John Simon's Engravings of the Four Kings: More Than Meets the Eye By Jack Campisi, Ph. D. Dr. Campisi is an author and consultant to the MPMRC. His article examines the historic visit in 1710 of four Iroquois sachems to England, where their portraits were painted by order of Queen Anne. A set of prints made from the paintings is part of the MPMRC Archival Collection. Stephen Cook's article in this same issue analyzes the portraits from the perspective of what they reveal about Native material and social culture. Why did four sachems journey from Boston to London in the spring of 1710? To visit Queen Anne and her court? To be painted by the noted artist John Verelst at the expense of the Queen? To tour London and dine with nobility? To attend a play by Shakespeare? To be the subject of engravings, news reports, broadsides, poems and plays? While all of the above (and more) took place during their month long visit to England, the four kings (as they were called) did not make the arduous trip to become celebrities for a fortnight. The four prints that the MPMRC recently purchased tell us much about material culture, but they leave us in the dark concerning the reason for the trip. To understand that we have to go back some 40 years before 1710. Throughout the seventeenth century England and France competed for trade and influence in North America. By the 1680s these conflicts, outgrowths of European power struggles, had become more intense and violent. Although considerably fewer in number than the English, the French controlled the northern parts of New England, the St. Lawrence Valley, the Ohio Valley and the Great Lakes to the west end of Lake Superior. They accomplished this through trade alliances with local tribes. Additionally, the French fostered a distrust, fear and hatred of the English. For their part, the English controlled a narrow strip along the coastline from the Carolinas to Maine, with a tenuous foothold on Hudson Bay. Because they considered land more important than fur trade, the English made a practice of decimating the tribes, enslaving or killing many of those who had survived the periodic epidemics that followed closely on the heels of contact. As a result, England's only allies in the northeast were the five Iroquois tribes - Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca - and the Mahicans, all in the New York colony. When war broke out in Europe in 1689, it quickly spread to North America. Under the Comte de Frontenac's leadership, the French and their Native allies successively attacked English settlements in New York, New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts and the Iroquois villages in western New York. The English attempted to take Montreal and Quebec, but were defeated. They were only successful in seizing Point Royal, Nova Scotia in 1690, from which they were evicted by the French the following year. The war dragged on until 1697, when the Treaty of Ryswick returned things to the way they had been before hostilities began. The attacks by the French and their Native allies seriously affected New York and New England. Colonial leaders saw that unless decisive action was taken against the French colonies, the English would be in continuing danger. Worse, there was the very real possibility that the Iroquois would seek a separate peace with the French and perhaps join in the defeat of the Crown. For the colonies to survive, let alone prosper, French power in North America had to be destroyed. Queen Anne, the last of the Stuart line, reigned as monarch of England from 1702 to her death in 1714. She succeeded to the throne upon the death of her sister Mary's husband William III of Orange. William and Mary, Protestant and vehemently anti-French, had been willing parties to the ouster of Mary's and Anne's father King James II, who was Catholic and equally vehemently pro-French. Within months of Queen Anne's succession to the throne, England joined the Grand Alliance in the War of the Spanish Succession (Queen Anne's War in the colonies). Once again, France and her Native allies, particularly the Abenaki, raided settlements in Maine and Massachusetts, and in response the colonists sought a way to destroy French power in North America. What evolved was a re-make of the abortive efforts of the 1690s; a two-pronged attack on Montreal and Quebec, one over land and the other by sea. But the plan required considerable financial and military support from England. This time the plan was the work principally of three men - Francis Nicholson, Peter Schuyler, and Samuel Vetch. Nicholson and Schuyler had long and active careers in the colonies, having held a number of governmental posts. Nicholson had served as governor of Maryland and Virginia and was active in campaigns against the French. Schuyler had been the mayor of Albany and had served in a number of capacities in colonial government. Vetch, although relatively new to the colonies, possessed a good knowledge of Canada, having been a merchant and, for want of a better word, a spy. All were well known at the Court. Richmond P. Bond (1974: 22), who wrote the definitive study of the kings' visit, summed up the talents and relationships among the three: Colonels Schuyler, Nicholson, and Vetch - the sturdy Dutch-American who rightly possessed great authority among