Elizabeth I appreciated the possibilities that exploration and trade held for her nation. Under her reign in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, England began its overseas expansion. (Library of Congress)
An English monarch during the age of exploration.
Daughter of King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth was third in line to the throne behind her younger brother, Edward, and her older sister, Mary. She became the queen of England following the death of Mary in 1558. While few expected her to succeed, she proved to be a remarkable ruler. Throughout her long reign, she worked tirelessly to strengthen national unity, bring prosperity to a country bankrupted by her father, and make England a maritime power on par with Spain.
Elizabeth I appreciated the possibilities that exploration and trade held for her nation. Under her reign in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, England began its overseas expansion. (Library of Congress)
The Tudor family had placed England on the road to world exploration and trade but with little enthusiasm. Elizabeth’s grandfather, Henry VII, had commissioned the Italian seafarer John Cabot (Giovanni Caboto) to sail west to the New World on behalf of England. In 1497, Cabot explored along the coast of Newfoundland and claimed the region for England. Elizabeth’s father, Henry VIII, sent Cabot’s son, Sebastian, back to America, but showed no interest in further discoveries or colonization. Under the reign of her brother, Edward VI, more progress had been made as merchant adventurers headed east through the Baltic Sea and established trade with Russia.
In contrast to her predecessors, Elizabeth grasped the possibilities that exploration and trade held for her nation. She knew that commercial ties with northern Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and the Americas would open up markets for English goods. Exploration would lead to colonies that could serve as an outlet for England’s growing population, a market for English products, and a source for raw materials useful in English manufacturing. She also realized that privateers commissioned by the Crown to attack Spanish shipping could bring much needed revenue into the royal treasury.
With this in mind, she encouraged and often funded adventurers, merchants, and explorers alike. Anthony Jenkinson traveled to Russia on behalf of the queen, and even headed to Syria, where he met with Suleiman the Magnificent. In 1576, Elizabeth granted Martin Frobisher a license to find the Northwest Passage through America to the Far East. In the following year, she secretly commissioned Sir Francis Drake to circumnavigate the globe to interfere with Spanish trade in the Far East. In 1578, she granted Sir Humphrey Gilbert a charter to found a colony in the New World. Although Gilbert died at sea following the failure of his second attempt to establish a colony in Newfoundland, Sir Walter Raleigh, his younger half-brother, continued his efforts farther to the south in a colony called Roanoke.
Elizabeth reached the height of her royal power when her navy defeated the Spanish Armada off the southern coast of England in 1588. In the last years of her reign, she continued her work to make England a major maritime nation. In 1600, she helped to lay the foundation for the British empire by granting a charter to the British East India Company. Her successor, James I, continued many of her policies and oversaw the founding of the first successful English colony in the New World.
Mary Stockwell
See also: British Empire.
Brimacombe, Peter. All the Queen’s Men: The World of Elizabeth I. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000.