Product Description: The Spanish Armada conjures up images of age-old rivalries, bravery, and treachery. However, the same Spanish monarch who sent the Armada to invade England in 1588 was, just a few years previously, the King of England and husband of Mary Tudor...read more

Product Description: Although his cousin Sir Francis Drake is more famous, Sir John Hawkins (1532–1595) was a more successful seaman and played a pivotal role in the history of England and the emergence of the global slave trade. Born into a family of wealthy pirates, Hawkins became fascinated by tales of the riches of foreign lands...read more

Amazon.com Review: Remembered in standard history texts as an adventurer who helped extend England's maritime empire to the coasts of Africa and the Americas, Francis Drake roamed the world under the patronage of Queen Elizabeth I. He enriched her coffers by attacking Spanish merchant ships in the Caribbean, raiding ports, looting churches, and taking a cut of the slave trade--the acts not of a military man, Harry Kelsey argues, but of a pirate, and of a cowardly one at that as he was given to fleeing at the first sign of danger, leaving his men behind...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo brought the first European explorers to the west coast of the United States more than four centuries ago. This biography traces Cabrillo's rise from a ragged childhood in the streets of Seville to a position of power and wealth as one of the richest landholders and most intrepid adventurers in the New World...read more