German Empire looked on indifferently at what was passing in the extreme
corner of its possessions--the German Empire always had the knack of
being indifferent at the wrong and critical moment--he perceived that
the Hansa League was ill-disposed at that instant to her stubborn and
disobedient daughter; while Sweden and Denmark glanced with all too
loving eyes at the German colony on the Baltic Sea. He felt now or never
was the time for action. Moreover, Livonia had but one friend, and that
a nominal one, Poland, which masked designs anything but friendly under
the cover of an amicable alliance; it had but one man on whom it could
count--the present Grand Master of the Teutonic knights, Gotthard
Kettler. But this man, though of dauntless courage and a true patriot,
was condemned to rule over the once bold company of Knights at a moment
when too long-continued peace and prosperity had sunk them into sloth,
indifference, and vicious practices.
Under the pretext that a certain toll had not been paid him, Ivan quite
unexpectedly sent into Livonia a herd of barbarous soldiers, under the
leadership of the erstwhile Khan of Kasan. The money not being
forthcoming, this army took possession of Narwa, a port just about to
enter into the League. Thence they overspread all the province, burning,
razing, sacking, robbing, and violating.
They met with little resistance. The enervated nobles--"usually so ready
for a scuffle," says an old chronicler--fell like flies before them, and
the strongest burghs were quietly delivered over into their hands.
Dorpat, one of the strongest, opened its gates to the invader without
the smallest opposition, the citizens having been seized with panic at
their approach. Here there fell into their hands rich treasure, stored
in the fort, affording them the sinews of war. Reval, also besieged,
turned to the King of Denmark for aid against its foes. He sent back the
Livonian ambassadors laden with a thousand sides of bacon and other
victuals to stay their hunger, but more effective aid he could not or
would not afford.
In short Livonia was being rapidly broken up and divided among the
various greedy nationalities that surrounded her--the two Slavonic,
Russia and Poland, on the one hand; the two Scandinavian, Sweden and
Denmark, on the other.
In these sore straits the Grand Master of the Teutonic knights, Gotthard
Kettler, made "the sad plaint of the Christian Brothers on the Baltic,"
heard at the Imperial Diet. The Emperor Ferdinand, to whom the Grand
Master made personal appeal for speedy help, promised his assistance,
and did send a letter to the Czar, begging him to desist from his
persecution of the Livonians; but the letter was so lukewarm in its
wording, and it was so evident from its tenour that the Emperor had no
intention of following it up by action, that the Czar did not hesitate
to send a very haughty and defiant reply. In this letter he proved that
it was not difficult to find excuses for his conduct. The Germans, for
instance, had oppressed his subjects; had taken from them their
churches, and converted them into storehouses for their goods; had
forbidden to his people free-trade in their markets. Some of these
complaints were doubtless not quite groundless, for we know with what a
high hand the Hansa was wont to treat the inhabitants of a land they had
taken under their protection.
Livonia now turned to the League for aid; but the League had been
offended by the late independent deeds of its colonies, and was not
inclined to bestir itself much. The Hanseatics did not perceive the
folly of their action at the time; they did not observe that in thus
yielding to personal feeling they were losing their finest, richest
dependency. It seemed as though with Wullenweber all Hanseatic ambition,
clear-sightedness, and enterprise had sunk into its grave. An able
scheme which would have rescued the entire colony for the Hansa, at a
cost of some 200,000 dollars, was allowed to gather dust, unregarded and
unconsidered, in the archives of Luebeck.
The weakness of Germany, the supineness of the League, the cold
calculations of the King of Poland, all combined to deprive the hapless
land of support. It became a prey, on the one side, to the barbaric
vigour of Ivan IV., and, on the other, to the machinations of Sigismund
Augustus, king of Poland. By the year 1561 the colony of Livonia was
lost to Germany and to the Teutonic knights, and was divided among the
various nationalities that surrounded it, Sweden coming in for no
inconsiderable portion. Thus fell Livonia, the Russo-Baltic province to
which in those days was assigned the _role_ accorded to the Ottoman
Empire by a certain class of statesmen in our own time, namely, that of
a rampart of civilization against barbarism.
