Henry Timberlake

Who was Henry Timberlake?

Henry Timberlake was a prosperous London ship captain and merchant adventurer who travelled to the Mediterranean in his ship the Trojan early in 1601. After calling at Algiers and Tunis, he reached Alexandria. Here he and his assistant Waldred took his Levant Company stock and went overland and then up the Nile to Cairo. Finding it impossible to sell his goods in Cairo, he went with another Englishman, John Burrell, to visit Jerusalem. This was a very hazardous journey to make, given the perils of any travel by land in an area rife with highway robbery. After his return, he wrote a letter about his adventures to friends in London that was published in 1603 as A True and Strange Discourse on the travailes of two English Pilgrims. It was a popular account and went through numerous editions.

The popularity of the account was due to the vivid narration and the surprising friendship it presented between an English Protestant and an unnamed Muslim from Fes, Morocco. This man had been one of the passengers Timberlake had taken on board in Algiers. Encountering Timberlake at Mamre, near Hebron, as part of a large Syrian caravan, the Moor promised to help the captain in a strange land.