Roughly speaking the modern history of Anglo-Portuguese commerce falls into two distinct parts, the period before and after the momentous treaty of 1654.
From the end of the fifteenth century up to 1580 the commercial interests of England and Portugal were overshadowed by their rivalry for the trade of Africa, As yet, England put forward little claim to a share in the riches of the East. Henry VIII. did, indeed, attempt to bargain with the Portuguese king for a part in one of the Portuguese expeditions to India. His overtures were rejected, however, and the English concentrated their attention on the trade with Africa. But the Portuguese guarded their possessions in Barbary and Guinea as jealously as their treasure-house in the East. By the middle of the sixteenth century the question grew acute. Philip and Mary forbade their subjects to trade in places under the king of Portugal's government. The merchants ingenuously pleaded that they did no such thing; they merely lay in their ships off the coast, and the natives came to them in boats and traded with them: but even this innocent performance was forbidden by Queen Mary, under the influence of Philip, the natural champion of colonial monopoly.