Anglo-Moroccan Alliance

From the 1580s, Elizabethan England and the Saadi sultanate of Morocco developed unusually close diplomatic and commercial relations. English merchants sought Moroccan sugar and saltpetre and sold cloth, metals and military supplies, while both governments saw cooperation as a way to complicate the power of Spain and Portugal in the Atlantic and western Mediterranean.

The relationship reached its most visible phase under Elizabeth I and Sultan Ahmad al-Mansur. English factors operated in Morocco, envoys travelled between the two courts, and proposals for coordinated action against Spain accompanied practical exchanges in trade and intelligence. The 1600 embassy of Abd el-Ouahed ben Messaoud to London demonstrated how far the connection had developed, even though ambitious military plans did not produce a lasting formal alliance.

S. W. Perry uses these contacts directly in The Saracen’s Mark, sending Nicholas Shelby to Marrakesh on Robert Cecil’s behalf, and returns to Anglo-Moroccan diplomacy in The Sinner’s Mark through the arrival of the Moroccan embassy at Elizabeth’s court.