NOTE ON TUDOR SHIPPING " 231

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE " 241

INDEX " 247




ELIZABETHAN SEA-DOGS




CHAPTER I

ENGLAND'S FIRST LOOK


In the early spring of 1476 the Italian Giovanni Caboto, who, like
Christopher Columbus, was a seafaring citizen of Genoa, transferred his
allegiance to Venice.

The Roman Empire had fallen a thousand years before. Rome now held
temporal sway only over the States of the Church, which were weak in
armed force, even when compared with the small republics, dukedoms, and
principalities which lay north and south. But Papal Rome, as the head
and heart of a spiritual empire, was still a world-power; and the
disunited Italian states were first in the commercial enterprise of the
age as well as in the glories of the Renaissance. North of the Papal