03 - The Many Failures of Sir Humphrey Gilbert

Although Walter Raleigh is famous for founding the first permanent settlement in North America, history has largely forgotten his half-brother who was a genius, a fool, a bloodthirsty psychopath, a terrible explorer, and somehow founded the British empire.

Sources and Further Reading

Chidsey, D. B. (1932). Sir Humphrey Gilbert: Elizabeth's racketeer. Harper & Brothers.

Gosling, W. G. (1911).The life of Sir Humphrey Gilbert: England's first empire builder. [Electronic Version]. https://archive.org/details/lifeofsirhumphre00goslrich/page/n1/mode/2up

Gilbert, H. (1576). A discourse of a discouerie for a new passage to Cataia [Electronic version]. Henry Middleton for Richarde Ihones. https://archive.org/details/discourseofdisco00gilb

Elizabeth I. (2025, August 27th). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_I

Schulman, M. (2022). A timeline of the age of exploration. Historycentral.com. https://www.historycentral.com/explorers/Index.html

Canadian Museum of History. (n.d.). Jacques Cartier 1534-1542. Virtual Museum of New France. Retrieved from https://www.historymuseum.ca/virtual-museum-of-new-france/the-explorers/jacques-cartier-1534-1542/