The Story of the Elizabethans - 2020

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Margaret Small is lecturer in early modern

history at the University of Birmingham, with

a focus on European exploration and colonisation

in the 16th century

died in the barren and inhospitable condi-

tions – the ship carrying the housing sank,

and the project was abandoned. (The ‘gold’

Frobisher brought back was found to be

nothing more than iron pyrite – fool’s gold.)

Arctic route to empire

Nearly a decade later, in 1585 and subsequent

years, Davis undertook three attempts to

find the North-West Passage. Like Frobisher,

he failed to find a route through to Asia, but

the voyages of both men are noteworthy in

the history of exploration. They contributed

a vast amount of knowledge about how to

navigate and survive in the Arctic. They

helped to map regions wholly unexplored by

Europeans. They also demonstrated a new

aspect of Elizabethan exploration – a will-

ingness to branch into colonisation, leading

the transition to empire-building.

Like the earlier eastward expeditions, these

Arctic missions originally stemmed from a

desire to find new sources of wealth without

trespassing on Spanish-claimed territory,

but they also occurred at a pivotal time in

Elizabethan exploration. By the late 1570s, the

risk of incurring Spain’s wrath was no longer

an issue. England had gained new confidence

in her naval techniques, and war with Spain

was on the horizon anyway. As a result,

Elizabethan explorers and navigators redi-

rected their attention southward, to Spanish-

claimed territory. Later Drake’s circumnavi-

gation was the most profitable English voyage

of the 16th century, having achieved its origi-

nal mission, plundering a Spanish gold ship

off the Pacific coast of South America. Ralegh

searched for gold mines in South America

and backed the English colony founded at

Roanoke in North Carolina in 1585. The

following year, Thomas Cavendish emulated

Drake in raiding Spanish ships and complet-

ing a voyage around the world.

Though these men’s endeavours have

endured in English historical lore, in some

ways their importance is exaggerated. By the

end of the 16th century, all English attempts

at western colonisation had failed – there was

no territorial empire. Instead, the Elizabethan

era’s real contributions to exploration lay in

the less-known voyages and travels to the

north and east.

These expeditions brought about new

models of trade – the monopoly companies –

and expanded geographical knowledge, yet

they were journeys born out of desperation.

They originated in the search for new trading

partners in the face of a collapsed trading

relationship with Europe, and a desire not to

antagonise the dominant world power. The

Elizabethan age of exploration has been seen

as a period of greatness – but its greatest

achievements stemmed from weakness.

OPPOSITE

A 1595 map showing the routes

of the circumnavigations of

Francis Drake (inset, far left) in

1577–80 and Thomas Cavendish

(inset, left) in 1586–88

ABOVE

Detail from a 1590 map showing

English settlers on Roanoke

Island, on the coast of what’s

now North Carolina. It was here,

in 1585, that Walter Ralegh

founded an ill-fated colony