Did the Dutch Empire and English Empire only develop because of the death of the Portuguese King in 1578? indirectly.

ezpz · Aug 6, 2025

After Sebastian I died in what now is Morocco, in Alcacer Quibir in a expedition in 4 August. The Castilians and the Hispanic Monarchy assumed the throne of the Portuguese Crown 2 years later with the death D.Henrique, in 1583 he closed the trade of Antwerp which was crucial for Portuguese Trading in Northern Europe, so now the English and Dutch were not able to obtain Asian goods, which was 1 of the reasons that lead the Dutch want to get these goods directly, so many dutch spies.

¨While not a specific spy case, Jan Huygen van Linschoten, a 16th-century Dutchman, gathered information on Portuguese trade routes and navigation in Asia. He spent time in Goa, then a Portuguese territory, as secretary to the Archbishop, and his work exposed Portuguese secrets about Asian trade. This information significantly aided the Dutch in challenging Portugal's monopoly on the spice trade. ¨

Not only that, English, and Dutch and other European powers were now exposed on how to create a efficient empire with this,

Prior the Indian Ocean and South Atlantic were considerd a Portuguese Possession by the Crown since 1520 with Manuel I, similar to what the Spanish Habsburgs had in the Pacfic.

Also the Dutch established Mare Liberum which would threaten Portuguese claims over the Indian Ocean, and would be the basic for international law on the seas. which would be made to diminish Habsbug Claims over regions.

charlie ia · Aug 6, 2025

to be fair, portugal was always punching above its weight. its incredible what this little kingdom in a corner of the iberian peninsula managed to achieve, via the thrust of tremendous vanguardists as henrique o navegador.

but that was not sustainable in the long run (netherlands business neither to be frank, even when they were utter capitalists). portugal didnt possess the resources nor the manpower to keep a monopoolistic empire - even spain with larger forces and a seemingly unending supply of silver from the conquered mesoamerican and andean kingdoms couldnt either.

even if brazil's resources had arrived earlier, it would have been very difficult... brazil provided great resources for portugal by 18th and early 19th centuries - it became by all definitions, more decisive for portuguese standing and wealth than portugal itself. however, the curious paradox is that the portuguese crown invested itself into brazil precisely because of the loss of the monopoly in the indian ocean.

johnincornwall · Aug 6, 2025

For 'expedition' read 'foolhardy insanity'

HFlashmanVC · Aug 7, 2025

The early colonial empires in the east, weren't so much decided by boots on the ground as by ships in the water. Before your date the Dutch already had developed the trade network in the Baltic Sea to provide the materials to build their fleets. It was certainly handy that they didn't had to reinvent the wheel, when it came to finding the right spots and persons to deal with, but they eventually would have found it themselves and the basic trading expertise was also more than sufficient. It also helped that as new kids on the block their reputation didn't work against them.

ezpz · Aug 8, 2025

johnincornwall said:
For 'expedition' read 'foolhardy insanity'

Bro tried to even go to India what was bro thinking

charlie ia · Aug 8, 2025

ezpz said:
Bro tried to even go to India what was bro thinking

we need to understand 16th century iberian mindset was completely different from ours. this amadís de gaula mindset was fueling people like those in cortés' party for example.

many of such expeditions could indeed be deemed today as foolhard insanities as john puts it - cortés destroyed his own ships, imagine - but the deal is precisely that. the dutch, the utter capitalists on the other hand, were not thinking too much about deeds for posterity, just about $$$

REITRE · Aug 9, 2025

The challenges to portuguese seaborne empire started long before 1580.

The first ones that were set to break iberian domination of the new routes were the french:

