No. 140 The Trusty Servant
Primus in Indis
Thomas Stephens( c. 1551-1619). Scholar, 1565
As this edition goes to print, a party of Wykeham Patrons travels to India in the footsteps of Wykehamists‘ From Stephens to Stagg’. Sir Richard Stagg( G, 69-73; Warden, 19-) and quondam High Commissioner to India needs little introduction. The remarkable life of, and bold title ascribed to, Thomas Stephens( Coll, 1565) need somewhat more. Christopher Normand takes up the story:
Given Thomas Stephens’ s pivotal place in the earliest days of England’ s involvement in India, it seems remarkable that he is such an unknown. It is even more surprising that Winchester College has not put him on a pedestal. Neither he, nor the traveller Thomas Coryat 25 years his junior, made the cut for All From the Same Place 1 and its successor volumes. Herbert Chitty( D, 1876-82; Bursar etc.) an occasional historian of the College, and who came closest to popularising him, wrote a pamphlet about Stephens’ s origins, not for the College but for the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society! Earned 400 years ago, does Stephens deserve the title First Englishman in India?
Born in the 16th century at a time when England’ s official religion made five significant changes in a 30-year period, his life was in large part defined by his choice of the Catholic faith. Stephens( or Stevens according to some interpretations of the Register of Scholars) left Winchester inspired to follow
Catholicism and convert others to Christianity. Arriving in Goa in 1579, his eloquent letter home, describing the journey from Lisbon, is said to have inspired in its turn interest in the sub-continent of India and possibly to have influenced the formation of the East India Company. His devotion to his Goanese flock and his ability with native tongues resulted in a legacy that is still in evidence today as a grammar for Konkani, one of the official languages of modern India.
Stephens was born in Wiltshire around 1551. His father, also Thomas Stephens, was a London merchant and his brother Richard is probably the Stephens recorded in the Register of Scholars for 1553. The Register notes that he was born in Bushton, Wiltshire, although this was wrongly transposed in Kirby’ s printed edition, to Bourton. Sharper eyes than Kirby’ s read the original manuscript text as Bushton, which chimes with the various appellations Stephens was given in later life, such as‘ Padre Busten’,‘ Buston’, and the grand‘ de Bubston’, alongside the more workaday Padre Estevão.
Stephens arrived at Winchester in the early years of Elizabeth’ s reign, just when Catholicism was facing a backlash after the Mary years. However, there would have been many Catholic influences on him. The Headmaster, Christopher Johnston( 1560-71), and Warden Thomas Stempe( 1556-81) are said to have been‘ Catholics at heart’ and Catholic practices had been allowed to flourish in the College under predecessors such as John White( HM, 1535-42; Warden, 1542-54), who preached at the funeral of Queen Mary. Furthermore allowances had been made by the Reformers for Oxford and Cambridge colleges( the privilege extended to Winchester and Eton) to hold church services in Latin, so that students could better practise their knowledge of the language.
After leaving Winchester, it is not clear whether Thomas attended Oxford( his brother went on to New College). He fell in with another Wykehamist and staunch Catholic supporter, Thomas Pounde 2, a near contemporary of Richard Stephens, thus some years his senior. Together they resolved to enter the Society of Jesus and become Jesuits. Pounde was not initially accepted by the Society( he became a lay member in 1578 after Stephens interceded on his behalf) but he did become a serial prisoner, running into trouble for his religious convictions. Stephens evaded the same life of incarceration( they had been briefly imprisoned together in Ludlow‘ for one foreafternoon’ s space’) and journeyed to Rome, where he was admitted to the Society of Jesus on 15 th October 1575. After a two-year novitiate and a further period of study, Stephens was chosen to be part of the Jesuit mission in the East Indies. The only travel option was with the Portuguese, who had outposts in Hormuz and Goa, so he travelled from Rome to Lisbon in the spring of 1579, setting sail on 4 th April. The journey was no small undertaking, for the little convoy of five ships did not arrive in Goa until 24th
1 All From the Same Place, More From the Same Place and Yet More From the Same Place are collections of short biographies of prominent Old Wykehamists, written by Malcolm Burr and published 2001-2003. 2 Thomas Pounde( or Pound)( 1539-1615). According to Sixth Century Essays, he‘ was probably a Wykehamist’ although the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography is more certain. His date of birth puts him a similar age to Thomas’ s brother, 100 years too early to have reached the index of Long Rolls.
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