As we look back upon the course of history and the state of opinion in
those times, it seems almost incredible that this fall should have been
permitted, that neither the Hansa nor Germany should have stretched out
a hand to help the oppressed colony. Incredible, because at that time
the whole German and Scandinavian Baltic coast resounded with the cry of
alarm that the Muscovite was seeking to make himself master of the
Baltic. It is true that this result, equally bitter for Germany and for
all Northern Europe, was only accomplished in the days of Peter the
Great; but the foundations of this Russian Empire over the inland sea
were laid in those times, and Germany had largely itself to blame for
the disasters that happened in consequence.
The immediate result of the loss of Livonia was that Luebeck became
involved in its last war--a war that was to leave it exhausted. These
hostilities lasted seven years, from 1563 to 1570, and were instigated
by a desire on the part of Luebeck that the Hansa, though it had lost
Livonia, should not lose all profits accruing from trade with the
Russian continent. The quarrel began by Eric XIV., Gustavus Vasa's
successor, professing that he would reinstate the Hansa in all her
privileges in his kingdom; but demanding in return from the League far
more than it had ever possessed in Sweden, namely, a factory and special
privileges in every town of the League.
When this was not granted he suddenly chose to take umbrage at the fact
that Luebeck had never ceased to trade with Narwa, although he had, as he
alleged, repeatedly told the Luebeckers that by so doing they
strengthened the hands of the Muscovite, the common enemy. He complained
of this to the Emperor Ferdinand, who, on his part however, was
satisfied with the reasons for their actions put forward by the
Luebeckers. Eric who, on his side, was by no means satisfied, now
demanded in the most emphatic terms that the Hansa should cease all
navigation to Narwa or to Russia, in order that the Muscovite might not
be strengthened by the importation of arms. He contended that the
channels of Finland were not the open sea, but belonged to his
dominions, and that he had a right to hold sway over them, and to
capture or harass any vessels he found in their waters.
It is strange indeed to find Luebeck replying to this, that the open,
rude Baltic had been recognized by nature herself as a free sea; Luebeck
which had ever contended that this sea was an inland lake and should be
so treated, that only those should trade in its waters to whom she, its
mistress, graciously accorded permission. The conclusion of the dispute
was that Luebeck made an alliance with the Danish king, Frederick II., in
which it was resolved to carry on war against Sweden. The sister towns,
apathetic and most unwilling to fight, did not fail, however, to obey
the Danish king's mandate that they should at once cease from all trade
and intercourse with Sweden.
On June 9, 1563, the Queen of the Hansa issued her declaration of war
against Eric XIV. of Sweden. The king, to whom the document was
addressed, referred it with contempt to the magistrates of Stockholm,
saying that "kings must write to kings, but burghers and peasants should
treat with their peers."
But though Eric was so contemptuous, these burghers, whom he professed
to despise, were to cause him some uncomfortable moments. Not inglorious
for Luebeck was this last seven years' war waged by her, and its results
might have been of some consequence had she been supported by the whole
League. But this was far from being the case. Still she won several
important victories, and on one occasion captured the Swedish admiral's
vessel. In the midst of the hostilities Eric was deposed, and here again
would have been the Hansa's opportunity had it known how to profit by
it.
But in vain did Luebeck counsel union and implore the other Baltic cities
to make common cause and crush the common enemy. They only replied
complaining of the expenses entailed by this thoughtless war, and by
alleging that more advantage might be obtained by diplomacy. In the end
Luebeck had to bend to the common sentiment.
Imperial diplomacy was put into motion, resulting in a congress held at
Stettin, in December, 1570, in which a reconciliation was brought about
between Denmark, Luebeck, and King John of Sweden; and of which the
conditions were, that the Hansa might trade with certain Russian cities;
"so long as the emperor permitted it;" Sweden was also bound over to pay
some of the outstanding debts which Gustavus Vasa had contracted with
Luebeck.
King John assented, but no sooner did he feel himself firmly seated on
his throne than he too forgot all his treaty promises, and once more
demanded that all Hanseatic commerce with Russia should cease. He
defiantly styled himself "Lord of the Baltic," assigning as his claim to
this title the fact that to the Swedish crown had passed the heritage of
the Hansa, both on the seas and in the Livonian colonies.
