Pilgrim Beginnings

Abstract

England soared under Elizabeth. The virgin queen managed almost miraculously to create a nurturing world of balance and forbearance in the second half of the sixteenth century. How much credit Elizabeth and her government deserve for the glory of William Shakespeare is hard to say, but happy coincidence or not, Shakespeare defines the beauty of an era that also saw a Francis Bacon, John Donne, Ben Jonson, and Christopher Marlowe. England’s economy expanded at an unprecedented rate and into new areas such as paper, gunpowder, cannon, and sugar production. Elizabeth’s ships destroyed the Spanish Armada in 1588—a truly Herculean victory as over 130 ships on each side battled for supremacy in the English Channel. Sir Francis Drake personifies Britannia’s drive to rule the seas: when he returned from being the first Englishman to circumnavigate the globe, his flagship, the Golden Hind, sailed low in the water under the weight of looted Spanish gold. An ecstatic Elizabeth knighted Drake (on the quarterdeck of his own ship it was widely but inaccurately reported). Walter Raleigh, author, colonizer, entrepreneur, explorer, friend of the queen, sailor, soldier, and shameless self-promoter, symbolizes the vitality at the heart of what many call the English Renaissance. “God is English,” the bishop of London and constitutional scholar, John Aylmer, scribbled in a marginal note on a manuscript. He spoke for his time.