I recently added this post, What to Get the King Who Has Everything.
In 1615, King James I sent an ambassador, Sir Thomas Roe, to the court of the Mughal Emperor, Jehangir. The recently-founded East India Company asked for ‘a mere merchant’ as being less expensive to maintain than some courtier, but the King chose Sir Thomas Roe. “He was a stiff-necked Englishman” wrote H. E. Marshall, “with a very good idea of the importance of his King and of himself. He was quite willing to be as polite and as courteous to the Great Mogul as he would have been to a European prince, but no more.”
This meant that Roe treated Jehangir with an equal regard that the Khan, who was himself a man of remarkably serious mind, did not quite expect. Roe did not bow and scrape before him, and he did not present him with chests of jewels. He gave him a modern carriage, a dress sword, and a concert of English keyboard music. Roe’s letter to the Company, written from Ajmer on January 25th, 1616, tells how Jehangir reacted to these culturally serious gifts.