Like the Dutch, the English wanted a key role in the spice trade. Following a year of fund raising and political negotiation, the ‘Company of Merchants of London trading into the East Indies’ was given ‘royal approval’ by a charter from Queen Elizabeth I on 31 December 1600.

218 subscribers to the new enterprise raised £68,373 – a massive amount at a time when a skilled carpenter was earning about 7 pence a day. The Company was granted a monopoly on all English trade east of the Cape of Good Hope.

All of Asia was theirs for the trading.