Giles Fletcher the Elder
born c. November 1546, Cranbrook, Kent, Eng.
died March 11, 1611, London
English poet and author, and father of the
poets Phineas Fletcher and Giles Fletcher the
Younger; his writings include an account of his
visit to Russia.
Educated at Eton and at King’s College,
Cambridge, Fletcher was employed on diplomatic
service in Scotland, Germany, and Holland. In
1588 he was sent to Russia to the court of the
tsar, Fyodor I, with instructions to conclude an
alliance between England and Russia, to restore
English trade, and to obtain better conditions
for the English Muscovy Company. He returned to
England in 1589 and in 1591 published Of the
Russe Common Wealth, a comprehensive account of
Russian geography, government, law, methods of
warfare, church, and manners. In 1610 Fletcher
was employed to negotiate with Denmark on behalf
of the merchants of the Eastland Company.
Of the Russe Common Wealth was issued in an
abridged form in Richard Hakluyt’s The principal
Navigations, Voiages, Traffiques and Discoveries
(2nd ed., 1598); in Purchas His Pilgrimes
(1625); and as History of Russia in 1643.
Fletcher also wrote a sonnet sequence, Licia
(1593).
