From very early days in the history of the Portuguese monarchy close and friendly relations had been established between England and Portugal. A large body of English (together with German and Flemish) troops on their way out to the Crusades had assisted the first king of Portugal to capture Lisbon from the Moors in the 12th century. A later king of Portugal married a daughter of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster; and his sons, among them the great Prince Henry the Navigator, were half English in blood. These friendly relations were no doubt partly to be accounted for by the French origin of both ruling houses. Therefore, when the effect of Portuguese discoveries in West Africa began to be felt in England by the extension of the spice trade (hitherto a monopoly of Venice), and the dawning idea that negro slaves from Africa would be an excellent commodity for American plantations, British seamen-adventurers were prompt to follow in the path of the Portuguese. The trade in spices seems to have been the first inducement, more powerful than gold or slaves. Englishmen had previously shipped on board Portuguese vessels before they ventured to sail to West Africa in craft of their own. Quite early in the 16th century several Englishmen thus found their way to Benin in company with the Portuguese. But their proceedings were looked upon with suspicion, and friendly relations between the two nationalities soon cooled under the influence of rivalry in what the Portuguese would have liked to make their monopoly of West African trade. At the end of the reign of Edward VI (1553), and during that of Mary (1554-5), English ships ventured to cruise to the Gambia, the Grain Coast, and even the Gold Coast and Benin river, bringing back gold, ivory, Guinea pepper[108] and “grains of Paradise[109]” for spice making. In 1562-4-7 Captain (Sir) John Hawkins visited the West African coast with a ship of his own, and later one or more ships of Queen Elizabeth. He piratically attacked the Portuguese ships and robbed them of their negro slaves; he bought and kidnapped slaves on his own account and conveyed them to the West Indies. But actual trading ventures of a peaceful or honest nature were rendered very hazardous by the hostility of the Portuguese. When, however, in the latter part of the 16th century, Portugal was absorbed by Spain and Spain went to war with England, Queen Elizabeth had no hesitation in granting charters to two companies of merchant adventurers to trade with the West coast of Africa. In 1585 the first charter was granted to a body of London adventurers for the carrying on of commerce with Morocco and the Barbary States; in 1588 another charter was given to Devonshire merchants, who had been for some time previously endeavouring to trade on the Senegambia coast. Thus in 1588 were