Under Francis I, France did much more than bait ships against the Portuguese India Run. They started to make trips to Brazil as early as 1504, and extended its sphere of influence to Mina and Guinea. During the 1520s, French expeditions were also sent to the Indian Ocean. At the beginning, these voyagers relied on Portuguese pilots and knowledge, but by the 1529 Jean Parmentier’s (1494-1529) expedition, the French enterprise no long required this external resource.A failure to meaningfully maintain expeditions to Asia was followed by continuous investment in Brazil and Guinea. In the 1530s, Portugal’s fear of French competition in the Atlantic was so severe that Guinea and Brazil were considered halfway lost. King John III was wracked with worry throughout the 1530s by news that the French intended to dispatch a member of the royal family to colonize Brazil, and that the French were building a fortress on Santa Helena Island. He rightly understood that France’s fighting for the South Atlantic was groundwork for its re-entry into the Indian Ocean.
...
When Francis I later concentrated his endeavors in Canada,57 desires for a maritime expansion to Brazil, Guinea, and Asia were by no means extinguished. With perilously rising French ambitions, the 1562 Portuguese Courts passed a motion demanding better treatment of Portuguese pilots as they were not prized enough. Among other things, the motion hoped to prevent nautical experts from serving abroad. Still, the drainage of Portuguese pilots to Spain, France and England continued in the following years.In spite of Portuguese attacks on French ships in the Atlantic, at the beginning of his reign, Henry II confirmed the interdiction of French navigation to Portuguese overseas areas. He changed his position, however, when asked by Coligny to support Villegagnon’s plan for France Antarctique. Henry II agreed to give Villegagnon the title of viceroy, as well as funding, ships, and men. Rather than vacillating on his maritime policy, Henry II opted to back the most serious challenge the French would mount on Portuguese maritime hegemony in the whole of the sixteenth century. His action cannot be disconnected from his policies aiming to build up a French navy fit to match the power and maritime ambitions of Spain.
Nuno Vila-Santa: Diplomacy and Humanism: Ambassador Jean Nicot and the French-Portuguese Maritime Rivalry (1559-1561)

More about french projects in Brazil in the wikipedia: France Antarctique

In the end french efforts to build an early trade empire were weighed down by their internal struggles and they were kicked out of Brazil by the portuguese.

It´s not much surprising that the english were set to follow french steps. Though maybe it´s more surprising that a "maritime nation" like England had a slow start due to a lack of expertise in oceanic sailing:

The English need for Portuguese pilots and Portuguese nautical knowledge remained critical as late as Drake’s circumnavigation, with
Drake completing a maritime spy mission in Lisbon before the voyage, and later employing the Portuguese pilot Nuno da Silva during the
circumnavigation itself.David Waters states that between 1558 and 1568 all English fleets sailing oceanic routes, with one exception, were piloted by Portuguese, Spanish or French pilots, and that in 1577 the president of the Spanish Council of the Indies attested that most
English fleets were still being guided by Portuguese pilots. As Taylor argues, it took England almost fifty years to raise sailors prepared to
compete, in terms of skill, training and the requisite nautical knowledge for long oceanic routes, with their Iberian counterparts. By the
early 1550s, when England was recommencing its maritime expansion, this need for nautical knowledge was more salient.
For John III, the English maritime reawakening was disturbingly reminiscent of all the worry and rivalry at sea that he had been experiencing
with Valois France. As in his previous attempts with France, John III tried also with England, in 1554, to control the acquisition of nautical
knowledge by his rival, a reality that can also be observed in Franco-Spanish or even Anglo-French maritime relations in the period.
Nuno Vila-Santa. From Allies to Rivals: Portuguese Maritime Espinoage in England, 1551-1559.

In the end there would be clashes between the english and the portuguese before 1580, like Hawkins and Drake attacks on portuguese ships in 1567 when they were in the gulf of Guinea looking for slaves to sell in America.

REITRE · Aug 9, 2025

As for the dutch. Yes, Antwerp had been the main trading hub before the war, but the 80 Year´s War put the city in the very center of the conflict. The city was not only sacked in 1576 (the “Spanish Fury”) but after Farnesse conquered it in1585 the dutch blocked the river Scheldt to prevent the city to rise again as an international trade hub. At the same time Philip II made the first general embargo (1585-1590) banning dutch trade with the Iberian Peninsula.

The fall of Antwerp meant the rise of Hamburg as the main “peaceful” alternative trading hub where the portuguese merchants could settle along the merchants of many othernations, so dutch and english could still buy indirectly spices.

