THE GROWTH OF COMMERCE
The death of Henry VII and the accession, in April 1509, of his son,
then in his eighteenth year, inevitably caused great changes in nearly
all departments of the state. The new king was a typical child of the
Renaissance in its most exuberant aspect. Young and enthusiastic, he
bubbled with energy both of body and mind, and was at once the champion
of the tiltyard and an earnest worshipper at the shrine of the new
learning. He was surrounded by nobles whose natures were as fiery as his
own and who were impatient of the restraints of a sober and prosaic
régime. Thus circumstanced, like a generous rider bestriding a mettled
steed, it was natural that he should seize the first opportunity of
playing a part in the shifting and treacherous politics of Europe, from
which his father had ever remained watchfully aloof.
The old dream of Continental conquest, which seemed to have been finally
abandoned by Henry VII, was again revived; and the country was soon
resounding with the noise and rumour of warlike preparations. England,
Spain, the Emperor, and the Pope united in an alliance to which the
sanctity of the spiritual partner gave the name of the Holy League.
Henry was eager to do his share. In 1512 he dispatched the Marquis of
Dorset to the Biscayan coast of Spain with an English force which was to
join hands with the Spaniards and, advancing east and north, to achieve
the reconquest of Guienne. The outcome was disastrous. Deserted by its
Spanish allies, the English army fell a prey to its own indiscipline and
lack of experience, and returned without having had one serious
encounter with the enemy. Next year Henry himself took the field,
invaded the north of France, routed the French at the Battle of the
Spurs, and received the surrender of Tournay and Terouenne. But in the
meantime the other members of the Holy League had achieved their own
objects by expelling the French from Italy. Having done so, they
unhesitatingly made peace, leaving Henry in the rôle of confiding dupe
to pursue unaided his conquest of France—a task for which his resources
were manifestly inadequate. It was his first practical experience of the
faithless diplomacy of the time, and the romantic strain noticeable in
his earlier character received a permanent check when he realized how he
had been used as a tool by such a veteran pair of schemers as Ferdinand
of Aragon and Maximilian the Emperor.
Accordingly, peace was made with France in 1514, and for seven years
Europe enjoyed an uneasy tranquillity which was but the prelude to
fiercer storms. During the war Thomas Wolsey had climbed to a position
of supreme authority under the king, which he was able to retain for
close on fifteen years. Until 1528 the policy of Wolsey was the policy
of England. In the main he was mediaeval in his outlook, as befitted the
last English representative of a type which was so essentially a product
of the Middle Ages, the statesman-ecclesiastic. Although advanced in his
appreciation of the balance of power, his ideas were centred rather on
royal marriages and intrigues at Rome than on colonies and maritime
expansion. His outlook was that of a man oblivious of the marvellous
opening-up of the world which was going on around him and of the part
which his country might play therein. Until quite the end of his
ascendancy there is no authenticated voyage of discovery or attempt to
penetrate new markets with the produce of industry. In the long run this
was not disadvantageous. An enduring empire was only to be built upon a
basis of consolidated experience and battleworthiness which England had
yet to acquire, and which the reign of Henry VIII was in large part to
supply. In spite of initial mistakes, Wolsey and his master steadily
increased the prestige of the nation. They trained up a new generation
of diplomatists, able to fathom and cope with the designs of the
continental masters of the craft; they increased the navy and encouraged
the practice of warlike exercises by the people; they strengthened the
executive until treason counted the cost before it showed its head, and
legitimate adventures became the only outlet permissible to turbulent
spirits.
Meanwhile commerce, no longer the prime object of governmental care, was
allowed to pursue its course practically without the assistance or
hindrance of diplomacy, along the lines which Henry VII had laid down.
The North Sea, the Bay of Biscay, and the Mediterranean afforded for the
time an ample field for the training of Englishmen in the arts of trade
and seamanship. They saw the world, and rubbed shoulders with the
nations of Europe; acquiring in the process a pride in themselves and a
talent for dealing with their fellow men, which have been incalculable
but nevertheless important factors in their subsequent development. The
sixteenth century is the first of the great tradition-building periods
of English history. The tradition which it produced, and which
flourishes in a tarnished form to the present day, was that Englishmen
were unsurpassed as fighters, explorers, traders, and money-getters by
every means, fair or foul, upon the sea. And this tradition rests, not
only upon the deeds of the great names which History records in her most
lurid passages, but also upon the accumulated exploits of the infinite
number of small men, but for whom the Drakes and the Hawkinses, the
masters of the sea, would never have been. Hence the activities of the
numerous undistinguished units producing such notable results would,
taken in the mass, appear worthy of study. During the years immediately
under consideration, the commercial side of the story predominates over
the exploring and fighting side.
For thirty years the policy of protection—the efficacy of which no sane
person dreamed of doubting—was maintained. In the first Parliament of
the reign a subsidy Act was passed, granting tonnage, poundage, and wool
duties for the king’s life. The provisions were practically identical
with those of the corresponding Act under Henry VII. The customs, as
distinguished from the subsidy, were continued unchanged. Henry VII’s
fiscal system thus passed on intact to his successor. It is significant
that the usual clause was again inserted providing for the maintenance
of the privileges of the Hansa. There was as yet no thought of the
abolition of the greatest obstacle to England’s commercial advancement.
No modification of the imposts occurred until 1539, although laws were
made at various times for the regulation of trade. The Government of
Henry VIII, if at times unjust, was seldom corrupt, and generally sought
to strike a fair balance between the interests of the manufacturer, the
consumer, and the trader. Hence we find Acts for such purposes as
forbidding the import of foreign-made hats and caps and fixing the
prices of the home-produced article, for forbidding the export of
foodstuffs, and for ensuring that the more expensive kinds of cloth
should not be exported unless fully manufactured. The practice of
granting bounties for the construction of new shipping was continued. In
1509 a licence was granted to a merchant to carry a cargo to Bordeaux
and bring another home, duty free, in consideration of his having built
a vessel of 120 tons, and for the encouragement of others to do
likewise. Highly detailed legislation, of which the above are examples,
although crude and irritating to modern ideas, shows at least that the
Government was taking an interest in the welfare of the classes of its
subjects who were affected. No doubt the initiative came usually from
the Commons, and the countenance given to it by the king made them more
disposed to support him in other matters.
