A Discourcs of a Discoveries for a new Passage to Cataia to Queen Elizabeth I of England, to gain royal patronage for voyages of exploration to China (Cataia) by sailing in a Northwest direction, via an anticipated "Northwest Passage". He influenced Martin Frobisher and John Davys. The latter named Gilbert Sound near Greenland after him. He has been accused of genocide for his role in the English persecution of the Irish in Munster. He used to place the severed heads of his victims on each side of a path leading to the entrance to his tent, claiming that it brought "great terror to the people when they saw the heads of their dead fathers, brothers, children, kinsfolk, and friends...", walking to meet him. He was knighted for his role here. In 1573 he presented Elizabeth I with a proposal for an academy in London. This was subsequently put into effect by Sir Thomas Gresham when he set up Gresham College. He was a financial backer of Martin Frobisher's trip to Greenland from where a mysterious black rock was brought back. Gilbert set up the Society of the New Art with Lord Burghley and Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester who had their alchemical laboratory in Limehouse. In 1578 he received royal approval to start a colony in America. After an abortive first trip he eventually reached Newfoundland in 1583, founding St John's on August 5 and Britain's overseas empire. On the return they had sight of a sea monster which looked like a lion with glaring eyes. Some people have suggested this was a giant squid. Whether it was responsible for the sinking of Gilbert's ship the Squirrel has been the subject of debate. His last recorded words were: "We are as near to heaven by sea as by land."

Robert Devereux, the last of Queen Elizabeth I's favourites, was the son of Walter Devereux, first Earl of Essex, and Lettice Knollys. He was early presented at Court, where the Queen did her best to 'spoil' him; and from his twentieth and her own fifty-fourth year she indulged in many flirtations with him, but also in many quarrels, in the course of which his hot temper and jealousy always allowed her to get the better. But the Queen's affection for him was genuine and, at bottom, more of a maternal than of an amatory character. She was always in anxiety when he went to the wars, which he often did. He was knighted on the field of battle at Zutphen, where Sidney fell.
In 1590, he incurred for a time, the Queen's severest displeasure by marrying Sir Philip Sidney's widow, the daughter of Sir Francis Walsingham.
Essex was perpetually soliciting the Queen, but in vain, for preferment for his new friend. In 1596, came the expedition to Spain, in which Essex commanded the land forces which stormed Cadiz, while, against his advice, the sailors let the Spanish treasure-fleet escape; but in his next expedition, known as the 'Islands' voyage' to the Azores, Essex was not so successful.
Finally, all Essex's enemies were rejoiced when he teased his fond mistress into giving him command of the great expedition to Ireland in 1599. The Earl's preparations were extensive and well planned but he had to face the worst rebellion yet known in the island with the certainty that Spanish help was not far off. Once in Ireland, he seems to have lost his head. Instead of driving straight at Ulster and at the Earl of Tyrone, the leading rebel, he made a senseless progress through Munster; and, when at last he turned northwards, he allowed himself to be entrapped into a parley by the wily Irishman, the result of which was that he concluded a wholly unauthorized truce and undertook to present Tyrone's demands to the English government. The Queen was absolutely furious and her favourite made matters worse by deserting his army and hurrying to England.
He was not immediately imprisoned, but kept in seclusion for nine months. In June 1600, he was brought to trial before a special court and it is characteristic of Francis Bacon that he, who had advised the Earl to apply for the Irish command and hoped to make his own fortune by him, appeared against him in his trial. He had lost the favour of the Queen for good, and this disgrace was one under which his restless nature could not be quiet. He knew well that Cecil and other courtiers were his sworn enemies and he now entertained the absurd idea of an appeal to force.
Essex intrigued with King James VI of Scotland to induce him to support a rising, along with his friend, Lord Mountjoy, who had succeeded to his command in Ireland, whom he implored to land troops in Wales. His only real accomplice, however, was Shakespeare's patron, the Earl of Southampton. The rash Essex was a bad head for any insurrection and the London mob, with whom he was really popular, was not so foolish as to rise against Queen Elizabeth. The former was beheaded on 25th February 1601 and there is good reason for believing that the Queen broke her aged heart when she signed his death-warrant.