What happened later according toJonathan Israel was the following:

PhilipII's decision to intervene in France in 1590, the drastic weakening of the Spanish pressure on the north which resulted, Maurits's great offensives of 1591, 1593, and 1597, clearing the Spaniards from the Ijssel, Waal, and other main river routes, the securing of the Republic's territory, and Philip II's lifting of his embargo against Dutch commerce with Spain and Portugal, combined with the tightening of the Dutch naval blockade of the south, created, within a few years, an entirely new framework and altogether more favourable conditions. The 1590s created confidence that the Republic had a secure future and that Holland was a viable base for large-scale investment in commerce and manufacturing processes. This, in turn,began attracting, especially to Amsterdam,many of the élite merchants from Antwerp who had migrated in the 1580s to Hamburg,Bremen, Emden, Stade, Cologne, and Frankfurt in preference to what was then a besieged, gloom-ridden, and economically depressed Republic.

These changes generated massive investment during the 1590s, above all at Amsterdam but also in Middelburg,Rotterdam, Delft, Haarlem, and the West Frisian ports, in a whole range of 'rich trades', commencing with the traffic now reviving with Spain, Portugal, and the Mediterranean. Armed with the spices, sugar, silks, dyestuffs, Mediterranean fruit and wine, and Spanish American silver, obtained in the south, merchants based in Holland and Zeeland then rapidly outstripped merchants operating from Hamburg, Lübeck, and London in supplying these commodities to the north.
…
Consequently, it was decided at the commencement of Philip III's reign, in 1598, to reimpose the embargoes in Spain and Portugal on Dutch ships, goods,and merchants. But this Spanish attempt to reverse what had happened served only further to strengthen the burgeoning Dutch overseas trading system by forcing the élite merchants of Holland and Zeeland if they were not to lose the newly won 'rich trades' in Europe to invest immediately, and heavily, in a new direct traffic to the Indies east and west.
J.Israel. The Dutch Republic, It´s Rise, Greatness and Fall

We may presume that even if Portugal had remained independent, trade rivalry and clashes would have happened in one way or another if the portuguese wanted to stick to the Mare Clausum.
Even more when the dutch and his close allies the english ended also clashing about free trade when the english Navigation Acts of 1651 targeted the dutch trade and even before with events like the Amboina Massacre (Amboina Massacre | Dutch East India Company, VOC, Moluccas | Britannica).

Willempie · Aug 9, 2025

First of all it should be Dutch "Empire". It just sounds silly and apart from the huge landmass that is the Netherlands, the colonies weren't really part of the country.
Secondly the Dutch already ignored Portuguese neutrality in the East when it suited them.
-"Nice trading post you have there. I think I'll take it."
-"Oh, you're Portuguese, not Spanish. Sorry for looting your ship, but you all look alike."

ezpz · Aug 11, 2025

REITRE said:
The challenges to portuguese seaborne empire started long before 1580.

The first ones that were set to break iberian domination of the new routes were the french:

Under Francis I, France did much more than bait ships against the Portuguese India Run. They started to make trips to Brazil as early as 1504, and extended its sphere of influence to Mina and Guinea. During the 1520s, French expeditions were also sent to the Indian Ocean. At the beginning, these voyagers relied on Portuguese pilots and knowledge, but by the 1529 Jean Parmentier’s (1494-1529) expedition, the French enterprise no long required this external resource.A failure to meaningfully maintain expeditions to Asia was followed by continuous investment in Brazil and Guinea. In the 1530s, Portugal’s fear of French competition in the Atlantic was so severe that Guinea and Brazil were considered halfway lost. King John III was wracked with worry throughout the 1530s by news that the French intended to dispatch a member of the royal family to colonize Brazil, and that the French were building a fortress on Santa Helena Island. He rightly understood that France’s fighting for the South Atlantic was groundwork for its re-entry into the Indian Ocean.
...
When Francis I later concentrated his endeavors in Canada,57 desires for a maritime expansion to Brazil, Guinea, and Asia were by no means extinguished. With perilously rising French ambitions, the 1562 Portuguese Courts passed a motion demanding better treatment of Portuguese pilots as they were not prized enough. Among other things, the motion hoped to prevent nautical experts from serving abroad. Still, the drainage of Portuguese pilots to Spain, France and England continued in the following years.In spite of Portuguese attacks on French ships in the Atlantic, at the beginning of his reign, Henry II confirmed the interdiction of French navigation to Portuguese overseas areas. He changed his position, however, when asked by Coligny to support Villegagnon’s plan for France Antarctique. Henry II agreed to give Villegagnon the title of viceroy, as well as funding, ships, and men. Rather than vacillating on his maritime policy, Henry II opted to back the most serious challenge the French would mount on Portuguese maritime hegemony in the whole of the sixteenth century. His action cannot be disconnected from his policies aiming to build up a French navy fit to match the power and maritime ambitions of Spain.
Nuno Vila-Santa: Diplomacy and Humanism: Ambassador Jean Nicot and the French-Portuguese Maritime Rivalry (1559-1561)