Broadly speaking, English commerce was in the happy condition of having
no history until some years had elapsed after the fall of Wolsey. In the
year 1534 an innovation of the utmost importance to its constitutional
status was appended to an Act relating to the import of French
wines.[86] It consisted of a clause stating that the Act in question,
together with others relating to export and import, might be contrary to
certain treaties; and that the king might therefore repeal such Acts by
proclamation, and revive them from time to time as he thought fit. This
conferred upon the Crown a power which, if wisely used, might be of
great advantage to England’s interests, but which was also capable of
abuse by a government actuated by corrupt motives. In any case such
facility for suddenly changing the conditions of trade was undesirable,
as tending to increase the insecurity which was the bane of the time.
The constitutional import of the Act was far-reaching: it implied that a
treaty was of superior validity to an Act of Parliament, and
consequently gave to the executive, which makes treaties, a power of
legislation which it had never possessed since Magna Charta. This Act is
not to be confused with the better-known one of 1539 which gave to all
the king’s proclamations the force of law, and which was repealed by the
first Parliament of Edward VI.
The first experiment on a large scale in the use of the power thus
acquired was not altogether happy in its results. At the opening of the
year 1539 the country was in an extremely critical position. Revolution
within and invasion from without were threatening to overturn the Tudor
throne. Large sections of the community were enraged at the dissolution
of the monasteries, and still more at the desecration of venerated
objects like the shrine of St. Thomas at Canterbury, or the numerous
wonder-working roods and madonnas which had pandered to the emotions of
the superstitious. Open rebellion, it is true, had met with a terrible
retribution at the hands of Thomas Cromwell, who now filled Wolsey’s
place; but it had been crushed by fraud rather than force, and was ready
to burst into fresh flame at the hint of foreign assistance. And seldom
had the time seemed more auspicious for the conquest of our island by a
foreign coalition. In June 1558 Charles V and Francis I had made a peace
having every aspect of solidity; and six months later they entered into
an agreement which was tantamount to a joint rupture of diplomatic
relations with England. Scotland would be certain to join such a
promising enterprise, while treason at home was to be stirred up by
Cardinal Pole, who, armed with the thunders of a papal bull, was moving
heaven and earth to procure the ruin of the sacrilegious king and to
avenge the slaughter of his own friends and relatives, a large batch of
whom had been executed at the end of 1538.
Henry saw that some sacrifice must be made to avert the storm. Besides
fortifying the coasts, drilling troops, and terrifying the seditious by
an exhibition of the utmost savagery of the law, he determined on a
concession which should render peace with England more profitable than
an attempt to crush her. On February 26, 1539, proclamation was made
that, for the space of seven years from April following, foreign
merchants were free to trade with England on payment of such customs and
subsidy only as were paid by the king’s own subjects.[87] The only
branch of trade excepted from the concession was the export of wool, on
which the old duties were maintained. Here was free trade at a single
stroke, or what practically amounted to it, since the duties paid by
natives were very low. Heavy as the sacrifice was, it was justified by
the occasion and by the result. Before the lapse of many weeks the
international tension was relieved, and the country was able to breathe
freely once more. The principal effect of the move was to buy off the
hostility of Charles V, whose Flemish subjects were the chief gainers by
it. It must be remembered that the change applied to exports as well as
imports. The result was that the Flemish cloth dealers were enabled to
ship their supplies from England on the same terms as the Merchant
Adventurers, whose mart at Antwerp was thus in danger of being
superseded by a similar centre for Flemish buyers in London. In addition
to conciliating the emperor, it is also probable that the new policy
caused some alleviation of the internal situation in England. The lower
total sum paid in duties and the increased freedom of competition among
importers must have caused a fall in the prices of foreign products. But
the effect produced in this direction may easily be exaggerated, since
England was then, in the matter of necessaries, practically
self-supporting.
It soon became evident that the inauguration of a free-trade policy was
intended as a merely temporary expedient to tide over a difficult
situation.[88] The prosperity of England’s rising commerce was
threatened, and with it the fulfilment of her destiny among the nations.
Protection was essential to her merchants if they were to elbow their
way to a foremost place amid the jostling crowd of Flemings,
Easterlings, Bretons, Spaniards, and Italians who thronged the marts of
Europe. The serious effects of the change were immediately evident in
the falling-off of the number of ships engaged in the cloth export.
Flemish buyers in London used Flemish bottoms in preference to English.
Yet a healthy mercantile marine was vitally necessary to national
security at a period when the regular navy had to be largely
supplemented by merchant vessels in time of war. Accordingly, it was not
long before Henry looked round for a convenient pretext for the evasion
of his pledge. He was now no longer the chivalrous youth of the Holy
League. Hard experience had taught him many a lesson in the game of
statecraft as played by the rulers of the Renaissance, and he counted it
folly to sacrifice his country’s commerce when the need for sacrifice
had passed. In fact, to one who reads the history of the sixteenth
century, it seems matter for surprise that the great powers should ever
have been at pains to make commercial treaties or pledges, their
infringement being of almost daily occurrence.
