Thomas Glover (diplomat)

Sir Thomas Glover was English ambassador to the Sublime Porte of the Ottoman Empire in Constantinople from 1606-1611.

Glover was born to a Protestant family, his great uncle had been burnt at the stake for his beliefs during the reign of Queen Mary, while during the reign of Elizabeth I his father rose to become Sheriff of London. According to Scottish author and traveller William Lithgow,^[1] Glover was born to an English father and a Polish mother and was born and raised in Constantinople, where Glover served as secretary to the English ambassadors Edward Barton and Sir Henry Lello before succeeding Lello as ambassador on December 23, 1606. Fluent in Turkish, Greek, Italian and Polish, he was a competent diplomat and respected in the court. He is known to have imprisoned the Catholic traveler and scholar Hugh Holland for speaking out against Elizabeth.^[2]

The English writer William Strachey served as his secretary for a period and he also gave lodging to other travellers and writers including the aforementioned Lithgow and George Sandys. Glover was recalled to London ib a company letter dated September 17, 1611.

Glover's wife Anne, a Polish woman he had met and married in Constantinople,^[3] died and was buried in the city in 1612.

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