More about french projects in Brazil in the wikipedia: France Antarctique

In the end french efforts to build an early trade empire were weighed down by their internal struggles and they were kicked out of Brazil by the portuguese.

It´s not much surprising that the english were set to follow french steps. Though maybe it´s more surprising that a "maritime nation" like England had a slow start due to a lack of expertise in oceanic sailing:

The English need for Portuguese pilots and Portuguese nautical knowledge remained critical as late as Drake’s circumnavigation, with
Drake completing a maritime spy mission in Lisbon before the voyage, and later employing the Portuguese pilot Nuno da Silva during the
circumnavigation itself.David Waters states that between 1558 and 1568 all English fleets sailing oceanic routes, with one exception, were piloted by Portuguese, Spanish or French pilots, and that in 1577 the president of the Spanish Council of the Indies attested that most
English fleets were still being guided by Portuguese pilots. As Taylor argues, it took England almost fifty years to raise sailors prepared to
compete, in terms of skill, training and the requisite nautical knowledge for long oceanic routes, with their Iberian counterparts. By the
early 1550s, when England was recommencing its maritime expansion, this need for nautical knowledge was more salient.
For John III, the English maritime reawakening was disturbingly reminiscent of all the worry and rivalry at sea that he had been experiencing
with Valois France. As in his previous attempts with France, John III tried also with England, in 1554, to control the acquisition of nautical
knowledge by his rival, a reality that can also be observed in Franco-Spanish or even Anglo-French maritime relations in the period.
Nuno Vila-Santa. From Allies to Rivals: Portuguese Maritime Espinoage in England, 1551-1559.

In the end there would be clashes between the english and the portuguese before 1580, like Hawkins and Drake attacks on portuguese ships in 1567 when they were in the gulf of Guinea looking for slaves to sell in America.

As for England, Sebastian I of Portugal was Pro-Habsburg and so was João III atleast in his late reign, this couldve easily been avoided with a New King and more diplomatic Security, therfore its more logical and more rational to assume that they wouldve go for the Spanish Territories instead of the Portuguese No? England was Protestant since atleast the 1530, this means that the Papal Bulls dont follow them and they do not regonize it at all, the French were just salty that they had no share. Sebastian I of Portugal even threatend to invade Ireland with Thomas Stukley, so I am already aware of this. but I do not think this automatically means that England wouldve been capable of penetrating trough Asia atleast in the 16th or 17th Century same as the Dutch.

REITRE · Aug 11, 2025

ezpz said:
As for England, Sebastian I of Portugal was Pro-Habsburg and so was João III atleast in his late reign, this couldve easily been avoided with a New King and more diplomatic Security, therfore its more logical and more rational to assume that they wouldve go for the Spanish Territories instead of the Portuguese No? England was Protestant since atleast the 1530, this means that the Papal Bulls dont follow them and they do not regonize it at all, the French were just salty that they had no share. Sebastian I of Portugal even threatend to invade Ireland with Thomas Stukley, so I am already aware of this. but I do not think this automatically means that England wouldve been capable of penetrating trough Asia atleast in the 16th or 17th Century same as the Dutch.

As pointed by Nuno Vila-Santa in the quoted article, John III already saw England as a potential competitor in times of pro-Hasburg Mary I. Under Elizabeth I there was a growing hostility between England and Spain, leading finally to war in 1585. One of the many reasons for that hostility was that Spain banned the english, and everyone else, to trade directly in the ports of spanish America. An issue that would remain a motive for war for the next two centuries, even when all the others reasons had dissapeared.

The very fact that Portugal wanted to assert Mare Clausum could be deemed an hostile act by any other maritime nation. It was ok as long as Portugal had the strength to make good it´s claims, or it´s competitors had other worries. Diplomacy was an alternative to war, but that would surely meant for Portugal giving access in one way or another to it´s trade sphere in order to avoid a clash, sooner or later.