The virtual revocation of the free trade edict of 1539 was effected in
the summer of 1540. In the Parliament which sat from April to July of
that year—Thomas Cromwell’s last Parliament—an Act[89] was passed which
had a more important bearing on English shipping than any since the
Navigation Acts of Henry VII. Those Acts were cited and re-enacted. In
addition, it was provided that, in view of ‘the no little detriment and
decay that hath and is likely to ensue to the navy’ by reason of the
late concession, all foreigners who might wish to avail themselves of
its advantages must in future ship their goods in English bottoms. This
astute move placed the commercial rivals of England on the horns of a
dilemma; for, if they persisted in trading on equal terms with the
Merchant Adventurers, the measure of their success would be also the
measure of the growth of a new carrying trade which would be of enormous
advantage to our naval resources. The English merchants would also
receive some compensation for the loss of their privileged position,
since they were themselves the owners of most of the ships which carried
their wares, and would thus participate in the new monopoly. The day of
the shipowner as a distinct class, with interests opposed to those of
the manufacturer, had not yet arrived.
Lest extortionate profits should be exacted by owners of shipping, the
Act further proceeded to fix maximum rates of freight from London to the
principal ports of Europe, varying for different commodities. From the
details given it is evident that, apart from the Staplers’ trade of
wool, woolfells and hides, the only article of export of any importance
was cloth. Cloth, in a partly or completely manufactured state, was sent
to Flanders for distribution throughout western Germany, to Denmark,
France, the Peninsula, and the Mediterranean.[90] The control of the
cloth export to eastern Germany and the Baltic was vigorously contested
between the English and the Easterlings. In spite of oft-renewed efforts
of the former, their position at Danzig and the neighbouring ports was
very precarious, and the Hansa held the bulk of the trade. The imports
were more varied: from Flanders came velvet, chamlet, fustian, Cologne
hemp or thread, madder, nails, hardware, hops, together with
Mediterranean or ocean-borne produce such as sugar, almonds, currants,
prunes, dates, and pepper; Denmark sent wheat and rye, flax, canvas,
pitch and tar, ‘compters,’ ‘osmonds’,[91] bowstaves, iron, wax,
feathers, and fish; wines and woad (used in dyeing cloth) were obtained
from Bordeaux; wines, raisins, figs, oil, and salted meats, from Spain;
and sweet wines, spices, carpets, rare textiles, gems, and other eastern
goods, from the Mediterranean. When it is remembered that any large
transference of cash was forbidden by the laws of almost all nations, it
will be realized that the output of cloth and wool must have been
enormous to balance such a long list of costly imports. To return to the
Navigation Act, one more provision of which is of interest: it was laid
down that shipowners were to post a notice in Lombard Street giving, for
the information of shippers, the dates of sailing and ports of
destination of their vessels.
Loud-voiced indignation abroad was the immediate consequence of the
passage of this great measure. The Flemings were the hardest hit, more
especially as the Easterlings, rivals of theirs as well as of the
English, were exempt from its operation, being enjoined to use English
ships only when none of their own were available. Chapuys, the imperial
ambassador, wrote bitterly: ‘Two years ago, when in fear of war and
stoppage of trade, the King issued an edict placing foreign merchants on
the same terms as English for customs, etc. Now, seeing no more danger
of war, and wishing to increase his own shipping, he has issued an
ordinance forbidding merchants to ship goods in other than English
bottoms. It concerns most the people of Antwerp.’[92]
A prolonged diplomatic conflict was inevitable, for Henry was not
disposed to withdraw from his position unless circumstances should
compel him to do so. The threatened internal conflagration had been
smothered; also, the good relations between Charles V and Francis I
showed signs of giving place once more to the usual state of hostility
habitual to those sovereigns. The financial disadvantages of the free
trade policy were illustrated by a document drawn up in September
1540.[93] It showed that the loss to the revenue, consequent on the
reduction of foreigners’ payments, was £15,450 in the space of eighteen
months. Of this total London was responsible for £14,000, it being thus
evident that the great bulk of foreigners’ traffic passed through the
capital.
Reprisals were immediately resorted to by the Imperial Government. In
the Netherlands an edict was promulgated forbidding the lading of
English ships when any others were available. England retorted by
prohibiting the employment of Flemish ships by Englishmen in any
circumstances whatever. Chapuys repeatedly urged his master to revive
the old Spanish laws against the import of ‘untrue’ cloths and the
freighting of foreigners’ ships in Spanish ports, but it would seem that
this was only partially, if at all, carried out. Henry had a yet
stronger card to play, and, early in 1541, he forbade by proclamation
the export of wool and undressed cloth, thus starving the Flemish
craftsmen of raw material, and reviving the evils of the suspension
which preceded the _Magnus Intercursus_ of 1496. The dispute dragged on
until the summer of 1542, when the attitude of France rendered
imperative a political agreement between England and the Empire. Charles
could not face the prospect of a new war with France with England
hostile; on the other hand, the Queen of Hungary, Regent of the
Netherlands, began to talk of reopening the whole question of commercial
relations between England and her subjects, which relations still rested
on the basis of the hated _Malus Intercursus_ of 1506.
Neither side had now anything to gain by being obdurate. Accordingly,
Chapuys and Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, two of the ablest
diplomatists of the time, were employed to settle the commercial
question as a preliminary to a closer union between the two enemies of
France. It was agreed that the objectionable edicts on either side
should be revoked, and that the emperor’s subjects, both in Spain and
the Netherlands, should be exempt from the operation of the Navigation
Act.[94] This was certainly a surrender of the main point at issue by
the English Government; it must be remembered, however, that the
original free trade concession was not perpetual, but would expire
automatically in 1546. When that date arrived, as a matter of fact, it
was not renewed. The Flemings were still inclined to cavil at details of
the settlement, but commercial interests had now to bow to politics, and
ere long Henry and Charles were making war in person on the soil of
France. So unbrilliantly ended the fiscal struggle caused by the first
departure from the commercial policy of Henry VII.
