Before New England: The Popham Colony

In late September, 1608, a courier arrived at the gates of the Spanish royal residence at Madrid after a journey of several days by road from the coast. He was carrying a dispatch to Philip III from Don Pedro de Zuñiga, Spanish ambassador in London. It contained  diplomatic intelligence that he believed would be crucial to Spanish efforts to protect their holdings in North America from encroachment by troublesome British competitors. Twenty years had passed since the unsuccessful attempt by Philip III’s father, Philip II, to topple the Protestant Queen of England in the abortive naval invasion known in Spain as the ‘Great Enterprise’. Now Elizabeth I was dead, and the crowns of Scotland and England had been united under James VI and I. Spanish unease with the British was now of a more commercial than religious nature, but relations were strained nonetheless, and the ambassador was assiduous in keeping his monarch up to date with worrying developments on both sides of the Atlantic; the previous year he had protested to James about the nascent English colonies of Virginia, and also urged Philip to take action against them – though the King chose not to act on his advice.