There is nothing particularly subtle about a coat of arms with a crest depicting “a demi-Moor proper bound in a cord.” Nearly anyone can deduce from it that the bearer of these arms was probably a figure in the black-slave trade. Deductions along those lines would be right on the mark in the case of this particular heraldic device, for it was granted in 1565 by Queen Elizabeth I to John Hawkins on the recommendation of Sir William Cecil and the Earl of Leicester. The arms commemorate the origin of the English slave trade during the first decade of Elizabeth's reign. Under closer scrutiny, they reveal a wealth of further information about late Tudor history, telling us something about the nature and direction of economic enterprise in the 1560s, the interests of some of the key personalities of the period, and the ways in which diverse elements of society and the state combined their resources for mercantile purposes. Altogether, the crest of John Hawkins constitutes a remarkable lens through which can be seen in microcosm the variety, aggressiveness, and daring which have come to characterize Elizabethan England.
During the past quarter century, a number of distinguished scholars have analyzed Elizabethan overseas enterprise, of which the Hawkins slaving voyages were an important part. Lawrence Stone was the first to ask fundamental questions about the late Tudor economy in a provocative essay published in 1949. The same year saw the appearance of James Williamson's revised biography of John Hawkins, replete with substantial new material drawn from Spanish sources.