------------------------------------------------------------------------
Transcriber’s Note:
This version of the text cannot represent certain typographical effects.
Italics are delimited with the ‘_’ character as _italic_. Superscripted
characters are prefixed with ‘^’.
Footnotes have been moved to follow the chapter in which they are
referenced.
Minor errors, attributable to the printer, have been corrected. Please
see the transcriber’s note at the end of this text for details regarding
the handling of any textual issues encountered during its preparation.
MARITIME ENTERPRISE
1485–1558
[Illustration:
WARSHIP, PERIOD 1514–45.
From Cott. MS. Aug. 1. i. 18.
_Frontispiece_
]
MARITIME ENTERPRISE
1485–1558
BY
JAMES A. WILLIAMSON
OXFORD
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
1913
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
LONDON EDINBURGH GLASGOW NEW YORK
TORONTO MELBOURNE BOMBAY
HUMPHREY MILFORD M.A.
PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY
PREFACE
The subject of English maritime enterprise during the period 1485–1558
falls naturally into two divisions—discovery and trade. The former has
engaged the attention of numerous historians in the last thirty years,
their works centring mainly on the voyages of the Cabots with subsequent
exploring adventures more or less summarily treated. Commerce, on the
other hand, has been somewhat neglected as a factor in that great
development of the powers of the English nation which made itself
evident in the sixteenth century. The only exhaustive book on the
_maritime_ trade of our country in the period in question is that of G.
Schanz,[1] published in German in 1881, and never translated into
English. This work stops at the year 1547.
The object of the present work is to present a comprehensive picture of
English maritime affairs from the accession of Henry VII to that of
Elizabeth; to trace out such lines of policy as are visible in the
existing records; and to elucidate certain incidents concerning which
disputable ideas, or no ideas at all, are current.
With regard to the Cabot voyages, no new evidence is adduced, but a
scientific criticism and analysis of that already known has been
attempted; leading, in the author’s opinion, to the partial
rehabilitation of the character of Sebastian Cabot. The evidence in
favour of his independent exploration in the North-West seems, when
properly discriminated from other matters with which it has been
unjustly confused, too strong to be neglected.
The later voyages of discovery under Henry VII, and those under Henry
VIII, have been as deeply entered into as the scanty surviving evidence
permits. The debt which our maritime expansion owes to the last-named
monarch is emphasized by the fact that most of the projects of his reign
owed their origin to his initiative, acting in despite of popular
apathy.
With the trading voyages to Brazil, the African coast, and the
North-East the new era of national expansion was entered upon. On these
matters the Record Office possesses numerous documents which supplement
the printed sources of information. The negotiations concerning the
Guinea voyages furnish an illustrative sidelight on the actual influence
exercised by King Philip over the conduct of English affairs.
In the chapters on commerce under Henry VIII and his two successors the
development of the various branches of trade, and their relation to
diplomacy, have been outlined, but many details have been necessarily
omitted. The circumstances attending the fall of the Hansa in England
are here fully stated for the first time.
For purposes of reference a chapter on the naval history of the period
has been added. The connexion between the naval service and the
mercantile marine was perhaps closer in Tudor times than at any
subsequent period. Officers, men, and ships served alternately in the
one and the other; and the navy itself was more of the nature of a
marine militia than of a regular force.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. HENRY VII AND HIS COMMERCIAL POLICY 13
II. MERCANTILE ORGANIZATION 31
III. THE CABOT VOYAGES—JOHN CABOT, 1497 AND 1498 51
IV. THE CABOT VOYAGES—SEBASTIAN CABOT, ? 1499 86
V. AN EARLY COLONIAL PROJECT 104
VI. THE GROWTH OF COMMERCE 120
VII. THE FALL OF THE HANSA 152
VIII. THE ENGLISH IN THE NORTH SEA 183
IX. FRANCE, SPAIN, AND THE MEDITERRANEAN 208
X. VOYAGES AND PROJECTS OF DISCOVERY UNDER HENRY VIII 240
XI. THE AFRICAN VOYAGES 274
XII. THE NORTH-EAST PASSAGE AND THE WHITE SEA 307
XIII. SHIPS AND MEN. ENGLISH PORTS 338
XIV. THE NAVY, 1485–1558 372
ILLUSTRATIONS
Warship, period 1514–45 _Frontispiece_
English Trade Routes at the beginning of the Tudor _To face_ p. 16
Period