An Imperial Diet assembled at Speyer shortly afterwards and discussed
these new complications, and professed great anxiety for the welfare of
those deluded subjects of the empire, the Hanseatics. It also made
sympathetic reference to the fate of Livonia, and made no secret of its
embarrassment and annoyance at seeing now the Muscovite, now the Pole,
now the Swede in possession of the Baltic.
But the anxiety and the sympathy did not go beyond words. The Hansa was
weary; the empire was impotent to aid. It is true that Sweden had
offered to restore to the Germans all the portion of Livonia she had
taken for herself in return for the costs of war, but even this proposal
was allowed to drop. When, by 1579, the Swedes perceived that the empire
made no effort to regain its lost possession, they quietly assumed that
none would ever be made, and their assumption did not prove erroneous.
Curiously enough, at the diet held at Frankfort, in the autumn of 1570,
presided over by the Emperor Maximilian who was ever well inclined to
the Hansa, and repeatedly urged them to unity, there was also present
the infamous Duke of Alva, the Catholic butcher, who murdered human
beings to the glory and honour of God. It was he who urged that by all
possible means the exportation of armour and fire-arms should be
hindered, lest the Muscovite, in possession of a European army, should
one day bring sorrow not only to the Netherlands, but to all
Christendom.
The German merchant world was to blame, in the first instance, for the
loss of the prosperous colony; and that this was perfectly understood by
outsiders is proved by the rough utterance of a Tartar Khan who had been
imprisoned together with a Livonian. Spitting into the face of the
latter, the barbarian said, "It serves you German dogs quite right that
you have lost your province; you first put into the hands of the
Muscovite the rod with which he whipped us, now he has turned it against
yourselves and whipped you with it."
But the League's troubles were not at an end with the loss of Livonia
and their Russian trade. They were to learn by bitter experience, what
individuals too have to learn, that mankind cannot resist the temptation
to kick the man or nation that is down.
Bitter ingratitude was first to be shown them by their ally, Denmark, in
return for all the heavy sacrifices they had made on her behalf. Luebeck
was treated with overbearing contempt, while the neutral cities were
punished, as perhaps they more justly deserved, for their cowardly
policy. Thus Rostock, which had furnished the Swedish admiral with food
supplies in 1566, was forbidden to trade thenceforth with Scania;
Hamburg, whose ships had been captured engaged in the same unpatriotic
business, had to pay a hundred thousand dollars to regain them; and
Danzig, too, was fined the same sum by the King of Denmark for a like
offence.
But the keenest humiliation was yet in store for Luebeck herself, in King
Frederick's behaviour concerning the Island of Bornholm, so long the
Hansa queen's special possession. First a Luebeck governor was formally
ejected by the Danes, then the inhabitants of the island, encouraged in
insubordination by seeing how the authorities at Copenhagen dealt with
their masters, refused to pay their dues, finally one of the towns even
forcibly ejected some Luebeck traders. It was ominous that King Frederick
opposed all mention of Bornholm during the treaties for peace. Suddenly,
on the 7th of September, 1575, he informed the city of Luebeck, "that as
the fifty years' possession, accorded to them by his grandfather, would
have expired on the 19th of the month, he intended to retake possession
of the island." On the city's replying that the peace of Hamburg had
extended their right of possession which they held for unpaid Danish
debts, King Frederick was not ashamed to reply to the council of Luebeck,
that they should reasonably consider that this treaty was invalid since
his father, who had made it, was not at that time crowned, and neither
he nor his councillors had been consulted in the matter. Frederick did
not for a moment consider that the Hansa had in all respects
acknowledged the "uncrowned king," and had helped him into his kingdom.
Luebeck felt too weak, too exhausted, seriously to resist the king's
claims. It sent an embassy to Copenhagen, begging for the extension of
the possession, held by them as a pledge, for another forty, thirty,
twenty, fifteen, eight, seven, six, five, or at least one year. Thus low
had the Queen of the Hansa sunk, thus was she broken, that she could beg
so abjectly. She begged in vain. King Frederick was deaf to entreaties;
he saw his rival's weakness, and he profited by it. Had they not had
enough return for helping Frederick I. to power by holding the island
fifty years? Luebeck was forced to yield; the only concession that was
made to her was, that Frederick graciously permitted her to convey one
hundred tuns of Rhenish wine free of duty through the Sound for the
space of ten years, to supply the town cellar of the capital. In the
summer of 1576 Bornholm was formally delivered over to the Danes, and
the Hansa lost yet another source of wealth.