Apart from the above incident, the record of commerce under Henry VIII
shows a steady progress along familiar lines rather than the
introduction of any startling innovations. Many factors contributed to
this result. Owing to rivalry with France, the country, on the whole,
maintained the traditional alliance with the House of Burgundy, of which
the emperor was now the heir and the representative. Since he was also
King of Spain, the maintenance of amity with him forbade any widespread
oceanic enterprises. With the Hansa, too, Henry was unwilling to
quarrel, although the extension of the cloth export was certain to bring
on trouble with them sooner or later. There were good reasons for
deferring the evil day as long as possible: the Hanse community in
London was rich and law-abiding, and could be unconstitutionally taxed
without making effective protest—towards one forced contribution alone
they paid £1,000;[95] also they could supply naval stores, the rigging
for ships, and even ships themselves in time of need. Thus the English
merchants had to be content with a share only of the North Sea trade,
together with an increasing interest in the Peninsula and the
Mediterranean. The mediaeval commercial system had not, in fact, been
developed to the fullest extent of its possibilities. Until that had
been done extensions elsewhere were not worth fighting for.
But expansion, although containing no novel elements, was nevertheless
extremely rapid within the prescribed limits. The increase of culture
and social intercourse with foreign countries raised the standard of
living among the well-to-do, and demanded a full share of the luxuries
rendered accessible by the progress of discovery. The court of Henry
VIII was incomparably more splendid than that of his father, or of any
previous king. Many of his courtiers were newly promoted men without
sufficient inherited wealth to support their position, and greedy to
employ any means of augmenting their incomes. Hence the steady
conversion of agricultural land into sheep farms producing England’s
most valuable raw material. The temporary effect of the change was
famine, unemployment, rise of prices, and discontent; but in the long
run the gain was superior to the loss. Labour, cast adrift from the
fields, employed itself in the cloth industry, and the very increase of
the foreign-bought luxuries of the rich is witness of the growth of the
manufactures which were bartered for them. The true significance of the
time is observable from the standpoint of the present day. A nation of
Boeotians, of ploughmen, country squires, and great feudal magnates,
could never have founded a colonial empire beyond the seas; it failed
permanently to hold a military empire close at hand in France. A nation,
on the other hand, which had transformed some of its ploughmen into
craftsmen and mariners, its squires into merchant venturers, and its
nobles into fighting admirals and projectors of plantations, was fit to
seize and possess the waste places of the earth, and to build a
world-enveloping power on the proceeds of a world-wide commerce. Of this
process the reign of Henry VII was the seed-time; his son’s saw the
first pushing of the young plant above the mediaeval clay.
One aspect of the commercial life of the time is particularly
striking—the ubiquitous tyranny of officialism. Every transaction, from
the greatest down to the most trivial, was the subject of endless
regulation and supervision. The making and selling of cloth, the packing
of wool, the times and seasons for shearing and winding, the date and
place of vending, the qualifications of persons competent to buy and
sell, the sailing of merchant ships, the lading and unlading of the
same, were constantly interfered with by king, Parliament, Privy
Council, and hordes of officials. For the adjustment of such matters
statute was piled upon statute, and ordinance upon ordinance. In the
period 1485–1558 at least a dozen Acts were passed ‘for the true making
of woollen cloth’. When made, it had to be sent to London and sold only
at Blackwell Hall after passing a theoretically searching scrutiny for
quality or ‘trueness’. Nevertheless, the very iteration of the statutes
shows that they failed largely of their effect. Corruption was rampant
in the civil service, and pessimists were always to be found lamenting
the steady deterioration of the produce of English craftsmen. Cloths
above a certain value might only be exported fully wrought, in order
that English dyers, fullers, and shearmen might not suffer unduly from
foreign competition; but changes in the currency and the continuous rise
of all prices rendered laws on this subject obsolete very soon after
they had been passed, and necessitated frequent amendments. In the same
way the sale of wool by the farmers was stringently regulated so that
the Staplers might have an advantage over other Englishmen, and they in
their turn over foreigners. Maximum selling prices were decreed for
wines and other foreign produce: when some Portuguese ships brought
cargoes of sugar to the Thames, a paternal Government sent to Antwerp to
inquire the retail price of the luxury prevailing there, and, on the
strength of this information, fixed it at 7_d._ per pound in London.
Clearing a cargo from an English port was a complicated process. When
the goods were brought down to the wharf they were taken over by the
packer and his underlings, whose duty it was to pack them and enter them
at the custom-house, giving a true inventory of the contents of the
bales. The merchant having paid the duties to the customers, the latter
sent ‘cocketts’ or tallies for the same to the searcher, who searched
the ship to see if they were true. If the searcher detected the presence
on board of any goods not accounted for in the cocketts, the goods in
question were forfeit, the official himself taking half their value and
the State the other half. It was the searcher’s duty also to see that
the victuals provided were sufficient for the voyage. He next mustered
the passengers, being empowered to take 4_d._ per head for all such as
were aliens. Everything being satisfactory, he gave a bill of discharge
to the purser of the ship, and charged a fee for his services—2_s._
4_d._ for a Flemish ship, 3_s._ 4_d._ for a Hamburger, and 5_s._ 4_d._
for a Spaniard or Portuguese.[96] Each kind of merchandise—wools, wines,
cloth, &c.—had its special weighers, packers, gaugers, collectors, and
overseers necessitated by the wide range of duties, embracing
practically every article of outward and inward trade.
The laws relating to the export of wool and woolfells limited the trade
to the merchants of the Staple and to Italians exporting direct to the
Mediterranean. Other persons wishing to take wool out of the country had
to obtain licences from the Crown, and to pay heavily for the privilege.