The North Atlantic, from the Map of Juan de la ” ” 83
Cosa, 1500
The North Atlantic, from Robert Thorne’s Map, 1527 ” ” 116
Venetian map of the British Isles, North Sea, and ” ” 150
Baltic
Calais in the early Sixteenth Century ” ” 206
An English Warship, _temp._ Henry VIII ” ” 272
Map of Guinea and Benin, 1558 ” ” 288
English Discoveries in the North-East, from ” ” 336
William Borough’s Chart
Warship, _c._ 1485 ” ” 342
Two Merchantmen ” ” 346
Two Carracks ” ” 350
The _Henry Grace à Dieu_ ” ” 358
The _Grand Mistress_ ” ” 384
Plan of Portsmouth, _c._ 1545 ” ” 394
SUMMARY OF ENGLISH MARITIME AND
COMMERCIAL HISTORY, 1485–1558
PAGE
1485 Accession of Henry VII 13
Renewal of privileges of the Hansa in England 41
Navigation Act limiting import of Bordeaux wines to 19
English traders
1488 Concessions to Italian merchants 46
1489 Commercial treaty with Spain 22
1490 Commercial treaty with Denmark 41
1491 Diet at Antwerp to settle differences with the Hansa 42
(1492 Columbus discovers the West Indies)
1493 Rupture of intercourse between England and the 19
Netherlands
Riot against the Easterlings in London 43
(1494 Treaty of Tordesillas)
1496 John Cabot and his sons obtain their first Letters 53
Patent for discovery
The _Magnus Intercursus_ settles the dispute with the 20
Netherlands
1497 John Cabot’s first voyage 71–7
Commercial treaty with the Netherlands 20
Diet at Bruges to discuss disputes with the Hansa 43
1498 John Cabot’s second voyage 79–85
(Vasco da Gama arrives at Calicut)
1499 Sebastian Cabot’s voyage to the North-West (?) 86–103
Commercial treaty with the Netherlands 20
Diet at Bruges to discuss disputes with the Hansa 44
1500–2 Voyages of the brothers Corte Real to Newfoundland, &c. 106,
116
1501 Letters Patent for discovery granted to Bristol 104
merchants and Portuguese explorers
First voyage of the Anglo-Portuguese syndicate 107
1502 Second voyage of the Anglo-Portuguese syndicate 108
New Letters Patent issued reconstituting the syndicate 109
1503 Third Anglo-Portuguese voyage 110
1504 Fourth Anglo-Portuguese voyage 110
1505 Fifth Anglo-Portuguese voyage (?) 110
New Charter granted to the Merchant Adventurers 34
1506 The Archduke Philip (King of Castile) falls into the 20
hands of Henry VII
The _Malus Intercursus_ with the Netherlands 21
1507–8 Commercial negotiations with the Netherlands 21
1509 Death of Henry VII. Accession of Henry VIII 120
1511 Defeat and death of Andrew Barton 374
1512 War with France. Expedition for conquest of Gascony 375
Battle off Brest. Loss of the _Regent_ 376–8
1513 Attack on Brest. Death of Sir Edward Howard 381–3
1514 Raids on English and French coasts. End of the war 384–5
1515 Commercial treaty with Spain 216
1516 Alleged North-West voyage by Sebastian Cabot and Thomas 241–5
Spert (very doubtful)
1517 The Evil May Day 141
Grievances of the Hansa 154
Charter of privileges granted to English merchants in 216
Andalusia by the Duke of Medina Sidonia
1520 Commercial treaty with the Netherlands 185
Diet at Bruges to discuss differences with the Hansa 155
1521 The London Companies invited to finance a voyage of 245–8
discovery. Abandonment of the project
1522–5 Second French War of Henry VIII 386–8
1525 Proposal for a voyage of discovery to be led by Paolo 249
Centurioni. Death of the latter
(1526 Sebastian Cabot’s voyage to the River Plate)
1527 Robert Thorne’s _Declaration of the Indies_ and _Book 250–2
to Dr. Lee_
John Rut’s voyage to the North-West 252–8
1528 Arrest of English merchants in Spain and Flanders 187
1530 The English merchants in Spain constituted a Company by 218
Charter of Henry VIII
Act relating to the decay of Southampton 368
1530–2 Voyages of William Hawkins to Brazil 265–7
1532 Death of Robert Thorne 261
Diet at Bourbourg for settling disputes with the 187
Netherlands
1533 Act forbidding export of food stuffs 147
1534 Act giving power to the king to suspend commercial 124
statutes by proclamation
1535 Temporary arrest of the Hanse merchants 157
1536 Master Hore’s voyage to the North-West 262–4
1538–9 International crisis 125
1539 Proclamation placing foreign merchants on fiscal 126
equality with English for seven years
1539–40 Religious persecution of Englishmen in Spain 220–3
1540 Extensive list of grievances presented by the Hansa 157
Comprehensive Navigation Act 128
1540–2 Commercial and diplomatic struggle with Imperial 130–2
Government
Further voyages to Brazil 267–8
1541 Project for northern exploration 265
1542 Proposed diet with the Hansa at Antwerp 159
1544 War with Scotland and France. Sack of Leith and 388–9
Edinburgh. Capture of Boulogne
1545 Arrest of the Merchant Adventurers at Antwerp 191
Capture of a Spanish treasure-ship by Robert and John 272
