12 - Ports 1540–1700

Summary

an island nation is, commonly, a seafaring one, dependent for much of its way of life on seaborne enterprise. As Charles Lloyd put it in 1659 during the last Protectorate parliament, in which sat Scottish and Irish as well as English and Welsh members, ‘[w]e are islanders, and our life and soul is traffic’. The existence of a seafaring nation turns in large measure on the history of its ports, great and small – their relations with the rural hinterlands which satisfy their needs for food and labour and serve as important markets for their products and services; the multi-faceted roles they play in the nation’s network of urban places, the fiscal and military resources they supply to the state; and the services they provide in trade and communication with the cultures and civilisations lying over the water.

As island nations, early modern England, Wales and Scotland were simultaneously protected by the sea from potential continental enemies and points of passage. It is the tension between these two aspects of island life – the capacity of island peoples to withdraw behind the moat created by the seas surrounding them and their need to cross those same waters to find markets and supplies – that mark island nations as socially distinctive places. How their inhabitants negotiate this relationship and find a balance among its competing elements forms a defining feature of their society and culture. In early modern England, Wales and Scotland, the emphasis was increasingly on market-oriented enterprise and commercial exchange, thereby enhancing the dynamic role played by seaports.