For a while the League still strove to carry on some trade with Russia,
at first by Reval, then by Narwa, but in 1587 the latter town was
finally taken by the Swedes. By good fortune Luebeck and its friends
found in the Czar, Feodor Ivanowitch, a prince inclined to deal
favourably with them. Indeed, so well disposed was he, that in the year
1586 he reduced the existing custom dues by half in their favour, and
placed at their entire disposal once more the factories Novgorod and
Plestrow. But in recovering the possession of their establishments, the
Hansa were far from recovering their monopoly, which time and events had
undermined for ever. Annoyances without end awaited them from the Swedes
and the Poles, whose territories they had to cross to arrive at their
settlements. They were made to pay heavy transit tolls; their goods were
subjected to annoying, and often disastrous delays; their ships were
often captured and ransacked by Swedish and Polish pirates, who were
well aware that their devastations were regarded with no evil eye by the
home authorities.
The last embassy sent by the old and veritable Hanseatic Confederation
to the Muscovite Court, in January, 1603, only attained their ends very
partially, notwithstanding the truly royal presents which they laid at
the feet of the then reigning Czar, Boris Feodorowitch Gudenow. The
chronicles tell that the presents consisted of valuable silver-gilt
vessels, representing ostriches, eagles, pelicans, griffins, lions, also
a Venus and a Fortuna. Presents were also added for the Czar's son, but
by an unlucky oversight, the all-powerful Russian Chancellor had been
forgotten in the matter of gifts; this want of thought lost the
Hanseatic ambassadors his potent favour.
The ambassadors consisted of councillors from Luebeck and Stralsund, and
there went with them besides a certain Zacharias Meyer, an old Luebeck
merchant, who had lived for many years in Russia, and knew the language
and habits of the people. The embassy met with little success.
The monarch whose geographical knowledge was not very extensive, and who
confounded the names of the Hanseatic towns who sent him this embassy
with those that had passed into the possession of Poland, his arch
enemy, categorically refused to recognize the Hanseatic League as such,
and would only allow the city of Luebeck to be spoken of, which it seems
was less unfamiliar to him. Towards this city he showed himself well
disposed, and very generous, and said it might establish factories and
storehouses in various localities, according to traditional custom, and
trade freely without vexatious custom dues as far as Moscow. In return
he demanded only a money duty on the weight of the merchandise imported,
no matter of what nature. In vain the ambassadors pleaded that the towns
could not separate themselves. The Chancellor exclaimed with anger--
"Then we will separate them; the Czar does not know the other towns, and
those which he knows are in the hands of princes who are his enemies."
And from this decision neither he nor his royal master could be moved.
This entirely personal favour to Luebeck naturally changed the character
borne hitherto by the Hanseatic commerce in Russia, and helped yet
further to fan the fire of discontent already smouldering in the bosom
of the League. All attempts made by the other cities to profit by the
advantages conceded to Luebeck remained fruitless; and this city herself,
though she seems to have preserved these custom privileges until the
middle of the seventeenth century, does not seem, judging from
appearances, to have obtained any durable or profitable result from
them. There always remained the disturbing fact that either Swedish or
Polish domains must be crossed, or a long _detour_ made by way of the
White Sea, where again obstacles of yet another kind awaited them.