Reneger
Arrest of all English merchants in Spain 224
Renewed religious persecution of English in Spain 224
French landing in the Isle of Wight 395
Naval actions at Portsmouth and off Sussex coast 392–8
1546 Peace with France 399
1547 Death of Henry VIII. Accession of Edward VI 144
Suspension of statutes limiting the export of unwrought 145
cloth
1548 Return of Sebastian Cabot to England 308
1551 Thomas Wyndham’s first voyage to the Barbary coast 274
1552 Partial repeal of the Navigation Act of 1489 (1485) 214
Execution of the Duke of Somerset 164
Revocation of the privileges of the Hansa in England 166
Voyage of Roger Bodenham to Chios 235–8
Wyndham’s second voyage to Barbary 275–7
1553 Safe-conduct for trade in Turkey granted to Anthony 238
Jenkinson by the Sultan
First English voyage to Guinea (Wyndham and Pinteado) 277–83
Formation of the Russia Company 311
Departure of Willoughby and Chancellor on the first 317
voyage to the North-East
Death of Edward VI. Accession of Mary 150
Restoration of Hanse privileges 170
Willoughby discovers Novaia Zemlia 319
Chancellor discovers the White Sea and reaches 323
Archangel
1553–4 (winter) Chancellor travels to Moscow and interviews 324
the Czar
1554 Death of Willoughby at Arzina 321
John Locke’s voyage to Guinea 284–7
Return of Chancellor with news of discoveries 326
1555 Partial revocation of Hanse privileges 174
New Charter granted to the Russia Company 326
Chancellor’s second voyage to Archangel 327–9
Prohibition of Guinea voyages by the Privy Council 291
1555–6 William Towerson’s first voyage to Guinea 293–5
1556 Agreement with the Hansa allowing limited privileges 176
Third expedition to Archangel 329
Voyage of Stephen Borough in search of the North-East 330-2
Passage
Wreck of the _Edward Bonaventure_. Death of Chancellor 333
Renewed prohibition of the Guinea trade 295
1556–7 Towerson’s second Guinea voyage. Fighting with the 296–302
Portuguese on the Gold Coast
1557 Complete rupture with the Hansa 178
Banishment of Englishmen from the Hanse towns 178
Arrival in London of a Russian ambassador 334
Fourth expedition to Archangel 336
1558 Fall of Calais 405
Towerson’s third voyage to Guinea 302–6
Death of Queen Mary 406
CHAPTER I
HENRY VII AND HIS COMMERCIAL POLICY
The reign of Henry VII marks the opening of the modern era in the
history of the English nation, the period in which, from being an
agricultural and military people, we have become transformed into a
maritime and commercial community, with interests stretching far beyond
the shores of our immediate neighbours on the continent of Europe.
Throughout the Middle Ages all the strivings and ambitions of England
were concentrated on the conquest, by force of arms, of the surrounding
countries—of the remaining parts of the British Isles at first, and
afterwards of France. With a hardy and independent peasantry and a
fierce and warlike baronage, it could scarcely have been otherwise.
English kings found themselves obliged, for their own preservation, to
put themselves at the head of such movements, and those of them who were
unable or unwilling to do so were continually menaced by the turbulent
elements to which they refused an outlet.
This system of violent expansion, successful in the cases of Ireland and
Wales, and not seriously pursued in that of Scotland, proved to be its
own destruction when applied to France. Although a military conquest
might endure for a time, it was impossible that England could
permanently absorb a nation larger than itself, of different blood,
language, and manners of thought, in the same way that Wales had been
absorbed. When Henry V commenced his wonderful career of conquest the
sentiment of nationality was already too well established; and the long
struggle, which ended forty years later in the expulsion of the English
from France, consolidated that sentiment, and rendered the renewal of
such an attempt for ever impossible of success. But just as France had
developed from a mere geographical area into a nation in the modern
sense of the word, so also had England, although much remained to be
done before her development could proceed on truly national lines. The
Wars of the Roses, protracted, with intervals of peace, for thirty
years, cleared away much of the remaining débris of feudalism; and at
their close Henry VII came forward as the first king of modern England.
The old ideals, the old national instincts, and the old social order had
gone, or were in process of dissolution; and the work of his reign
consisted in forming new ones and giving direction to that universal
awakening of the human mind which now first began to make its influence
felt in the practical affairs of the English nation.
