[1] During Ivie's period, the English got a confirmation of the grant of Madras from Damarla Venkatapathy Nayak's nephew and successor, Srirangarayalu.
The English, however, were diplomatic enough to establish cordial relations with the emerging Muslim power and offered the Sultan the services of their gunner when he blockaded Santhome in 1646.
In his youth he had been apprenticed to Edmund Winn of Canning Street London in 1618 and gained his freedom from the Merchant Taylors Company in 1627.
Years of fighting, litigating against each other and separation culminated in Thomas appealing to the highest authority in the land (the Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell) to overturn an alimony award which had been made to his wife.
The document he submitted to Cromwell was called Alimony Arraign’d[10] and revealed all the gory details of the troubled marriage in Thomas Ivie’s own words.
The marriage ended in a veritable explosion of litigation between them as Thomas repeatedly tried, and failed, to get control of the estate his wife had inherited in Wapping.
He failed in this as litigation was ongoing at his death and court records showed awards against his estate which his executors were obliged to fulfil.
Though found not guilty at the subsequent trial – because it was impossible to bring the crime home to her personally – the accusation against her was enough to empower her opponents to challenge all her titles and, from the 1680s onwards, her life spiralled downwards.