the Five Nations, the cultivated and versatile Englishman who six times served as subhead or head of state, and the vigorously venturesome Scotsman who proposed the proper reduction of Canada and guided its progress to the edge of his powers - these colonial collaborators worked together, so far as cool records say, without dispute during the months of this narrative. In 1708, Vetch presented his plan for the invasion to the Queen, who gave her approval. He returned home in the spring of 1709 with letters of authority and began gathering and training troops and collecting supplies. Fifteen hundred men, with provisions, were to be supplied by the northern colonies. Months passed without the promised support from Great Britain, and by the fall it was clear that no attack was possible. The colonial leaders decided to send Nicholson to London to renew the plan. What was needed was some action that would focus the Queen and her ministers on the dangers facing the colonies. Enter the four kings. In all likelihood it was Schuyler's idea to include the Iroquois sachems. Schuyler chose three Mohawks: Tee Yee Neen Ho Ga Row (Hendrick) called by the English "The Emporer," leader of the delegation; Ho Nee Yeath Taw No Row (John), "King of Ganajahhore"; Sa Ga Yeath Qua Pieth Tow (Brant, the grandfather of the famous Mohawk leader Joseph Brant), "King of the Maquas"; and a Mahican Etow Oh Koam (Nicholas), "King of the River Nation." Accompanied by Philip Schuyler and his cousin Abraham Schuyler, who was serving as interpreter, the group left for Boston in late December 1709, and sailed for London on February 28. They arrived at Portsmouth on April 2 and a week later they reached London. On April 19, the four kings, along with the two Schuylers and Francis Nicholson, met with Queen Anne. Their speech was short and to the point: We have undertaken a long and tedious Voyage, which none of our Predecessors could ever be prevailed upon to undertake. The Motive that induc'd us was, That we might see our GREAT QUEEN, and relate to her those things we thought absolutely necessary for the Good of Her and Us her Allies, on the other side of the Great Water (Garratt 1985: 84). The delegation went on to say that the continued failure to subdue the French had put them in great peril; either they would be forced to leave their homes and hunting territories or become neutral in the conflict. They asked for two things: military assistance to defeat the French and missionaries to bring Christian teachings to the Iroquois. They gave the Queen a wampum belt, received gifts and left. But the visit was far from over. During the next two weeks they saw several plays, including Shakespeare's "Hamlet," had innumerable banquets, toured London, and, finally, on May 14, left for America. Upon their return, the three colonels renewed their planning, reassured their Iroquois allies, gathered supplies, and trained men for the difficult campaign. In July 1711, sixty ships under the command of Sir Hovedon Walker arrived in Boston, and after a short stay, left for the St. Lawrence River and Quebec. In the meantime, Nicholson assembled his force of colonials and Iroquois near Albany in preparation for the march to Montreal. However, a combination of poor seamanship and loss of nerve resulted in part of the fleet sinking with a loss of some 700 men, and the rest of the fleet skedaddling for home. Without the second prong of the attack, there was no hope of defeating the French, and all Nicholson could do is assume a defensive posture. History is a study of missed opportunities. The war ended in 1713 with the Treaty of Utrecht, which resolved little. For nearly 15 years colonial leaders had attempted to convince the Crown of the necessity of driving the French from North America, but in the end politics, diplomacy and ineptness had squandered the advantage. It would take another 50 years of warfare before French power in Canada would be eliminated. As for the missionaries promised by the Queen, one was sent, but the Mohawks never gave him entry to their Mohawk villages. He waited in Schenectady for a year, then moved to New Jersey, and after three years, sailed for England. On the way the ship sunk and he drowned. As to the rest of the players in these events, the record is varied. Only one of the four kings appears in later documents. Te Yee Neen Ho Ga Prow remained loyal and was killed in action in 1755 in the French and Indian War. Queen Anne died in 1714, and of her three colonials, Schuyler and Nicholson lived full and active public lives until their deaths in 1724 and 1728 respectively, while Vetch died in debtor's prison in 1732. Standing alone, the prints are rich in imagery, but enigmatic; suggestive of great events, yet devoid of context. It is the work of the researcher that cloaks them with meaning. REFERENCES & SUGGESTED READINGS: Bolus, Malvina, 1973, The Four Kings Came To Dinner With Their Honours. The Beaver 304: 4-11. Bond, Richmond P., 1974, Queen Anne's American Kings. New York: Octagon Books. (Originally published in 1952 by Clarendon Press.) Garratt, John G., 1985, The Four Kings. Ottawa, Canada: Canadian Government Printing Centre. Hinderaker, Eric, 1996, The "Four Kings" and the Imaginative Construction of the First British Empire. The William and Mary Quarterly 53 (3): 487-526.