Introduction Give war a chance; 1: The Tudor Crown, the English Nation, and the Heritage of Anglo-Norman Expansionism 1550-1603; 1: Colonial Englishmen face up to the Tudors; 3: The Gaidhealtachd and the colonial enterprise; 4: Feeding frenzy: marginal courtiers and perceived opportunities, 1578-1590; 5: Nadir of statesmanship: the origins of the last Elizabethan colonial war; 6: The bankruptcy of Elizabethan imperialism and the fatal fracturing of the Englishry; 2: Three-Kingdom Monarchy and Empire 1603-1688; 7: Reluctant warriors: James I, Charles I, appeasement and the aborting of a three-kingdom overseas empire; 8: No enthusiasts for empire: the English East India Company and the struggle for maritime trade in seventeenth-century Asia to 1689; 9: War in the New English marchlands in North America 1607-1676; 10: The clash of European states and the rise of the imperial factor in the Caribbean and North America; 11: Conclusion The fracturing of the Englishry, the marginality of colonial enterprise, and the erratic impact of war