Details the life and exploits of the privateer who served Elizabeth I, battled against the Spanish Armada, and attempted to find the Northwest Passage.
Here are the daring exploits of the Elizabethan sea dogs who established England as the foremost maritime and colonial power in the 1500s and thus bequeathed the nation a heritage that would endure for many generations.
Throughout Britain's history, one factor above all others has determined the fate of the nation: its navy. N. A. M. Rodger's definitive account reveals how the political and social progress of Britain has been inextricably intertwined with the strength - and weakness - of its sea power, from the desperate early campaigns against the Vikings to the defeat of the great Spanish Armada. Covering policy, strategy, ships, recruitment and weapons, this is a superb tapestry of nearly 1,000 years of maritime history. 'No other historian has examined the subject in anything like the detail found here. The result is an outstanding example of narrative history' Barry Unsworth, Sunday Telegraph
In neglecting maritime and naval matters, students of the reign of Charles I have missed or misunderstood important elements in the sickness of the early Stuart polity. The crisis of the monarchy at that time was bound up with the failure of the nation's sea forces in the wars of the 1620s and with Charles's efforts to reform and strengthen the navy by means of ship money. The studies of the shipping industry, shipowning, mutiny and one particular seaman's experience in the transatlantic servant's trade explore the economic and social aspects of seafaring, especially the relations between owners, masters, and men at a time of rapid growth and change in the merchant marine. But the relations between the merchant marine and the Royal Navy were so close that the two should be studied together. The essays on Sir Kenelm Digby's privateering venture in the Mediterranean, on ship money (the longest and most central), on the expedition against the Salle rovers, and on the Parliamentary Navy demonstrate in different ways how naval policy, naval finance, and naval enterprise were linked with the problems and the interests of the private sector, which actually took over the Navy in 1642, with not altogether savory results. This novel juxtaposition of topics will, it is hoped, stimulate new thinking about Caroline society and politics.--Book jacket.
Documents, some summarized entirely or in part, relating to twenty-five voyages, drawn mainly from the records of the High Court of Admiralty, with selections from narratives printed by Hakluyt and from a quantity of translations by I.A. Wright of originals (1593-5) in the Archivo General de Indias in Seville intended for a further volume on English West Indies Voyages (see Second Series 66, 71 and 99). The Introduction gives an account of the Court itself and of privateering during the Spanish war and in the West Indies. This is a new print-on-demand hardback edition of the volume first published in 1959.
This book is the first modern analysis of the coasting trade in Elizabethan England. Drawing on a significant body of evidence, including evidence from the port books of Bristol, Southampton and Hull, as well as from a much broader array of early modern sources, it reconstructs both coastal trading patterns and the lives of the merchants, mariners and craftspeople that underpinned them. While Bristol, Hull and Southampton represent the primary case study ports, a much broader geographical range is explored, providing new insights into not just the trade routes, markets, commodities and ships on which this key element of England's maritime economy rested, but also into the men (and few women) who plied coastal trade routes, exploring their socio-economic status, social and political networks, and maritime business strategies. It analyses the linkages between merchants, shipmasters, and ships, discusses merchants' business practices, including their approach to risk, and shows how this shaped the early modern shipping industry. In presenting evidence in an engaging and easily digestible way, and making use of social network analysis, the book makes clear the complexities of coastal trader networks, and the business acumen of coastal traders. While scholarly work hitherto has focused overly on overseas traders, this book corrects the imbalance, revealing in detail the complex commercial and personal lives that coastal traders lived during this pivotal period in England's maritime and commercial expansion. Leanna Brinkley completed her doctorate at the University of Southampton.