Empire? Scotland was still an independent country. There was a war of conquest in Ireland that would continue until her death. Her sister Mary had lost Calais, the last of the French mainland territories, leaving only the Channel Islands of the old Norman lands. Raleigh had tried to start a colony in what's now North Carolina and it had quickly vanished. Humphrey Gilbert had founded one colony in Newfoundland- St John- because of the Grand Banks fishing. It really was a Little England.