As with all changes of deep-rooted and far-reaching importance, its
results were slow to manifest themselves, and were scarcely apparent to
many of the greatest minds of the time, bred up to the old order, yet
nevertheless working unconsciously in the furtherance of the new. The
king himself, who did more than any other man to usher in the new era,
and whose policy has been followed, with intervals of retrogression,
almost to our own time, may well have been unaware how greatly he
differed from his forerunners, and there is nothing in his recorded
utterances to show that he realized the significance of the change that
was taking place. In fact, as compared with many of the more flamboyant
statesmen who followed him, he must have appeared slow and conservative,
a survival of mediaevalism rather than a man of the Renaissance. Like
the evolution of the natural world, that of imperial Britain has been
largely unconscious, and measures which owed their origin to expediency
and the needs of the moment have frequently hardened into enduring
elements of the national system. Let us then examine, from this point of
view, one aspect of the reign of the first Tudor—his commercial policy;
bearing in mind that, although he himself was concerned only with the
immediate welfare of his family and country, his work was of such a
character as to serve as the foundation for an edifice upon which the
passage of four Centuries has not yet placed the topmost stone.
European commerce, down to the age of the great geographical
discoveries, hinged upon two great trade routes and two great producing
areas, the one of manufactured, and the other of raw, material. To these
four dominant factors all subsidiary avenues and crafts owed their
origin and continued existence. The two primary trade routes were:
first, that connecting, by way of the Levant and the nearer East, the
Italian cities with the vaguely known and fabulously portrayed wealth of
southern Asia; and second, that by which the hardy merchants of the
Hanseatic League conveyed the produce of the Baltic shores, of
Scandinavia, of the wide plains of Muscovy, and through them the
far-fetched wares of Persia and Cathay, to western Europe, which region,
stimulated by amenities whence the indolent mind of Asia drew no profit,
inevitably became the centre of the world’s progress. Nothing for
nothing being a universal law, Europe had to find something of her own
to exchange for the furs of the North and the spices of the East. The
cities of the Rhine delta supplied, in great part, the indispensable
_quid pro quo_, by devoting themselves to a variety of manufactures
amongst which that of cloth assumed a position of paramount importance.
Here, then, arose the first producing area necessary to the balance of
the mediaeval trading system; England constituted the second and equally
indispensable one, for she alone, secured by the sea from the worst
scourges of war, could supply the raw material for the cloth industry.
The generous wool-sacks of England became her title of entry into the
ranks of the progressing nations of the world.
Already, before the dawn of the new era, England had begun to
manufacture a portion of her wool into rough, inferior qualities of
cloth, but, until the awakening under the Tudor dynasty, she cannot be
said to have realized the possibilities of her position. The Hanse
merchants and the Italians were in possession of the bulk of her foreign
commerce, and only a few subsidiary trades were in the hands of
Englishmen, whose education and ability in such matters were inferior to
those of the foreigners.
[Illustration:
TRADE ROUTES
from and to
ENGLAND
at the commencement
of the
Tudor Period.
]
A more detailed consideration of the lines of communication with which
England was immediately concerned reveals four main commercial avenues,
all forming part of the great general system already described: the
trade with Germany and the Baltic, chiefly controlled by the great
Hansa, whose tentacles spread from Riga to the Rhine; the export of
half-made cloth to Flanders, shared between the Hansa, the Flemings, and
the English Merchant Adventurers; the wool export, to Calais by the
English Staple Merchants, and overland to Italy by the Venetians and
Florentines, who maintained business houses for that purpose in London;
and the long sea route for wools, wines, and spices, to and from the
Mediterranean, again monopolized almost exclusively by the Italians. In
addition there were minor, but nevertheless much frequented, trades to
Spain for wines and oils, to Gascony for wines, and to Iceland for
stock-fish. The two last mentioned were more exclusively in the hands of
Englishmen than any of the others.
These mediaeval trade routes, although destined to be profoundly
modified by the great extension of the limits of the world as known to
Europeans, remained of paramount importance for more than a century to
come, and Henry VII set himself to the policy of ousting foreigners from
their control, and of fostering, by every means known to his
statesmanship, the mercantile enterprise of his own people.
One of the shrewdest business men who ever sat upon a throne, he had
no doubt studied and admired the commercial system of Venice. That
state, which existed solely by means of and for the purpose of
trade, maintained her ascendancy by a fiscal policy which combined
rigorous protection with a species of socialism undefiled by any
morbidly altruistic ideas. All the familiar weapons of modern
protection—preferential duties on goods from Venetian dependencies,
navigation laws to encourage Venetian shipping, retaliatory tariffs
against rivals, and reciprocal arrangements with such as were
disposed to be reasonable—were to be found in the armoury of Venice,
and were applied with an unquestioning assurance as to their
efficacy, only possible in an age when the doctrines of free trade
were yet unborn.
