Nathaniel's nutmeg by Giles Milton Read Free Book Online Page A

first glimpse of this newly victorious power, and when the first English mariners finally pitched up at the court of Sultan Ala-uddin of Achin — the most powerful ruler in Sumatra — they found that the Sultan knew every detail of the historic victory. So anxious was he to make an impression on this new naval power, and so keen to strike up a trading alliance, that he sent a train of elephants magnificently decked with streamers to meet them.
    In the congratulatory letter that he sent to Queen Elizabeth I he was most efiusive in his greetings. Imagining her as victorious ruler of vast swathes of Europe, he addressed his letter to the Sultana of England, France, Ireland, Holland and Friseland. Even good Queen Bess must have blushed at that.
     

chapter two
    Wonderfully Unwholesome Climes
     
     
     
    Two months after Sir Francis Drake’s spectacular success against the Armada, London Merchants heard rumours that an English vessel was sailing up the Channel after an adventurous voyage to the East Indies. The captain of this ship was Thomas Cavendish, the second Englishman to circumnavigate the globe, who was returning from his expedition laden with rich merchandise. On his home-bound journey he had attacked the huge Spanish galleon, Great St Anne, along with a staggering nineteen other vessels, and he arrived back in England to a rapturous welcome, a welcome that was heightened by reports that his sailors wore silken doublets and that his top sails were trimmed with gold.
    Scarcely had Cavendish set foot on land than he was writing to his old friend, the Lord Chamberlain, urging him to promote an English expedition to the Spice Islands without delay. 'I sailed along the islands of the Moluccas,' he wrote, 'where our countrymen may have trade as freely as the Portugals if they themselves will.'
    There was by now a pressing need to send a successful trading mission to the East Indies for, ever since King Philip II had acceded to the throne of Portugal in 1580, the markets of Lisbon had been closed to English shipping. Not only had this dramatically reduced the quantity of spice arriving in England, it had also closed an important export market for English broadcloths and woollens. The old argument against an English expedition to the Spice Islands - that the Portuguese had exclusive rights over the eastern sea routes — was no longer valid. The papal bull that had divided the world between the Catholic powers of Spain and Portugal was openly scorned in England and Queen Elizabeth I personally challenged its legality, famously arguing that 'it is as lawful for my subjects to sail [around the Cape] as the Spanish, since the sea and air are common to all men.' The voyages of Drake and Cavendish had demonstrated to the sceptics that English ships, though small, could indeed go anywhere they chose and when Drake captured a massive carrack in the eastern Atlantic it proved once and for all that such ships 'were no such bugs that they might be taken'. This particular bug was a rich prize indeed: its hold was filled with more than £100,000 of treasure.
    In 1591, after years of vacillating, the merchants of London acted upon Cavendish's advice. They petitioned Queen Elizabeth for a licence to trade in the East Indies and, on gaining her consent, began searching for a suitable commander. This time they paid heed to their mistakes of the past and plumped for James Lancaster, an experienced merchant seaman who had fought bravely against the Spanish Armada.
    Little is known of Lancaster's early life. His will relates that he was born in Basingstoke in 1554 or 1555 and died when he was well into his sixties. Known to be 'by birth of gentillity' he was despatched to Portugal at a tender age in order to learn the language and business of trade. Lancaster himself recorded only the briefest outlines of his years in

     
    the country. 'I have been brought up among these people,' he later wrote,' and have lived among them as a gentleman,