The use of fur was so firmly embedded in English tradition that it was not in the nature of things that the new restrictive laws now promulgated would be accepted without protest. One English merchant put it tellingly when describing presents of fur that had previously been brought to Queen Elizabeth by a Russian ambassador.
“The Presents sent unto her Majesty were Sables, both in paires for tippets, and two timbars, to wit, two times fortie, with Luzerns and other rich furres. For at that time that princely ancient ornament of furres was yet in use. And great pitie but that it might be renewed especiall in Court, and among Magistrates, not only for the restoring of an olde worshipful Art and Companie, but also because they be for our Climate wholesome, delicate, grave and comely; expressing dignitie, comforting age, and of longer continuance, and better with small cost to be preserved, then these new silks, shagges and ragges, wherein a great part of the wealth of the land is hastily consumed.”
Whether or not the merchant’s protest was heeded, it was in fact prophetic in its suggestiveness.
The recent proclamations had decreed “that no furres shall be worn here, but such as the like is growing here within this our Realme.” Well, the “Realme” was about to be vastly extended.
Now that England was no longer in a state of complete commercial dependence upon the continent, ingenuity at home and pluckiness abroad were rising to meet the challenge. Participation in world affairs was eagerly sought. While adventurers of purse formed companies to trade overseas, venturers of person took a sudden interest in such things as ship design and ordnance. With an eye on plunder as well as legitimate commerce shipwrights were trained to turn out swift and manageable craft of small burden, well gunned for oceanic warfare and easy to maintain.
Of course Mary Tudor, the Catholic Queen of England who succeeded her father Henry VIII, had prohibited her countrymen from sailing west to America. It wouldn’t have pleased Philip II of Spain. He married her to extend his empire, not to share it.
But Englishmen had tasted salt water and they liked it. They liked it even more after seeing the American silver, fifty thousand pounds of it, that Philip sent to London as a wedding present. When Mary died in 1558 after a short but bloody reign and her Protestant sister, Elizabeth, ascended the throne, there was no holding those who wanted to sail west.
Elizabeth, herself, applied no restraints. Like the French king, Francis I, she winked broadly enough when her own newly toughened mariners pirated Spain’s shipping and disputed that country’s ascendancy even on the Spanish main. The destiny of empire was beckoning the English. John Hawkins, the slaver, and Francis Drake, the privateer, were only the forerunners of captains of their stripe who were to make their country the mistress of the seas.
In the beginning it was envy of Spain, a thirst for silver and gold, and the quest for a trade passage to Cathay that drove the English westward, just as it had the French before them. Colonization, except as an eventual means to an end, had no part in the French scheme—nor in the English. The primary objects other than the harassment of Spain were the discovery of mines and a northwest passage.