Sir Henry Hyde (jan 1, 1605 – jan 1, 1650)

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Sir Henry Hyde was a Royalist at a time when most merchants in the Levant and East India Companies—practical, no-nonsense city men—leaned toward Parliament. When the English Civil War broke out, Hyde had his own path was juggling three gigs: trading raisins as the Levant Company’s agent in the Peloponnese, spying for the Venetians on Ottoman trade and military movements, and, using the profits from both, securing a position as the Ottoman consul for the region, which even came with his own regiment of Janissaries. Despite all this, he stayed Christian and even had a chapel on his estate. Throughout the 1630s and 1640s, as England inched toward war, he built up his own little fiefdom—until the Levant Company had enough and sent Sir Thomas Bendish to kick him out. Forced to return to England, Hyde fought for the Royalists, only to see Charles I executed. He later followed Charles II to Paris before being sent to Istanbul as an ambassador. But things took a turn—hiding out on a French ship in Smyrna, he was captured, hauled back to London, thrown in the Tower, tried for treason, and ultimately beheaded.

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