Sir Francis Drake was an amazing fellow. The first Englishman to circumnavigate the globe, he was also the first Englishman to sail the Pacific, and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth I for his daring deeds. Standing only about 5 feet 5 inches tall, the "little captain general" was a very tiger for aggressive action. After a stunning defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, Drake became one of the most famous men of his day. While he died at sea more than 400 years ago, he still lives as one of England's greatest heroes, in the company of Lord Nelson and Sir Winston Churchill.
Drake was a poor boy from Devon who lived in troubled times. A passionate Protestant, he came of age when the brand-new Reformation was still being threatened by the Catholic church. Later, Drake served under Queen Elizabeth I as she battled King Philip II's Catholic Spain. A common seaman, he rose to nautical, and then social and financial, heights in Elizabethan England by boldly attacking and plundering Spanish treasure ports in Panama, then sharing the profits with the English government.
In a remarkable feat of leadership and navigation he sailed his ship, the Golden Hind, clear around the world--something no captain had done since Ferdinand Magellan's ill-fated voyage in 1522. After capturing more Spanish treasure in the Pacific, Drake and his men stopped off to claim land for England near what later became San Francisco. Drake annexed the land and dubbed it "New Albion," in England's name.

1554-86, English author and courtier. He was one of the leading members of Queen Elizabeth's court and a model of Renaissance chivalry. He served in several diplomatic missions on the Continent and in 1586 was fatally wounded at the battle of Zutphen. Sidney exerted a strong influence on English poetry as patron, critic, and example. His literary efforts circulated only in manuscript during his lifetime. Arcadia(1590), a series of verse idyls connected by prose narrative, was written for his sister Mary, countess of Pembroke. It is the earliest renowned pastoral in English literature. Sidney's prose criticism of the nature of poetry, written as a rebuttal to Stephen Gosson's The School of Abuse,appeared in two slightly different versionsThe Defense of Poesieand An Apology for Poetry(both 1595). Astrophel and Stella(1591) is one of the great sonnet sequences in English and was inspired by his love for Penelope Devereux, later Lady Rich. Sidney, however, married Frances Walsingham in 1583.

King of Spain, only son of the Emperor Charles V, and Isabella of Portugal, b. at Valladolid, 21 May, 1527; d. at the Escorial, 13 Sept., 1598. He was carefully educated in the sciences, learned French and Latin, though he never spoke anything but Castilian, and also showed much interest in architecture and music. In 1543 he married his cousin, Maria of: Portugal, who died at the birth of Don Carlos (1535). He was appointed regent of Spain with a council by Charles V. In 1554 he married Mary Tudor, Queen of England, who was eleven years his senior. This political marriage gave Spain an indirect influence on affairs of England, recently restored to Catholicism; but in 1555 Philip was summoned to the Low Countries, and Mary's death in the same year severed the connection between the two countries. At a solemn conference held at Brussels, 22 Oct., 1555, Charles V ceded to Philip the Low Countries, the crowns of Castille, Aragon, and Sicily, on 16 Jan., 1556, and the countship of Burgundy on the tenth of June. He even thought of securing for him the imperial crown, but the opposition of his brother Ferdinand caused him to abandon that project. Having become king, Philip, devoted to Catholicism, defended the Faith throughout the world and opposed the progress of heresy, and these two things are the key to his whole reign. He did both by means of absolutism. His reign began unpleasantly for a Catholic sovereign. He had signed with France the Treaty of Vaucelles (5 Feb., 1556), but it was soon broken by France, which joined Paul IV against him. Like Julius II this pope longed to drive the foreigners out of Italy. Philip had two wars on his hands at the same time, in Italy and in the Low Countries. In Italy the Duke of Alva, Viceroy of Naples, defeated the Duke of Guise and reduced the pope to such distress that he was forced to make peace. Philip granted this on the most favourable terms and the Duke of Alva was even obliged to ask the pope's pardon for having invaded the Pontifical States. In the Low Countries Philip defeated the French at Saint Quentin (1557) and Gravelines (1558) and afterwards signed the Peace of Cateau-Cambresis (3 April, 1559), which was sealed by his marriage with Elizabeth of Valois, daughter of Henry II. Peace concluded, Philip, who had been detained in the Low Countries, returned to Spain. For more than forty years he directed from the Prince of Orange decided to proclaim Philip's his cabinet the affairs of the monarchy. He resided alternately at Madrid which he made the capital of the kingdom and in villgiatures, the most famous of which is the Escorial, which he built in fulfillment of a vow made at the time of the battle of Saint Quentin.