There was no imperial ‘grand strategy’ to make Spain the centre of a world economy: indeed, such a plan would have been futile. Instead, Philip II devoted the ‘royal fifth’ – the monarchy’s share of the silver stream – to the struggle to uphold Spain’s pre-eminence in Europe against rivals and rebels.

The reconquest of Spain from Muslim rulers by the mid thirteenth century had encouraged the opening of a regular sea route between the Mediterranean and the ports of the English Channel and the North Sea. Lisbon, Seville and later Cadiz became the connecting links between the Atlantic and Mediterranean systems. Long before Columbus, Atlantic Iberia

On May 4, 1493, Pope Alexander VI, head of the Roman Catholic Church, issued a papal bull (official decree) called Inter Caetera that further articulated the “doctrine of discovery” as it related to the Americas.