ABSTRACT
When Thomas Coryate returned to Britain in 1608, he was hailed by some as his kingdom’s loyal emissary abroad. Back from a four-month trip to the Continent, he was now, said one eulogist, ‘Brittaines Perspicill’. With some jocularity, he suggests that Coryate’s European travels can extend the king’s ambitions for a unified realm of ‘Great Britain’. Distributed across the two islands, Coryate’s ‘stuffe’ will enlighten the recalcitrant Irish, Welsh, and Scottish peoples who have so far resisted the British ‘union’ James had proposed. Henry Goodier says that Coryate was able to fend off the machinations of the Jesuits, but only because he chose to ‘remaine an Idiote’. Coryate’s views, whatever they were exactly, present an intriguing case of ideas in motion. He takes the domestic politics of early Stuart Britain on the road and performs it quite literally, as seen outside the realm.
