Elizabeth: Exploration

• During Elizabeth's reign, English sailors and traders began to explore and develop trading links across the globe
• Trade was expanding quickly in the New World
• English merchants needed new trading opportunities, as war with Spain and in the Netherlands had severely damaged the wool and cloth trades
• It was vital to find new markets and new products to sell
• Some young Elizabethan men, such as Francis Drake, undertook voyages of discovery and exploration
• The published accounts of these voyages, though often inaccurate, persuaded others to venture into the unknown in the belief that treasure and riches could be found and fortunes made
• Private investors, including Elizabeth I and her courtiers, funded many of the voyages of discovery
• Although it was risky, the rewards could be enormous, increasing the incomes of both the Crown and the nobility
• Ships


  • Bigger sails, faster and more manoeuvrable, greater firepower to protect themselves from attack by pirates, more stable and could take on more supplies, encouraging longer voyages and exploration
• Navigation


  • Becoming increasingly more precise, development of nautical devices such as quadrants and astrolabes made voyages safe, direct and faster, leading to more exploration and trade, development of standardised maps such as the Mercator Map of 1565 gave sailors and traders greater confidence that they were going in the right direction, reducing risk and encouraging farther voyages
• The trader and explorer John Hawkins discovered that iron goods and guns could be sold in West Africa to buy slaves, which could be sold in the New World in exchange for rum, spices and tobacco, which would then be sold in Europe
• Other merchants and traders across England copied the lucrative triangular trade
• Drake's circumnavigation of the globe

  Took place between December 1577 and September 1580, after which the queen knighted him
• Drake's main purpose was to raid Spanish colonies in the Pacific, as relations with Spain were declining at this time
• Revenge, as the Spanish had attacked Drake's fleet at St Juan de Ulla and most of his men had been killed
• Profit, as loot, booty and trade meant there were huge profits to be made from Drake's proposed journey to the Americas and beyond, so people were willing to invest in the expedition, including Elizabeth I
• Despite the fact that only one of Drake's five ships, the Golden Hind, survived the voyage, England's reputation as a sea-faring power increased
• Drake's expedition had resulted in Nova Albion, an area near San Francisco, being claimed as English territory with Elizabeth as queen
• This encouraged further trade and exploration, especially to the New World, and more colonies were established in New England
• England increasingly saw her navy as her best means of defence, protecting and extending her trading interests
• English ships began to trade elsewhere in China, West Africa and India
• Drake's voyage meant that England claimed the right to much of North America, bringing England into conflict with the pope, who had awarded North America to Spain, and with Spain, which had already conquered Mexico and Peru and had established trading posts along the Eastern Pacific coast
• For Philip II, the knighting of Drake on the Golden Hind by Elizabeth I was the final insult that made war between the two countries inevitable