Tudor merchants — shivering in furs in tiny creaking ships, sailing through the ice of unknown winter seas — knew something that today’s careworn EU and civil service officials might be irritated to hear: that despite all travails, trade deals can sometimes be sexy, thrilling and epic.
In 16th-century London, plans to open up fresh trading routes across the world were also about vaulting leaps of fantastical imagination, and naturally also about slavering greed.

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