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goods from the East and West Indies. 23 And it was the relationship between the Merchants Adventurers and the crown that would dominate government policy for the next several years.
    But trade was only one side of the coin. Treasure, irrespective of itsprovenance, was the special passport to royal favor, since the queen expected her Merchants Adventurers and other trading corporations and societies to put their ready funds at her disposal for the security of the realm. The same sacrifices were demanded of her gentlemen adventurers at court as well. There was no doubt that Elizabeth’s reign was a time when all who wanted power needed to put their money where their ambitions lay, and only then could success be richly rewarded.
     
    And so it was at the beginning of 1559 that the queen found her realm in less than shipshape order. She was literally assailed on all sides and had to unite her country behind her. The first concrete step she took to that end was to set about to create the illusion of power and wealth to dazzle her enemies and give the false impression of a glorious beginning at her coronation in January of that year. It was this illusion that would give the queen her enduring nickname of “Gloriana,” and fooled posterity into believing that there had always been some grand mercantile and imperial strategic plan. 24
    But the only “grand plan” that Elizabeth had at that stage was security of the realm. Her vision was clear, and she had the mental acuity and deft touch of a chess grandmaster, always seeing five or six moves ahead of the game, more often than not leading her adversary into the path she wished him, or her, to take. Though she had no money, she had the courage, conviction, advisors, and “stomach of a king” to help her through the task ahead. And at the heart of this illusion in her “grand plan” to save England was the very real world of gentlemen and merchant adventurers, corsairs and pirates. Without them, England could not survive.

3. The Queen, Her Merchants and Gentlemen
The State may hereafter want such men, who commonly are the most daring and serviceable in war of all those kind of people.
—SIR HENRY MAINWARING, ELIZABETHAN PIRATE-TURNED-ADMIRAL
    T he queen’s gentlemen and merchant adventurers—often referred to by England’s allies and adversaries alike as her corsairs, rovers, and pirates—were not the stuff of ordinary merchant stock. Indeed, pioneering into new worlds required men who thirsted for knowledge, had tremendous egos, were desperate to make their fortunes, had an acute business sense, and possessed more than a fair portion of intelligence and cunning. Many also claimed a fair degree of patriotism, and all professed undying loyalty to the queen. It was these men who would ultimately save England in ways that no one could begin to imagine in 1559.
    Throughout her reign, Elizabeth’s court was stuffed to the gunnels with troublesome second sons of gentleman stock, the merchant trades, and the aristocracy. These men had been brought up with “expectations” of wealth, or luxury, but as younger sons they could inherit only the wealth of their wives—should they have the good fortune to marry well—or a portion of their fathers’ mercantile enterprises—should their fathers prove generous. If they were unlucky, then they’d have to make their own way in the world, often running foul of strict interpretations of the law and making enemies in their travails and travels. Robert Dudley, John Hawkins, Sir Robert Cecil, Francis Bacon, and Walter Raleigh were some of the most shining examples of Elizabethan younger sons grasping at court power and riches. The jealousy and envy they created wasundoubtedly destructive; their contributions to the mainstay of Elizabeth’s court, tremendous.
    Then there were the great Elizabethan families who dominated the political, economic, and even the intellectual powerhouses of Elizabeth Tudor’s England. They were a heady brew