This is the Tudor's Dynasty podcast.

And now, Ask the expert with Steph.

I'm your host, Steph Sorer.

And I'm here today with the brilliant author and historian, Lawrence Burggreen,

to talk about explorers in the Tudor era.

Welcome, Lawrence.

Thank you very much, Stephanie. I'm glad to be with you.

So our topic today is a new one for me, actually, one that I really don't know that much about.

So I'm very excited to be here with you because I admittedly do not know much about exploring or that section

of history.

So our first listener question to kick things off is about how explorers at the time can

get started.

How would one end up in a profession like this back in Tudor days?

Well, keep in mind, that's a really interesting, good question. Their assumptions about society

in the world and even the Earth and the cosmos were different from ours. And, you know, it was sort of similar, but

really quite different. Many of them were what we would call pirates or even slave traders,

but they didn't think of themselves as that way at all. They followed themselves as

commercial entrepreneurs or carrying out the Queens, you know, Queen Elizabeth's

wishes or orders, while often surreptitiously enriching themselves in the process. Of course,

their assumptions about, you know, human rights or human dignity are quite different from ours.

And so a lot of what they did would be completely distasteful and repugnant today.

That doesn't mean it doesn't happen in some parts of the world, but it was quite different.

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