The problem for Portugal was that it´s model of trading posts was both vulnerable and "attractive" to interlopers.
Attractive, because it meant a swift access to spices and rich trades; a quick refund of the efforts and money invested.

Out of hostility english and the dutch did attack spanish territories. They could plunder and raid, but the core of the spanish empire and it´s mineral and agricultural wealth was out of it´s reach. HFlashmanVc had mentioned that in the East you didn´t need "boots in the ground", only ships. The opposite was true for spanish America.
In the end, interloping in the spanish area of influence meant normally settling in an island or coast not already occupied, and developing it from zero. Even when the english captured an island like Jamaica in 1655, as a consolation prize after failing at Hispaniola, the island had relitavely few spanish habitants and didn´t have much relevant wealth sources to sustain a colony, so for a time the main source of income were the profits from piracy.

Yury · Tuesday at 3:19 PM

I don't think that the death of any king had a noticeable effect on forming the British Empire. Two things helped Brits to get the upper hand:

American colonies created an additional market that Britain had full control of.
After the Mughal Empire collapsed East India Company managed to steal the whole subcontinent.

Willempie · Tuesday at 4:00 PM

Yury said:
I don't think that the death of any king had a noticeable effect on forming the British Empire. Two things helped Brits to get the upper hand:

American colonies created an additional market that Britain had full control of.

After the Mughal Empire collapsed East India Company managed to steal the whole subcontinent.

That and 1688, which saw the whole problem of having to go against the Dutch disappear.

Yury · Tuesday at 5:02 PM

Willempie said:
That and 1688, which saw the whole problem of having to go against the Dutch disappear.

If you are referring to the Glorious Revolution, I don't think it has much to do with building the Empire, except for creating the necessary political and financial climate. And speaking of the Dutch, 1759 was most decisive.

Yury · Tuesday at 5:18 PM

Also, we should remember that the Netherlands and England had more advanced forms of government with the rule of law in place, which made investments more attractive, as investors didn't have to worry about a king seizing their money.

charlie ia · Tuesday at 6:05 PM

Yury said:
I don't think that the death of any king had a noticeable effect on forming the British Empire. Two things helped Brits to get the upper hand:

American colonies created an additional market that Britain had full control of.

After the Mughal Empire collapsed East India Company managed to steal the whole subcontinent.

well, if the portuguese had the strength, they could have taken advantage of the collapse of the mughal empire. they were there loooong before the english... in fact, even before babur started his conquest!

ezpz · Wednesday at 12:28 PM

REITRE said:
The challenges to portuguese seaborne empire started long before 1580.

The first ones that were set to break iberian domination of the new routes were the french:

Under Francis I, France did much more than bait ships against the Portuguese India Run. They started to make trips to Brazil as early as 1504, and extended its sphere of influence to Mina and Guinea. During the 1520s, French expeditions were also sent to the Indian Ocean. At the beginning, these voyagers relied on Portuguese pilots and knowledge, but by the 1529 Jean Parmentier’s (1494-1529) expedition, the French enterprise no long required this external resource.A failure to meaningfully maintain expeditions to Asia was followed by continuous investment in Brazil and Guinea. In the 1530s, Portugal’s fear of French competition in the Atlantic was so severe that Guinea and Brazil were considered halfway lost. King John III was wracked with worry throughout the 1530s by news that the French intended to dispatch a member of the royal family to colonize Brazil, and that the French were building a fortress on Santa Helena Island. He rightly understood that France’s fighting for the South Atlantic was groundwork for its re-entry into the Indian Ocean.
...
When Francis I later concentrated his endeavors in Canada,57 desires for a maritime expansion to Brazil, Guinea, and Asia were by no means extinguished. With perilously rising French ambitions, the 1562 Portuguese Courts passed a motion demanding better treatment of Portuguese pilots as they were not prized enough. Among other things, the motion hoped to prevent nautical experts from serving abroad. Still, the drainage of Portuguese pilots to Spain, France and England continued in the following years.In spite of Portuguese attacks on French ships in the Atlantic, at the beginning of his reign, Henry II confirmed the interdiction of French navigation to Portuguese overseas areas. He changed his position, however, when asked by Coligny to support Villegagnon’s plan for France Antarctique. Henry II agreed to give Villegagnon the title of viceroy, as well as funding, ships, and men. Rather than vacillating on his maritime policy, Henry II opted to back the most serious challenge the French would mount on Portuguese maritime hegemony in the whole of the sixteenth century. His action cannot be disconnected from his policies aiming to build up a French navy fit to match the power and maritime ambitions of Spain.
Nuno Vila-Santa: Diplomacy and Humanism: Ambassador Jean Nicot and the French-Portuguese Maritime Rivalry (1559-1561)

