Today in 1606, just three years after Elizabeth’s death, three ships left England. They were called the Susan Constant, the Godspeed, and the Discovery, and they were carrying the settlers who would found Jamestown, the first English colony in America. This was a risky adventure. Just a few years earlier Walter Raleigh’s colony Roanoke, off the coast of Virginia had failed as all traces of the colonists had just disappeared, and no one knows what happened to them. England had been playing catch up in the exploration game, and the later Elizabethan period saw huge advances with explorers like Raleigh and Drake mapping out routes, and staking their claims. Jamestown was the first successful colony for the English, and within just a few generations the American colonies would be bustling and successful.
That’s your Tudor Minute for today. Remember you can dive deeper into life in 16th-century England through the Renaissance English History Podcast at englandcast.com where there are episodes on trade and exploration in the Elizabethan era, as well as a recent one on the lost colony of Roanoke.
Suggested link:
Episode 111: The Lost Colony of Roanoke
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Heather Teysko is the creator, writer, and producer of The Renaissance English History Podcast, one of the longest running indie history podcasts, going since 2009. She's been writing about history online for over 25 years, since her first site on Colonial American history became number one in history on Yahoo in 1998. She writes books, created the original Tudor Planner (a yearly diary filled with Tudor history) and in 2019 created the world's first Tudorcon (you can "attend" online this year!). She has been passionate about Tudor England since she first read Alison Weir's The Six Wives of Henry VIII 20 years ago, and subsequently moved to London after college to spend her time immersed in Tudor history.