In addition there was in Venice an absolutely complete subordination of
the individual to the interests of the State. If the export or import of
a certain article was considered prejudicial to the welfare of the city,
that trade was stopped forthwith; if the clothworkers of Venice were
short of raw material, shipmasters coming from England were ordered to
load with wool and nothing else; if the State galleys for the Flanders
voyage had difficulty in completing their cargoes, those who preferred
to ship their goods in private vessels were forced to pay half or
quarter freights to the official ships as well; since it was desirable
that Venice should possess a large commercial navy, the overland
conveyance of certain wares was forbidden or subjected to paralysing
duties. Such are a few examples of the working of an undemocratic
republic, of a type which may never be seen again, but which was
eminently suited to the needs of its time. And the secrets of the
success of this unparalleled interference by the State with individual
rights? They were two: first, magnificent discipline, ready obedience
enforced by severe penalties; and second, an elasticity of method, an
instant variation of policy to meet varying conditions, which could only
have been carried out by an assembly of level-headed, patriotic
merchant-statesmen, such as filled the benches of the Venetian senate.
Henry VII, then, had before him a pattern of successful mercantile
policy, but he was under no illusions as to his powers of enforcing such
a discipline on England. Although he far exceeded him in subtlety of
mind, he lacked the ferocious mastery of men which his son was
afterwards to display. He had to make up his mind to work slowly and
cautiously, to be content to sow that others might reap, to lay sure
foundations for the greatness of his family and of the country with
which its interests were bound up.
Generally speaking, the policy of the Middle Ages had been, in the
interests of cheapness, to encourage foreign merchants of all kinds to
bring their goods to England, and to establish factories in her ports;
in many cases, even, aliens had been granted privileges exceeding those
of native traders, and consequently the trade of England was largely in
foreign hands. Henry soon gave signs that this policy of cheapness was
to be abandoned. His first Parliament passed an Act[2] prohibiting the
import of Bordeaux wines in other than English vessels, manned by
English crews. To avoid friction, the too sudden application of this law
was mitigated by the frequent granting to foreign merchants of licences
to break it. But these were exceptions; the rule remained, and the
grants of licences gradually diminished.
While determined to advance the general interests of his subjects, he
was always ready to conclude commercial treaties conferring a mutual
exchange of benefits; and he sought, wherever possible, to draw
mercantile advantages from his handling of purely political matters. The
commercial relations of England and the Netherlands form an illustration
in point. In 1493 there was a serious quarrel on account of the support
given to Perkin Warbeck by Margaret, the widowed Duchess of Burgundy and
sister of Richard III. Henry’s retaliation to her vindictive
encouragement of his enemies consisted in ordering the cessation of all
intercourse, and the removal of the Continental head-quarters of the
Merchant Adventurers from Antwerp to Calais. Uninterrupted trade with
England was essential to the prosperity of the Netherlands, where a
large proportion of the craftsmen were employed in dyeing and finishing
the rough English cloth. There was on both sides great distress in
commercial circles, and unemployment due to the loss of trade; but the
inconvenience thus caused, while considerable in England, was
intolerable in the Netherlands, and the result was the negotiation of
the famous _Magnus Intercursus_ of 1496, followed by supplementary
treaties in 1497 and 1499.[3] By these treaties tariffs were reduced,
fishing rights regulated, and many vexatious restrictions abolished; in
addition, Henry secured the political object for which he had undertaken
the struggle. When the English cloth merchants returned to Antwerp they
were received with public demonstrations of joy.
The English king, although willing to make concessions when such were
inevitable, showed himself remorseless in seizing an accidental
advantage. In January 1506 the Archduke Philip, who had succeeded to the
throne of Castile on the death of Queen Isabella in 1504, set out from
Flanders to Spain by sea. In the Channel he encountered a furious storm,
and, after all on board had given themselves up for lost, his fleet
reached the shelter of Weymouth. Contrary to the advice of his captains,
he went on shore. The country people, seeing the arrival of strange
ships and armed men, gathered to resist an enemy, but, finding him to be
a friend, they made him welcome. Sir Thomas Trenchard, a most astute
gentleman of the neighbourhood, offered him entertainment, and sent off
post haste to acquaint King Henry of the prize which fortune had cast on
his shore. Philip now realized his rashness and would have been glad to
depart, but was earnestly entreated by Trenchard and his friends to stay
and speak with the king. Fearing that if he insisted their courtesy
would give place to force, he put a good face on the matter and
professed himself delighted to remain. Henry sent the Earl of Arundel,
with many lords and knights, to bring him to Windsor with his wife
Juana.
He was paraded through London and, as the price of his liberty, had to
agree to a commercial treaty which settled outstanding questions in such
a one-sided way, and admitted English cloth at such a cheap rate to the
Netherlands, that the defrauded Flemings named it the _Malus
Intercursus_.[4] In those times shipwrecked voyagers received scant
compassion, and Henry was only taking the same advantage on a large
scale as his unscrupulous subjects took on a smaller one when they stole
the cargoes from stranded ships. Philip died without ratifying the
treaty of 1506, the details of which were not completed until after he
left the country, and relations became unsatisfactory in consequence.
