The Elizabethan Dream: How England Became a Sea Power
Historiansplaining: A historian tells you why everything you know is wrongShow Notes
We follow the adventures and the atrocities of the English “sea dogs,” from raiding ports in West Africa and Spanish mule trains in Central America to scrounging for gold in the Canadian tundra, as the Tudor regime exploited England’s expertise in sailing and navigation to undermine the Spanish empire and try to turn the Atlantic into a massive free-trade zone. We uncover why Elizabethan England never created lasing colonies of their own, until the accession of the first Stuart king in 1603 led to a profound shift in policy, paving the way for the first English colonies beyond Ireland and the extension of the “British empire” to America.
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My previous lecture on England in the Tudor Age: https://soundcloud.com/historiansplaining/age-of-absolutism-2-tudor-england-1485-1603
My interview with historian Melissa Morris on the early European colonies in Guiana, South America: https://soundcloud.com/historiansplaining/before-jamestown-when-england-colonized-the-amazon-a-conversation-with-melissa-morris
Image: the “Armada Portrait” of Queen Elizbeth I, version probably commissioned by Francis Drake; notice English & Spanish ships seen over queen's shoulders, & queen’s hand resting on North America on the globe, representing her purported claim to that land
Suggested further reading: Armitage, “Ideological Origins of the British Empire”; Kupperman, “The Jamestown Project”
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