Such licences were freely granted, particularly for the south of Europe,
and formed a lucrative source of revenue. For example, in 1514 the sum
of £800 was paid for a licence to ship 1,000 sacks of wool. Other
licences were granted for the entire or partial evasion of duties:
£1,200 was paid for the right to ship 6000 broadcloths at a reduced
rate; and two Florentine capitalists secured freedom from customs on all
their merchandise for five years by paying £1,000 down at a time when
the king was pressed for money.
This over-regulation of trade was in accordance with the ideas of the
time. The science of administration was in an early stage of
development, and it was a prevalent delusion that a theoretically
perfect system was the thing to aim at, without much regard being paid
to the practical possibility of working it. Thus the administrative
machine staggered under a load of complications which would have taxed
the resources of the most ideally honest and industrious officials, and
the result was that jobbery and corruption flourished on an extensive
scale. To the men of the sixteenth century all this seemed perfectly
natural. They cheerfully submitted to inquisitorial tyrannies which
would be revolting to moderns with their hypersensitive ideas of
personal liberty. There was no demand for real freedom of trade (in the
non-fiscal sense), and no realization of the enormous waste caused by
the existing system. From its very extravagance, the red-tapeism of the
sixteenth century failed to produce the effects on national character
which are so justly feared from a similar cause at the present day. On
the contrary, the principal characteristic of the subjects of the Tudors
was a very healthy spirit of initiative, paying scant respect to the
undoubted terrors of the law, and only held in check on English soil by
the most ruthless of governments, while it rendered the sea a happy
hunting ground for unscrupulous adventurers.
The twin evils of the time, as far as legitimate trading was concerned,
were piracy and the arbitrary behaviour of practically all governments
towards the merchants trading in their ports. Both were largely due to
the constant wars between France and the Empire, in which struggles
England occasionally took a share. As the sixteenth century progressed,
religious strife also played its part in stirring up international
animosity and providing a pretext for evil-doing on the sea. A period of
nearly fifty years elapsed between the accession of Henry VIII and that
of Elizabeth. During twenty-five of those years either England, France,
Spain, or the Empire, and at times all four, were at war. Moreover, the
wars were so distributed as to leave comparatively short intervals of
peace between them, so that there was not time for international order
to be fully re-established before the next contest began. In addition to
the rivalries of the greater powers, there were struggles between
England and Scotland; between the Hanseatic League and the north-eastern
nations; and between the advancing wave of Mohammedan conquest and the
Christian powers in the Mediterranean. The insecurity arising from the
above causes constituted an enormous impediment to maritime commerce.
The operations of regular warships were supplemented by the devastations
of privateers. Letters of marque were freely issued, and merchantmen
perforce went armed, becoming belligerents themselves on the slightest
provocation. Very early in the century we find that it was customary for
English vessels trading to Aquitaine to be equipped with artillery.
Embargoes and restraints of trade, unjust taxes and extortions of all
kinds, were everyday occurrences. The most harmless merchandise was
regarded as contraband of war, so that a neutral ship became a fair
prize if suspected to contain so much as an ounce of goods belonging to
a merchant of a hostile nation. When once a vessel had been seized, even
on the most flimsy pretext, it became a tedious and almost hopeless task
to secure its release.
As a consequence, the tendency towards individualism, characteristic of
the Renaissance, was largely checked in the sphere of international
commerce, and incorporated trading in European waters secured a fresh
lease of life. The merchantmen, on all frequented routes, sailed in
large fleets for mutual protection, this custom extending even to the
short voyages of the Merchant Adventurers to Antwerp and of the Staplers
to Calais, although in their cases there were additional reasons for the
practice. But although the great organizations maintained their sway,
and a new one—that of the English merchants in Spain—was formed, the
principle began to show signs of disintegration. In the reign of Edward
VI the Government found it necessary to issue an order prohibiting from
the Flanders trade all who were not members of the Merchant Adventurers’
Company. Later, the aid of the Privy Council had to be invoked to put
down a schism in the Company itself, caused by the impatience of central
control displayed by the younger members.[97] The same period saw the
virtual ruin of the Steelyard, the head-quarters of the Hansa in
England. Its privileges were revoked in 1552 and were never permanently
restored. The trade of Bristol and the now rising western seaports had
always been more or less free. And finally, the fall of Calais in 1558
sealed the doom of the Staplers, whose monopoly failed to take root when
transferred to a Flemish town. The great corporations of the future were
for oceanic, not European, trade; they were rendered necessary by the
same causes as their more local prototypes, and, like them, decayed or
disappeared when they had played their parts as pioneers, and the
conditions were ripe for individuals to take their place.
Merchants as a class advanced greatly in power and consideration under
Tudor rule. It became a common thing for them to be admitted to the
honour of knighthood, and to be employed in political and diplomatic
positions of trust. The records of such families as the Thornes, the
Gonsons, the Hawkinses, and the Greshams show that the career open to
talents was a well-established possibility of sixteenth-century life.
Naturally, the representatives of the old order were jealous of the
advance of the new. The old nobility hated the upstarts at court and
council whom the Crown delighted to favour in order to dissipate the
last remnants of feudal power. Even Thomas Cromwell, himself of the
merchant class, recognized the force of this feeling when at the height
of his power. In his ‘Remembrances’ for the year 1535 occurs an entry:
‘That an act be made that merchants employ their goods continually in
trade, and not in buying land. That craftsmen shall use their crafts in
towns, and not take farms in the country. That no merchant shall
purchase more than £40 worth of land a year.’ Another entry shows that
the same idea was running in his mind in 1539, and throws an
illuminating side-light on the state of political science when the
cleverest politician of his time thought it possible to change the
current of a vast social tendency by means of an Act of Parliament. In
1554 a worthy conservative, basking in the genial warmth of Mary’s rule,
wrote of the Merchant Adventurers: ‘To such a pride are those kind of
men become by reason of the disorder of Princes, as all seemeth to them
reason that necessity maketh to be sought for at their hands; so as,
contrary to nature and all God’s forbode, the merchant is now become the
prince, and who needeth aid at their hands shall so pass therein, as he
shall feel the tyranny they have....’ He seemed indignant and surprised
at the change in the balance of social forces, yet, almost at the same
time, a Venetian observer remarked that there were among the Merchant
Adventurers and the Staplers many individuals worth from fifty to sixty
thousand pounds sterling.[98]
In spite of increasing intercourse, hatred of foreigners lurked always
in the English mind. Early in the reign of Henry VIII a petition begged
the king that the swarms of aliens—‘Frensshemen, Galymen, Pycardis,
Flemyngis, Keteryckis, Spanyars, Scottis, Lumbardis, and dyvers hother
nacions’, a truly terrifying list—be restrained from trading with
England; and in 1517 the same sentiment blazed into action with even
greater fierceness than on the occasion of the assault on the Steelyard
in 1493. Inflamed by the sermons of a popular preacher, the London mob
attacked the foreign quarters of the city on the night of April 30.