Margaret proposed to resume trade on the terms of the _Magnus
Intercursus_, but Henry was unwilling to forgo his hard bargain.
Finally, a compromise between the treaties of 1496 and 1506 was agreed
upon, the customs payable by Englishmen in the Netherlands remaining on
the basis of the latter. The question of the legal validity of the
_Malus Intercursus_ remained unsettled, the matter being postponed from
time to time by the issue of provisional ordinances for its maintenance.
As late as 1538 the Netherlanders were still demanding its
abrogation.[5]
An important trade existed between England and Spain and, at the
beginning of Henry’s reign, it was largely in the hands of Spanish
merchants, a number of whom resided in London. The customs duties had
long been in an unsettled state, and were the subject of an arrangement
included in the Treaty of Medina del Campo, 1489.[6] It was provided
that the subjects of either country might travel, reside, and carry on
business in the other without a passport, and should be treated in every
way as native citizens. Customs duties were to be reduced and all
letters of marque (i. e. private reprisal for injuries) revoked. There
were also other clauses intended for the suppression of piracy, a
subject which will be referred to later.
That such treaties were often broken is proved by their frequent
renewal; and indeed, the signing of a treaty was more often the signal
for a commencement of wranglings as to its interpretation, than a token
of settlement. In the case in point it had been agreed that customs were
to be reduced to what they had been thirty years before. The intention
was plain, but Henry discovered that the English duties had been
_higher_ at the date mentioned than at the time of the treaty, and he
promptly increased them, although the Spaniards protested that they had
lowered theirs. The dispute on this point dragged on for many years, and
references to it occur at intervals in diplomatic correspondence until
the marriage of the Prince of Wales and Katherine of Aragon. A curious
fiscal argument occurs in a letter from Henry to the Spanish sovereigns
in 1497.[7] He says that the effect of the high duties is that Spaniards
sell their goods at a high price in England, and so are enabled to
obtain more English cloth with the proceeds than they could otherwise
do. Thus the duties are paid by the English, not the Spaniards. An
excellent sermon—for other people—on the disadvantages of protection!
Although anxious to foster English trade and enterprise to the utmost,
Henry could not afford to neglect his dynastic interests, and the latter
were of paramount importance in his dealings with Spain. His title was
weak and his enemies strong, and, during the first part of his reign, it
seemed quite likely that he would perish in a feudal revolution as four
of his predecessors had done in the space of a century. To remedy the
instability of his throne he was sometimes obliged to make use of
commerce as a weapon or a bribe, as opportunity offered. An instance of
the first was seen in his dealings with the Netherlands; the
negotiations for the Spanish marriage were an example of the second. The
proposals and hagglings with reference to this marriage dragged on for
years. Henry was eager for it. He was, in a sense, a parvenu among the
kings of Europe, and he felt that it was a vital matter for him to
establish his family among them. Ferdinand and Isabella, on the other
hand, had great hesitation in allowing their young daughter to be exiled
among the English, whom the Spaniards regarded as being socially and
morally inferior to themselves. In addition to this personal objection
they had another. They wished to procrastinate until Henry should have
disposed of his pretenders and given proofs of the firmness of his
throne. Hence his extreme eagerness to lay Perkin Warbeck by the heels,
which embroiled him with the Netherlands in 1493. The marriage being the
keystone of his policy, he left no means unused to bring it about, and
so we find commercial relations employed by him as a screw with which to
extort the reluctant acquiescence of Spain. In 1496 he declared that he
would come to an understanding on the question of the duties after the
alliance and marriage should have been concluded. In 1497, in the letter
already quoted, he promised that Spanish traders should have
preferential treatment as against the Italians in celebration of the
happy arrival of the princess in England, an event which was still to be
delayed, as it proved, for more than four years to come. One more
instance of the intimate connexion of politics and trade may be given.
