England Goes Global

Date: 1589

Size: 67mm diameter

Made in: Britain

Made by: Michael Mercator

Material: Silver

Created around the time that Shakespeare began his theatrical career in London, this object reveals how his generation was the first to conceive of a world whose limits were known.

This medal depicts Sir Francis Drake's voyage around the world - the first Englishman and only the second man in history to have done so. Suddenly, the world looked like a very different place if you were English.

The 1580s and 1590s saw English figures joining the great adventure of exploration, exploitation, trading and looting that marked the European age of discovery – bringing with it exotic goods and even more exotic tales that would fire the public imagination.

This object is from the British Museum

Watch a video of Drake's Circumnavigation Medal

British Museum Blog: The role of maps in Shakespeare's England by Peter Barber, British Library  

• The first English terrestrial globes were produced in 1592 and became widely known
• There is only one mention of medals in the whole works of Shakespeare - Leontes in The Winter's Tale, Act 1 Scene 2
• In the 1570s, there was a government inspired project to create maps of all the different counties of England
• Maps were instruments of power rather than practical things for finding your way around
• In 1570, the first book of maps was published, titled The Theatre of the Lands of the World

Juliet Stevenson narrates the history of the growth of Elizabethan trade.

Listen to the programme

We remember the defeat of the Spanish Armada as a triumph for the English underdog. But we forget that England sent a fleet of similar strengh back to Spain the very next year.

Listen to the programme

Series charting the history of America, written and presented by David Reynolds. The Puritan founders of New England sowed the seeds of modern democracy.

Listen to the programme