ew era in
many senses. Printing was coming into use--Erasmus and his companions
were shaking Europe with the new learning, Copernican astronomy was
changing the level disk of the earth into a revolving globe, and turning
dizzy the thoughts of mankind. Imagination was on the stretch. The
reality of things was assuming proportions vaster than fancy had dreamt,
and unfastening established belief on a thousand sides. The young Henry
was welcomed by Erasmus as likely to be the glory of the age that was
opening. He was young, brilliant, cultivated, and ambitious. To what
might he not aspire under the new conditions! Henry VIII. was all that,
but he was cautious and looked about him. Europe was full of wars in
which he was likely to be entangled. His father had left the treasury
well furnished. The young King, like a wise man, turned his first
attention to the broad ditch, as he called the British Channel, which
formed the natural defence of the realm. The opening of the Atlantic had
revolutionised war and seamanship. Long voyages required larger vessels.
Henry was the first prince to see the place which gunpowder was going
to hold in wars. In his first years he repaired his dockyards, built new
ships on improved models, and imported Italians to cast him new types of
cannon. 'King Harry loved a man,' it was said, and knew a man when he
saw one. He made acquaintance with sea captains at Portsmouth and
Southampton. In some way or other he came to know one Mr. William
Hawkins, of Plymouth, and held him in especial esteem. This Mr. Hawkins,
under Henry's patronage, ventured down to the coast of Guinea and
brought home gold and ivory; crossed over to Brazil; made friends with
the Brazilian natives; even brought back with him the king of those
countries, who was curious to see what England was like, and presented
him to Henry at Whitehall.

Another Plymouth man, Robert Thorne, again with Henry's help, went out
to look for the North-west passage which Cabot had failed to find.
Thorne's ship was called the _Dominus Vobiscum_, a pious aspiration
which, however, secured no success. A London man, a Master Hore, tried
next. Master Hore, it is said, was given to cosmography, was a
plausible talker at scientific meetings, and so on. He persuaded 'divers
young lawyers' (briefless barristers, I suppose) and other
gentlemen--altogether a hundred and twenty of them--to join him. They
procured two vessels at Gravesend. They took the sacrament to