This study of politics in early modern England uses the relations between provincial towns, the landed elite, and the crown to argue that the growth of personal connections and patronage, as much as of conflict, explains the development of early modern government. It shows how patronage was a vital tool that suited both local needs and the royal will.

Texts from Hakluyt's Principall Navigations (1589), together with the items added by him in 1600 and much additional material, a few documents in summary form. This volume takes the narrative to January 1586/7 and includes a descriptive list of John White's drawings of the first colony; the narrative is continued to 1590 and later in the following volume (Second Series 105), with which the main pagination is continuous. This is a new print-on-demand hardback edition of the volume first published in 1955.