Although forewarned, the Government failed to prevent the outbreak, and
considerable damage was done to the French and Flemish colonies. The
Italians, having taken measures for their own defence, suffered little
harm. The rioting was finally put down by the Lord Admiral and his
father, the Duke of Norfolk, who gathered troops outside the city,
forced the gates which the rioters had locked, and scoured the streets,
taking numerous prisoners. According to one account, some sixty persons
were hanged for their share in this affair. A Portuguese ambassador,
arriving in London in the midst of the tumult, narrowly escaped with his
life. The severity of Henry VIII on this occasion, which was known as
the Evil May Day, is in striking contrast with the clemency of his
father in 1493.
The commercial and maritime sections of the community did not escape the
far-reaching effects which the Reformation exercised on all phases of
the national life. In fact, those effects were developed in a more
striking manner among the seafaring class than perhaps in any other. The
constant intercourse with the Low Countries, and, through the medium of
the Hansa, with Germany, caused an importation of the new ideas into the
south-eastern districts of England long before any suspicion had fallen
upon the orthodoxy of the king. Indeed, throughout the reign of Henry
VIII, the revolution in the religious ideas of the above-mentioned
classes constantly outran that in the official views. At the outset a
champion of the Pope, Henry never departed very far from the old beliefs
so far as ritual and clerical practice were concerned. He had no love
for the spiritual motives of the Reformation, and merely desired, for
secular reasons, to substitute his own authority for that of the
successor of Peter, while maintaining everything else as little changed
as possible. If there had been no contemporary reformation on the
Continent, Henry VIII would scarcely have been reckoned by history as
more uncatholic than Henry II of England or Louis XIV of France.
Circumstances, however, caused him to tolerate Protestant teachings at
times, and before his death the new doctrines, superposed on the still
surviving remnants of Lollardism, had gained a firm hold on the country.
As long as Wolsey retained his supremacy there was no indication of
change from above. On May 12, 1521, there was a great burning of
Lutheran books by the hangman in St. Paul’s Churchyard. The king and the
principal dignitaries of the Church were present, and the popular mind
was so impressed that some years elapsed before open advocation of
reform was heard. The spread of Protestantism was specially to be looked
for in London and the other ports trading across the North Sea, and the
Steelyard was early a centre for its propagation. In February 1526
Wolsey instituted an inquiry into the spiritual condition of that
establishment. Various German merchants were examined. Among other
questions the suspect was asked whether he had ever read or possessed
any books by Martin Luther, and, if so, what he thought of them; whether
he believed the Pope to be head of the Church; whether he had eaten
flesh on prohibited days; and why a certain mass was no longer
celebrated in the Steelyard.[99]
By his long and obstinate struggle with Rome Henry alienated the
feelings of the Catholic nations, and was insensibly drawn into sympathy
with the Lutherans. The results were out of all proportion to the cause.
Rigorous Spanish orthodoxy began a persecution of Englishmen in Spain.
Merchants were imprisoned, tortured, and fined for asserting the royal
supremacy. The centuries-old alliance with the Netherlands and Spain was
gradually undermined, and the seeds were planted of that bitter hatred
between Englishman and ‘Dago’ which ultimately emboldened the former to
challenge the claim of Spain and Portugal to the monopoly of Asia and
the New World. The more immediate results of the cleavage were to be
seen in the threatened invasion of 1538–9 and in a generally increasing
ill will in international relations, augmented by the audacity of
English sea-rovers. Gone were the suave correspondence and fawning
ambassadors of Henry VII and Ferdinand; in their place were tariff wars,
wilful misunderstandings, and carping, querulous diplomatists like
Chapuys, leading by natural development to the assassination plots of
Alva and Mendoza. That affairs might have followed such a course without
the intervention of the Reformation is probably true; but this was not
evident to contemporary thinkers, and at least it may be said that
religious hate embittered the struggle and rendered it more desperate in
its character. The extent of the feeling against the reactionary power
of the Hapsburgs may be gauged by the intensity of the indignation
against Mary’s Spanish marriage.
In another aspect the Reformation produced effects on the future
expansion of England. It undoubtedly modified for the better certain
national characteristics. When information became current in England as
to the nature of the Spanish administration in America, the cruelty with
which the natives were treated was emphasized and possibly exaggerated.
The barbarities of the Spaniards provided a moral sanction for the
privateering adventures of the English, and, to mark their abhorrence of
the practices of their enemies, it became a point of honour with the
better sort of Englishmen to be just and humane in their dealings with
native races. This effect, however, was scarcely evident during the
period now under consideration, and belongs more properly to the age of
Elizabeth.
