Sir Jerome Horsey

Sir Jerome Horsey was English traveler, merchant in service of the Muscovy Company, diplomat and holder of a number of public offices.

Jerome Horsey entered the service of the Muscovy Company as an apprentice clerk in Russia in 1572 and lived there until 1585, being employed by the Russians as emissary to England in 1580 and 1585. He also served as English ambassador to Moscow in 1590–91.

His mission in 1580 was ordered by the Ivan IV who sent Horsey on a secret mission to England to buy arms. Horsey was introduced to Queen Elizabeth by his kinsman Sir Edward Horsey, governor of the Isle of Wight, and has returned to Russia in 1581 with thirteen tall ships. In 1585 Horsey went to Riga where he arranged for the return to Russia of Maria, niece of Ivan IV, who upon arrival was imprisoned in the Trinity Sergius Monastery with her daughter.

In the years 1585-1587 Horsey negotiated a new trade agreement between the Muscovy Company and Russia. Despite his successful negotiations Horsey was accused by the Muscovy Company during those years of theft and trading on his own account. In 1590 he was again sent to Russia as England's ambassador at the urging of his patron, Sir Francis Walsingham, over the objections of the Muscovy Company. The embassy failed and Horsey was expelled from Russia with orders not to return.

As a result of his experiances in Russia, Horsey wrote a ‘Relacion or memoriall abstracted owt of Sir Jerome Horsey his travells, imploiments, services and negociacions, observed and written with his owne hand; wherein he spent the most part of eighteen years tyme’, a major, and still valuable, account of contemporary Russia.

Horsey’s life after 1591 was less eventful than the decades of his travels and life in Muscovy. He got married in 1592, settled down in Buckinghamshire where after a decade he became justice of the peace, was knighted on 23 July 1603, and was sheriff in 1611–12. Horsey was also Member of Parliament. He represented Saltash in 1593, Camelford in 1597, and Bossiney in 1601, 1604, and 1614.