The Story of the Elizabethans - 2020

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searched for gold mines in such inhospitable

locations as the sub-Arctic, and founded

companies trading across the world.

Origins of empire

The key players in English exploration in this

period of transition were those who looked to

north and east – often-overlooked men such

as Jenkinson, Fitch and Frobisher, who laid

the foundations of England’s colonial and

trading empire. Though England did not

found a successful colony until four years

after Elizabeth’s death, the origins of the

British empire lay in the English exploration

of the Elizabethan period.

Elizabethan exploration would never

was not a viable option.

The English therefore turned their at-

tention northwards, improbably searching

for open-water routes in the Arctic regions

and seeking new trading partners in Asia.

These northern and eastern voyages yielded

England’s real contributions to exploration

in the Elizabethan period.

North America, rather than being seen as

a land of opportunity, was seen as a monu-

mental inconvenience that impeded easy

access to China. Until the 16th century,

though China was part of the ‘known world’,

it remained largely inaccessible to the English

• yet it was to that country that England
  turned its attention.

have taken place had it not been for

a catastrophic collapse in traditional

European markets for English goods, and a

worsening political relationship with Spain.

At the outset of the Elizabethan period, the

English were still treading a delicate line

between looking for new trading partners

and trying to avoid angering the powerful

Spanish empire. Spain controlled the

southern route to Asia via the tip of South

America and, though Drake’s circumnavi-

gation of the world (1577–80) proved that

it was possible to outrun the Spanish and

enjoy a profitable privateering venture

through the Strait of Magellan, it was clear

to the English that a southern trading route

THIS PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM ABOVE

Adventurer and explorer Sir Martin

Frobisher, depicted in an early 18th-

century engraving; Frobisher’s men

shoot at ‘eskimos’ (Inuits) in what’s now

Arctic Canada during his search for the

North-West Passage; a map dated

1578, showing the route Frobisher

hoped to pioneer to ‘Cathaia’ (China)