In 1504 the Spanish Government prohibited the export of goods from Spain
in foreign vessels so long as there were any Spanish ships unemployed,
but in consideration of the position of the now widowed Katherine in
England and of their desire to recover her or her dowry, the English
were exempted from the application of this law.[8]
With Venice Henry VII was never on bad terms, although for several years
a brisk tariff war was waged between the two powers. It arose from the
action of Venice in imposing an additional export duty of four ducats
per butt on malmsey wines loaded by aliens at Candia. This was done
under pretext of discouraging the pirates of that region, but in reality
for the purpose of favouring Venetian shipping. Henry retaliated by
making Venetians pay 18_s._ per butt extra duty on importing these wines
into England, and by fixing a maximum selling price of £4 per butt. A
butt of malmsey contained 126 gallons, and a gallon of the wine thus
cost about 7½_d._ in England. The differential duty and the maximum
selling price threatened to squeeze the Venetians out of the market, but
the king went further. He entered into negotiations with the Florentine
Government with a view to the establishment of an English wool-staple at
Pisa.[9] This would have constituted the latter city the distributing
centre for English wool in the Mediterranean, and Venice would have been
deprived at a blow of an important branch of her trade. The proposal
seriously alarmed the Venetians, and they threatened to discontinue the
dispatch of the annual trading fleet to England. It would have been
manifestly impossible for them to bring cargoes of spice to England if
they were debarred from loading wool in return, especially as the export
of specie from England was prohibited. The Pisa project was probably not
seriously intended and was not persisted in, although the appointment in
1494 of two English consuls in that city, with full authority over
English merchants, indicates that considerable business was done
there.[10] In the end, after lengthy but quite dispassionate
negotiations, such as befitted business-like powers, Henry carried his
point and the wine duties were reduced.[11]
The prohibition of the export of money, and also of gold and silver
plate, from the realm was typical of the economic ideas of the time.
Gold was looked upon as wealth in itself rather than as a means of
exchange, and this notion was strengthened as time went on by the
enormous apparent advantages which Spain derived from her American
conquests. It was an error which led Spain to ruin, and would have been
equally fatal to England if she had had the same opportunity to go
astray. Fortunately, Englishmen found themselves excluded from the
gold-bearing regions, and were driven to trade and eventually to
colonization instead.
To be successful as a merchant under the conditions which obtained in
the days when individual effort was beginning to displace the rigid
guild-system of the Middle Ages, a man had need of alert wits, a stout
heart, and capital sufficient to enable him to withstand the violent
fluctuations of fortune. Even in times of peace the risks were great,
although undoubtedly the profits of the successful were proportionate.
Shipwrecks were necessarily frequent on unlighted and practically
uncharted coasts; the trade routes were infested with pirates and
privateers; and commercial treaties were broken almost as soon as made.
The cautious trader, before venturing his goods into a foreign country,
was careful to procure a licence or safe-conduct from the Government,
and even this did not always protect him. If he could obtain the
patronage of a powerful person, he might contrive to avoid the payment
of customs dues. In 1492, when Henry VII imposed the prohibitive duties
on Candia wines, the Venetian merchants in London were advised to
distribute forty or fifty butts of the wine, or their cash equivalent,
as bribes in getting the matter set right. Even State-owned vessels were
not secure from molestation, when sufficiently far from home. In the
same year, 1492, we read that Henry, being at war with France, detained
the Flanders galleys of Venice to act as transports for his troops.[12]
A powerful Government might secure compensation for such an infringement
of its neutrality, but private merchants would have stood little chance
of doing so. Conditions such as these caused success to depend entirely
on individual qualities; and when once they took to the sea Englishmen
were not slow to develop that character for resource and audacity which
stood them in such good stead in the long war with Spain at the end of
the sixteenth century.
An incident which occurred in 1505 shows how little reliance could be
placed upon treaties by the persons whom they were designed to benefit.
On the strength of an undertaking by the Spaniards, already mentioned,
that notwithstanding the navigation law the English might freely export
goods from Spain, a fleet of English merchantmen went to Seville, with
cargoes of cloth, intending to come back with wine and oil. On arriving
there, they were forbidden by the local authorities to export anything,
and returned professing themselves ruined. Their spokesmen petitioned
the king, ‘with much clamour’, for redress. Henry sent for de Puebla,
the Spanish ambassador, whom he suspected of duplicity in the matter,
and subjected him to a storm of furious abuse. De Puebla must have
passed a bad quarter of an hour, but, as he remarked, he did not so much
mind as there was no witness to the interview. He explained that the
treaty, by a mistake, had not been proclaimed in Andalusia. He wrote at
once to King Ferdinand and asked him that right might be done. A few
days later he reported that some members of the Privy Council had
visited him on the same matter and that he had had a most unpleasant
interview with them. He again begged Ferdinand to give satisfaction, as
the English sailors were such savages that he went in fear of being
stoned by them if reparation were not made.[13]
Piracy, as has already been noticed, was of common occurrence, and was a
great hindrance to sea-borne trade. Surprising as it may seem, it was
cheaper to send goods from London to Venice by the overland route, up
the Rhine and across the Alps, than it was to send them by sea. This was
partly owing to the huge expenses incurred for defence against pirates.
One Venetian captain, reporting his safe arrival in London, mentioned
that, fearing to be attacked, he had shipped a hundred extra hands and
twenty-two gunners, and that by their aid he had beaten off the attack
of a Norman pirate. Perhaps the greatest piratical coup of the time was
the capture on August 21, 1485, of the entire fleet of Flanders galleys.