More about french projects in Brazil in the wikipedia: France Antarctique

In the end french efforts to build an early trade empire were weighed down by their internal struggles and they were kicked out of Brazil by the portuguese.

It´s not much surprising that the english were set to follow french steps. Though maybe it´s more surprising that a "maritime nation" like England had a slow start due to a lack of expertise in oceanic sailing:

The English need for Portuguese pilots and Portuguese nautical knowledge remained critical as late as Drake’s circumnavigation, with
Drake completing a maritime spy mission in Lisbon before the voyage, and later employing the Portuguese pilot Nuno da Silva during the
circumnavigation itself.David Waters states that between 1558 and 1568 all English fleets sailing oceanic routes, with one exception, were piloted by Portuguese, Spanish or French pilots, and that in 1577 the president of the Spanish Council of the Indies attested that most
English fleets were still being guided by Portuguese pilots. As Taylor argues, it took England almost fifty years to raise sailors prepared to
compete, in terms of skill, training and the requisite nautical knowledge for long oceanic routes, with their Iberian counterparts. By the
early 1550s, when England was recommencing its maritime expansion, this need for nautical knowledge was more salient.
For John III, the English maritime reawakening was disturbingly reminiscent of all the worry and rivalry at sea that he had been experiencing
with Valois France. As in his previous attempts with France, John III tried also with England, in 1554, to control the acquisition of nautical
knowledge by his rival, a reality that can also be observed in Franco-Spanish or even Anglo-French maritime relations in the period.
Nuno Vila-Santa. From Allies to Rivals: Portuguese Maritime Espinoage in England, 1551-1559.

In the end there would be clashes between the english and the portuguese before 1580, like Hawkins and Drake attacks on portuguese ships in 1567 when they were in the gulf of Guinea looking for slaves to sell in America.

And even if there were conflicts, the Conflicts between England and Portugal were minor ones in the late 16th Century, you could make the argument that it was due Sebastian I being Young and Pro Habsburg, altough I agree with you. conflicts would inevitable for Portugal, but it wouldn't be as crazy as it happend during the 1580 - 1640 period, As Portugal was very Neutral. France, England, and Netherlands still were in direct conflict with Spain, without the death of Sebastian I. Portugal would always be a neutral power without having any involvements in Europe, totally focusing in their seaborne Empire, I know that economy wise trade under Habsburg Portugal wasn't much of a difference between Avis Portugal, but there were still significant setting

Book: Portuguese Trade in Asia under the Habsburgs 1580 - 1640

Yury · Wednesday at 3:22 PM

ezpz said:
And even if there were conflicts, the Conflicts between England and Portugal were minor ones in the late 16th Century, you could make the argument that it was due Sebastian I being Young and Pro Habsburg, altough I agree with you. conflicts would inevitable for Portugal, but it wouldn't be as crazy as it happend during the 1580 - 1640 period, As Portugal was very Neutral. France, England, and Netherlands still were in direct conflict with Spain, without the death of Sebastian I. Portugal would always be a neutral power without having any involvements in Europe, totally focusing in their seaborne Empire, I know that economy wise trade under Habsburg Portugal wasn't much of a difference between Avis Portugal, but there were still significant setting

Book: Portuguese Trade in Asia under the Habsburgs 1580 - 1640

Actually, all trading/colonial powers shouldn't be proactively involved in Europe, and rather focus on their seaborne Empire, as that's where their wealth was coming from. Britain was a good example of it. It wasn't looking for any territorial acquisitions in continental Europe but rather wanted European peace so they can sell their goods (produced domestically and in far corners of the Empire), while France, Germany, and Russia wanted territorial expansion.

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