Before his death Henry VIII made certain arrangements for the carrying
on of the government during his son’s minority. He wished that his own
policy, intermediate between Catholicism and Protestantism, and averse
from any violent breach with past traditions, should be maintained; and
his will provided for the establishment of a council of regency in which
adherents of both parties should find a place. No sooner was the breath
out of his body, however, than the Protestants asserted their ascendancy
and, under the leadership of the Earl of Hertford, uncle of the new
king, proceeded to achieve the Reformation with the utmost violence and
lack of foresight. Hertford assumed the titles of Duke of Somerset and
Lord Protector of the Realm, an office the creation of which Henry,
mindful of sinister precedent, had been desirous to avoid.
Somerset, although bold and ambitious, was essentially a weak ruler.
After the first glamour of a military triumph over Scotland, which
brought in its train a political defeat, his true character began to
appear. He had no power of control over his unscrupulous subordinates,
and his best personal quality, a natural kindliness and reluctance to
punish, enhanced the evils of his rule. Authority was everywhere
weakened; industrial and religious discontent were stirred up by the
greed of the new nobility, who plundered the Church and enclosed common
lands to the detriment of the poor. In commercial life corruption began
to increase. The new Government, unlike that of the late king, was
accessible to the demands of the various ‘interests’, irrespective of
damage to the common weal, and the need of money made it particularly
partial to the views of the Merchant Adventurers.
On November 9, 1547, the Council decided to suspend the statutes
relating to the export of unwrought cloths above a certain price, and to
permit the free export of all cloths by Englishmen, and also, for a
limited period, by the Hansa. The effect was, of course, to benefit the
trader at the expense of the craftsman. That this was not part of a
settled policy, but merely the prompting of expediency, is shown by
another decision to repeal the Navigation Acts of Henry VII with regard
to the importation of Bordeaux wine and woad. Owing to the high price of
those commodities it was decreed that the trade should be open to aliens
between February and October of each year. The Merchant Adventurers were
not interested in the Bordeaux trade, and the inference is obvious that
they brought pressure to bear on the Government to secure a privileged
position for themselves, while the western shipowners, having no
incorporation and no collective power of bribing the Council, saw their
interests go to the wall. Both these changes were injurious to the
general welfare of the country. It was particularly injudicious at a
time of economic stress to remove any measure of protection to native
industry; and the same may be said of the weakening of the mercantile
marine by the reversal of a policy which had been successfully
maintained for over half a century. The proverbial spice of good,
however, was intermingled with the evil, and the way was prepared, by
the same means, for the overthrow of the Hanseatic monopoly, again at
the instance of the Merchant Adventurers. This was done, not by
Somerset, who shrank from such a far-reaching stroke, but by his
successor, Northumberland, the friend and patron of Thomas Gresham, now
rising to the leadership of the forward party in the English mercantile
world.
One of the worst effects of the corruption of the administration was the
steady depreciation of the coinage throughout the reign of Edward VI. It
placed Englishmen at a disadvantage abroad, and, by lowering the rate of
exchange, involved the Government in the very financial difficulties for
which it was intended to be the remedy. One of its consequences was a
rapid rise of prices, that of wool increasing threefold in the space of
six years.[100] In spite of tardy reforms the tendency could not be
checked. The price of wool was a governing factor of that of cloth and,
indirectly, of all other commodities. The result was that cloth was
‘falsified’ to a greater extent than ever before, a new Act to the
contrary notwithstanding, and foreign competition began seriously to
affect the prosperity of English industry. We read that trade with
Flanders decayed, that much cloth was now made in other countries of
Spanish wool, and that crowds of workmen were thrown out of employment.
One remedy proposed was the holding of free marts in England on the
lines of those in the Flemish and German cities. Southampton and Hull
were suggested as suitable places, also London and Calais; but nothing
was done before the death of Edward, and the idea was then allowed to
drop.
The keynote of the reign of Edward VI is unrest and chaos, religious,
political, and economic. In the latter connexion it should be noted that
the country was now with difficulty finding sufficient supplies of food.
As early as 1533 it had been necessary to pass an Act forbidding the
export of corn, cattle, pigs, sheep, &c., unless for the garrison of
Calais or by special licence. The extension of the wool and cloth trade
was thus being paid for by some loss of economic independence. Already a
large part of the food supply consisted of fish brought by the Iceland
fishing fleet and the ships of various foreign nations; and by the end
of Henry’s reign England was importing corn with fair regularity from
the German and Baltic ports. In 1550 a scheme to obtain 40,000 quarters
of wheat from Danzig alone is mentioned in Edward’s diary. At the same
time it would seem that the Peninsula was more in need of foodstuffs
than was England. In spite of the Act of 1533 a considerable illicit
export of grain went on from Bristol. A letter from Cadiz in 1538
mentioned that much victual was received there from the west of England
and that the price of wheat was 20_s._ a quarter—certainly a much higher
figure than the average price in England at the time. To remedy this
leakage a new Act was passed in 1542–3 with the special intention of
regularizing the Bristol export, followed by another in 1554–5 of more
general application. By the latter it was enacted that corn might be
exported without special licence only when the price of wheat did not
exceed 6_s._ 8_d._ per quarter, rye 4_s._, and barley 3_s._ It is
probable that actual prices were seldom as low as these.
One symptom of the great commercial changes which the sixteenth century
was unfolding in its progress was the gradual falling-off in the once
active intercourse between England and the Mediterranean. That sea
itself, once the most distant goal of English ambition, was beginning to
lose its pre-eminence as the centre of the world’s activities. Two
causes accounted for its decline. The more obvious was the extension of
Turkish power, which destroyed the trading posts of Venice, and slowly
but surely closed the old trade routes through Egypt, Syria, and the
Black Sea. The Turks as a nation had no genius nor appreciation for
commerce, and, although certain contemptuous exceptions were made, their
general attitude was that of non-intercourse with Christian nations. The
power of Venice was thus cut off at its source; that of Genoa had
already fallen at the hands of the Adriatic city, and Italian traders
came less and less frequently to northern seas. The less immediate, but
in the long run more effective, cause of the decay of the Mediterranean
was the increasing volume of the Portuguese traffic to Asia round the
Cape of Good Hope. Once this route was established—and it became
regularly frequented very soon after its discovery—its superiority was
evident, and the track of the most important commerce in the world was
permanently changed. Antwerp, whither the Portuguese forwarded their
cargoes, became the entrepôt of the north, to be succeeded in its turn
by London when the fires of religious fury had devastated its wharves
and warehouses.
