remained chronically short of money up to her death in 1651." "The central document is a remarkable inventory of 1635-6, taken after Thomas died, listing the contents of Melford Hall in Suffolk, Rocksavage in Cheshire and a town house on Tower Hill in London."--BOOK JACKET.

This unusual study combines two books in one: the 1794 autobiographical travel narrative of an Indian, Dean Mahomet, recalling his years as camp-follower, servant, and subaltern officer in the East India Company's army (1769 to 1784); and Michael H. Fisher's portrayal of Mahomet's sojourn as an insider/outsider in India, Ireland, and England. Emigrating to Britain and living there for over half a century, Mahomet started what was probably the first Indian restaurant in England and then enjoyed a distinguished career as a practitioner of "oriental" medicine, i.e., therapeutic massage and herbal steam bath, in London and the seaside resort of Brighton. This is a fascinating account of life in late eighteenth-century India—the first book written in English by an Indian—framed by a mini-biography of a remarkably versatile entrepreneur. Travels presents an Indian's view of the British conquest of India and conveys the vital role taken by Indians in the colonial process, especially as they negotiated relations with Britons both in the colonial periphery and the imperial metropole. Connoisseurs of unusual travel narratives, historians of England, Ireland, and British India, as well as literary scholars of autobiography and colonial discourse will find much in this book. But it also offers an engaging biography of a resourceful, multidimensional individual.