Trade and Territory

Abstract

Most of us assume that the British empire was a creation of Queen Elizabeth I. The vision of an imperial sovereign surrounded by her sea dogs is seductive. It goes back to the political propaganda put out during the great queen’s lifetime in the shape of symbolic portraits like the ‘Armada Portrait’ which depicts her in 1588 at the height of her triumph over Philip II of Spain’s ‘Felicissima Armada’ (the Happy or Most Fortunate Fleet whose fate in that year so much belied its optimistic name). Other portraits of Elizabeth are full of maritime and imperial symbolism. Her poets saluted her as ‘Astrea’, the imperial virgin from classical mythology whose reign was destined to bring an era of peace and fruitfulness to the earth. How far did reality match all this propaganda, churned out by a regime which was almost always insecure?