They were assailed off Lisbon by a force of French ships, commanded by
an officer in the service of the French king. After a desperate fight,
lasting twenty hours, in which over four hundred Venetians were killed
and wounded, four large galleys surrendered.[14] An enormous booty was
taken from them, and no one seems to have been punished for the affair.
In fact, the deed was justified on the ground that Venice was under a
papal interdict and therefore outside the law. Pirates were particularly
active in the Channel and, besides roving the high seas, were sometimes
bold enough to enter English harbours in search of prey. In 1495 some
Frenchmen sailed up Southampton Water and raided the Venetian galleys
which were at anchor off the town. They seized, among others, the
commander of the fleet and the Venetian consul in England, and held them
to ransom, exacting 550 ducats for each.
Piracy was the more difficult to suppress because there was often a very
slight distinction between merchant and pirate. Unscrupulous persons
frequently combined the two callings as opportunity offered. To check
the abuse, a clause was inserted in some of the commercial treaties, to
the effect that the owners of vessels, before leaving a foreign port,
were to deposit a sum of money as a guarantee of good behaviour,
sometimes twice the value of the ship and cargo. Another remedy for the
victims of piracy was but an aggravation of the disease. It consisted in
the granting of letters of marque or reprisal to the injured parties,
thus allowing them to take the law into their own hands. Naturally, the
scope allowed them by these letters was very liberally interpreted by
the holders, who seem even to have regarded them as negotiable property.
An extreme instance was the seizure on the Rhine of certain Milanese
merchants, bound for England with their goods, at the instigation of the
Emperor Frederick III. This was done on the ground that letters of
reprisal against Milan had been granted by a former king of England to a
certain merchant, then deceased. His heirs had apparently transferred
their rights to the German sovereign.
The extent to which navigation was dependent on the weather is difficult
to realize in these days. Communication between England and Spain was
almost at a stand-still in the winter. A letter of 1496 mentions that
during the first three months of that year the seas had been so rough
that few vessels had been able to leave Spanish ports. One courier had
been detained two months and another three without any chance of
leaving. The diplomatic correspondence between England and Spain, which
was dispatched almost exclusively by the sea route, was always much
diminished in volume during the winter months, and letters sometimes
took many weeks to reach their destination. When Queen Isabella of
Castile died and the Archduke Philip, her successor, proposed to travel
by sea from Flanders to Spain, he was advised that the voyage could only
be made in safety between May and the middle of August. He chose to
undertake it in the winter, with the consequence already described. In
two months of the year 1498 fifty ships are said to have been wrecked on
the coasts of Portugal and Spain.[15]
When the perils of the sea were so great, the trades of pilot and
chart-maker, often combined by the same individual, were of great
importance. In the absence of official charts of coasts and harbours,
the man with local knowledge, who could safely guide a ship to port, was
much sought after by merchants, and a pilot of good repute could
naturally command good prices for his ‘sea cards’. In regulating these
matters Spain was in advance of England. When voyages became longer and
more frequent, owing to the extension of American discoveries, a proper
system of examining and licensing pilots was established. An office for
the purpose was instituted at Seville, and in 1519 Sebastian Cabot, who
had by that time left the service of England, was put in charge of it
with the title of Pilot-Major. All charts and reports of new discoveries
were sent in to this office, and the information contained in them was
embodied in a standard map, which was thus kept up to date. The Guild of
the Holy Trinity, originating early in the reign of Henry VIII,
represented an attempt to organize the craft of pilotage on similar
lines in England, but it was long before English pilots attained to the
standard of the Spaniards in theoretical knowledge.
-----
Footnote 1:
_Englische Handelspolitik gegen Ende des Mittelalters._
Footnote 2:
Extended and made permanent in 1489.
Footnote 3:
_Foedera_, xii, pp. 578–91, 654, 713–20; _Cotton MSS._, Galba C ii.
249: ‘A Brief of so much of the Intercourse of 1499 as concerns
Merchant Adventurers, with their opinions touching the same.’
Footnote 4:
Hall’s _Chronicle_, 1809 ed., p. 500.
Footnote 5:
_Spanish Cal._ vi, part i, pp. 59–60.
Footnote 6:
_Spanish Cal._ i, p. 21.
Footnote 7:
Ibid. i, p. 144.
Footnote 8:
_Spanish Cal._ i, p. 337.
Footnote 9:
_Venetian Cal._ i, pp. 185, 186, 188.
Footnote 10:
_Foedera_, xii, p. 553.
Footnote 11:
_Venetian Cal._ i, _passim_.
Footnote 12:
_Venetian Cal._ i, p. 213.
Footnote 13:
_Spanish Cal._ i, pp. 366, 367, 374.
Footnote 14:
_Venetian Cal._ i, Preface, lxviii.
Footnote 15:
_Venetian Cal._ i, p. 278.