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I think England was entirely passive in exploring America between the brief Cabot forays of the 1490s and Gilbert and Raleigh’s projects starting in the 1580s.



This seems to encompass Henry VII’s last years, the entire reigns of Henry VIII and Mary Tudor and much of the reign of Elizabeth I.



Despite internal strife at certain intervals and the process of the English Reformation, England appears much more stable than France in the 1500s and less involved in continental wars. Yet while England took a hiatus, the French, despite their wars internally and externally, did the Verrazano expeditions of the 1520s [exploring the North American eastern seaboard], the Cartier expeditions of the 1540s, [exploring the St. Lawrence] and made colonial attempts in Florida, Brazil and the Carolinas, while more persistently raiding Spanish possessions in Mexico.



Why was this?



a) Newfoundland was boring

b) After Cabot was lost, the English were gun-shy

c) It’s a quirk of Henry’s priorities versus those of Francis and other French Kings

d) The English were concentrating on Russia and Russian trade routes at the time
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