During the early years of Henry VIII the Flanders galleys visited
England with fair regularity. In 1522 they were arrested at Southampton,
partly in consequence of complications arising out of the war with
France. Complaints were made that the galleys now came to England empty,
owing to the scarcity of spices in late years, that the merchants would
not pay ready money for wools, and that their wine measures were smaller
than formerly. Henry required the Signory to give an undertaking to send
the fleet annually, and the Venetians professed willingness to
comply.[101] But the truth was that their commerce was languishing. The
great galleys could no longer find cargoes. A futile effort was made to
revive their old importance, and then, after 1532, they are heard of no
more. Privately owned Venetian ships occasionally found their way to
England after that date, and English vessels still continued to voyage
through the ‘Straits of Marrok’ until the beginning of Elizabeth’s
reign. The sea-borne trade then died away for a generation, to be
precariously renewed towards the close of the century.
The remnants of Anglo-Venetian commerce were mainly conducted by the
overland route. The Venetian colony in London was principally occupied
in dispatching wool this way, paying the enormous duties exacted from
foreigners rather than buy from the Staplers at Calais. The latter
practice was contrary to the policy of the Senate; in 1532 they severely
censured some citizens who were guilty of it.[102] The influence which
the Merchant Adventurers and the Staplers were able to exert on the
Government during the period following the death of Henry VIII seriously
affected the Italian merchants in London. In 1557 Giovanni Michiel, the
Venetian ambassador, reported that they were in a fair way to being
forced to quit England altogether, owing to the prohibition of the
export of wools through Flanders. A similar matter had in the previous
year elicited a complaint from the whole of the Italians resident in
London. They had been in the habit of exporting, via Antwerp, a
considerable quantity of cloths and kerseys for the Levant. The
Government, in the interests of the Merchant Adventurers, had ordered
them to desert Antwerp and make Bergen their entrepôt. The English
shipowners, indeed, contended that they ought not to trade overland at
all, but to ship through the Straits of Gibraltar. Finally a grudging
permission was given for a certain amount of cloth to be sent through
Antwerp, provided that none of it was sold this side of Italy.[103]
[Illustration:
MAP OF BRITISH ISLES, NORTH SEA, AND BALTIC.
Venetian, c. 1489. From Egerton MS. 73, f. 36.
]
The accession of Mary, in 1553, followed by the execution of
Northumberland, produced no permanent changes in commercial policy. The
tonnage, poundage, and wool duties granted for the reign by the first
Parliament differed scarcely at all from those of Edward VI and his two
predecessors. The Hansa recovered its privileges for a short time, only
to be again deprived of them before the end of the reign. Relations with
the Netherlands, strained during the Protestant régime, improved after
the marriage of the queen with Philip of Spain. But these affairs are of
little interest compared with the projects for more extended enterprise
which now began to be seriously entertained for the first time. The
really significant events of the period are the voyages of Sir Hugh
Willoughby and his successors in search of a North-East Passage to
Cathay, the opening up of an important trade with Russia, and the
expeditions of English merchants to the Gold and Ivory Coasts in search
of a more lucrative traffic than home waters could offer them. In fact,
the old pelagic system of commerce was now developed as fully as foreign
competition would admit; and the sky was white with the dawn of the
oceanic era, with the progress of which the greatness of the Anglo-Saxon
race has marched hand in hand.
-----
Footnote 86:
26 Hen. VIII, c. 10.
Footnote 87:
_Letters and Papers_, xiv, part i, No. 373.
Footnote 88:
Cromwell has been credited with the intention of ‘stapling’ the cloth
trade in London, i.e. with deliberately supplanting the Merchant
Adventurers’ mart at Antwerp by an emporium in London. It is hardly
likely that he would have adopted such a suicidal policy otherwise
than on compulsion. The more probable explanation seems to be as here
stated. Chapuys’s letter quoted below (p. 130) appears conclusive.
Footnote 89:
32 Hen. VIII, c. 14.
Footnote 90:
Some particulars here given are taken from other sources than the Act
of 1540. See Hakluyt, v. 62; _Letters and Papers_, xvi, No. 1126.
Footnote 91:
Iron in pigs and bars ready for manufacture.
Footnote 92:
_Letters and Papers_, xvi, No. 13.
Footnote 93:
Ibid., No. 90.
Footnote 94:
_Letters and Papers_, xvii, No. 440.
Footnote 95:
_Letters and Papers_, iii, No. 2483.
Footnote 96:
_Cotton MSS._, Galba B x, ff. 246, 251.
Footnote 97:
_Acts of the Privy Council_, iv. 279, 280. This affair, obviously
relating to the Merchant Adventurers, is referred to in the preface as
concerning the Steelyard owing to a mistaken interpretation of the
word ‘Hanze’, here used in its generic sense of a corporation or union
of merchants.
Footnote 98:
_Venetian Cal._ vi, p. 1045.
Footnote 99:
_Letters and Papers_, iv, No. 1962.
Footnote 100:
_Cal. Dom. S. P., Addenda, 1547–65_, p. 420.
Footnote 101:
_Venetian Cal._ iii, Nos. 440, 441, 608, 877.
Footnote 102:
_Venetian Cal._ iv, No. 751.
Footnote 103:
_Lansdowne MSS._, 170, f. 131 et seq.