Henry VIII. on coming to the throne found England without a fleet, and without a conscious sense of the need of one.  A few merchant hulks traded with Bordeaux and Cadiz and Lisbon; hoys and fly-boats drifted slowly backwards and forwards between Antwerp and the Thames.  A fishing fleet tolerably appointed went annually to Iceland for cod.  Local fishermen worked the North Sea and the Channel from Hull to Falmouth.  The Chester people went to Kinsale for herrings and mackerel:  but that was all—­the nation had aspired to no more.

Columbus had offered the New World to Henry VII. while the discovery was still in the air.  He had sent his brother to England with maps and globes, and quotations from Plato to prove its existence.  Henry, like a practical Englishman, treated it as a wild dream.

The dream had come from the gate of horn.  America was found, and the Spaniard, and not the English, came into first possession of it.  Still, America was a large place, and John Cabot the Venetian with his son Sebastian tried Henry again.  England might still be able to secure a slice.  This time Henry VII. listened.  Two small ships were fitted out at Bristol, crossed the Atlantic, discovered Newfoundland, coasted down to Florida looking for a passage to Cathay, but could not find one.  The elder Cabot died; the younger came home.  The expedition failed, and no interest had been roused.

With the accession of Henry VIII. a new era had opened—­a new 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.