In very truth the Hanseatic commerce with Russia was slowly dying. Some
efforts were made to resuscitate it by the cities that remained united
when Czar Michael Feodorowitch sat on the imperial throne. The Hansa's
demands were actually supported by the Netherlands. But even goodwill on
the Russian side was impotent to raise a commerce which had been
practically strangled by the powerful grasp of Sweden. Gustavus
Adolphus, it is true, annoyed at the new direction commerce was taking,
and the consequent loss to his kingdom in transit dues, tried all in his
power to revive the old movement upon the Baltic. In this spirit and
with this desire, he concluded various treaties with Russia that obliged
the Hanseatics to pass through his domains, and especially to touch at
Reval, the Luebeckers, who held their depot at Novgorod, naturally
preferring to pass by way of Narwa. But Gustavus Adolphus and his
successors, after all, did not depart from the previous policy of
Sweden. He and they, like their predecessors, sought to make themselves
masters of the entire Baltic commerce, and to impose their intervention
upon the outside nations, whom they crippled with custom dues. Various
promises of relaxation which were made to Luebeck by Sweden were ill
kept. The hand of this country continued to weigh heavily upon all the
Baltic coasts, until there arose on the scene the figure of Peter the
Great, who in his turn reduced them to submission, and who made himself
practically lord and master of the Baltic lands.
Thus ends the history of the Hanseatic commerce with Russia, which might
be said to have ended already, under Czar Feodorowitch Gudenow, for it
was no longer one League, but only an individual city that maintained
communication with Russia in those latter days. The confederation of
cities known as the Hanseatic League had ceased to march together, or to
figure by name in the various treaties and negotiations made after the
accession to power of this Czar.
V.
THE LEAGUE IN THE NETHERLANDS.
The successive losses of factories and Hanseatic liberties in the
kingdoms of the North and East, were of themselves a fatal shock to the
prosperity of the League. It must be remembered that the great
privileges attained by the League in times past in England, the
Netherlands, France, and Spain, were all based on the monopoly acquired
by them in trading in the products of Russia, Denmark, Sweden, and
Norway. This monopoly, as we have seen in the last chapters, had been
seriously threatened; factories had been forcibly closed, natives and
strangers had competed with the Hanseatics; the League's prerogatives
and charters had been trodden under foot and disregarded.
All the efforts made by the Hanseatics at the end of the fifteenth
century and in the early years of the sixteenth to expel from the Baltic
waters their various competitors, had ended in failure. It obviously
followed that, with the loss of this monopoly, the privileges extorted
on the strength of it would vanish also; and this was speedily the case,
for under what pretence of preference could the League now invoke
special favours at the hands of the Eastern nations?
These general causes of failure in the West were destined to be
complicated in the case of the Netherlands with the adverse fate which
befell the town of Bruges at the end of the second period of our story,
and of which we have already spoken. The disaster which deprived the
town of its commercial importance also contributed to ruin the Hanseatic
factory established in that city. Then the Hanseatics themselves were
not wholly blameless, seeing how at Bruges they repeatedly revolted
against paying the tax enforced for storage of goods, a tax that was a
regular condition in the statutes of the League, and which was exacted
in all its foreign settlements; and, besides this, there are also other
circumstances to be reckoned with, of a more general character. The
closing of the factory of Bruges was one of many signs of the course of
events. A new spirit was abroad affecting commerce and progress in all
directions, a spirit against which, as we have said, the League
resolutely set its face, and which it refused to recognize until it was
too late.
After the invasion of the territory of Bruges in 1488 and the ten years'
blockade of the harbour of Sluys, by the Emperor Frederick III., to
avenge the confinement of his son, the city found her trade almost
ruined. Two important branches were lost to her, by the Italians who
brought their own silk stuffs to the rival market of Antwerp and by the
Flemish cloth-workers who had settled in England and likewise sent their
goods thither.
Under these circumstances the Hansa could scarcely hope for the
continued prosperity of Bruges. The tumultuous activity that had
hitherto reigned in the factory gave place to a death-like silence. The
profit that was lost to the town fell chiefly to the lot of Amsterdam
and Antwerp, but partly to the fairs held annually in various localities
of the Netherlands, which benefited by this abandonment and which came
gradually to attract to themselves all the business of the East.
It must not be supposed, however, that the Hanseatic Diet did not
observe with dismay the visible and rapid decline of the prosperity of
this once flourishing factory; but what could they do to hinder the
general desertion of its merchants? Could they, reduced as they were in
strength and influence, restore to the city of Bruges its character of
general depot for the West? Could they remove the obstruction of the
Zivin, ordered by the emperor, which, by a canal had connected Bruges
with the sea? Were they not themselves so weakened that their own
members refused to pay the imposed dues, violated all the factory laws,
and traded and made common cause with the natives?