ABSTRACT
Like the Ming Chinese, the Ottoman Turks, the Spanish, and the Portuguese, the English at the close of the fifteenth century were showing interest in other lands. Cosmography became an arousing business. The transnational elite of cosmographers visited and corresponded with the Tudor court. Columbus, seeking backing for his route to India in the late 1480s, approached Henry VII as a likely source—though without success. The Cabota family left Venice for London, where the father and son would come to be known as John and Sebastian Cabot. Gradually the English began developing their own speculations about the navigable world. Expeditions went east, to Russia, looking for a northerly route to India. (Later, expeditions in the other direction would be financed by the same Muscovy Company.) They went overland to Persia, down the Atlantic coast to Africa, and, in the wake of the Spanish, to the tropics of the Western hemisphere. The English paid more attention than before to neighboring Atlantic islands, dramatically renewing efforts to dominate the Irish. They also began speculating about the more distant northwest lands where English boats had already been visiting on fishing expeditions. Could they find a route to India that way?
