The death of John William (March 9, 1609), the mad Duke of
Jülich-Cleves, without issue, raised the important question of
the succession to his territory, which lay astride the Rhine on
the eastern frontier of the United Provinces. It was felt to be
essential for the protection of Protestant interests in Germany and
the Netherlands that the Duchies should not fall into the hands of
a partisan of the house of Habsburg. Duke John William had four
sisters, but only the claims of the descendants of the two eldest
really counted. Maria Eleanora had married Duke Albert Frederick
of Prussia. All her sons, however, had died young, but it was held
that her claims had passed to the son of her daughter Anna, who had
married John Sigismund, Elector of Brandenburg. This was disputed
by the Count Palatine, Philip Lewis of Neuburg, who had married the
second sister of the deceased duke, also named Anna. Eventually
the Elector and the Count Palatine agreed to occupy the disputed
territory jointly, and were known as 'the Possessors'. The Dutch
recognized the title of 'the Possessors', but the Emperor Rudolph
refused to do so, and with his sanction the Archduke Leopold, Bishop
of Passau, at the head of an armed force, made his way into the
Duchies and seized the fortress of Jülich. Henry IV of France, who
had been meditating an expedition for the overthrow of the Habsburg
power, seized the opportunity for planning a great alliance with the
Dutch, James I of England, and the Protestant princes of Germany
for the expulsion of the Archduke and the recovering of Jülich. His
assassination, May 14, 1610, put an end to his ambitious schemes,
but though deprived of the help of a great French army, Maurice of
Nassau, at the head of a considerable force of Dutch and English
troops, entered the Duchies and was joined by the troops of the
'Possessing' princes. On September 1, Jülich surrendered, and
Archduke Leopold left the territory. The troubles were not, however,
yet over. The 'Possessors', as perhaps might have been expected,
quarrelled. John Sigismund of Brandenburg became a Calvinist,
Wolfgang William of Neuburg married the sister of the Duke of
Bavaria, and announced his conversion to Catholicism. In September,
1614, Maurice of Nassau, with Dutch troops, and Spinola at the
head of a Spanish force, both entered the Duchies, and a hostile
encounter seemed inevitable. Hostilities were, however, avoided, and
by the treaty of Xanten (November 12) the two rivals agreed to a
partition of the territory.
D. THE ORIGIN AND EARLY HISTORY OF THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE MERCHANT
ADVENTURERS.
The Fellowship of Merchant Adventurers has the distinction of
holding the first place, not only in England, but in Western and
Central Europe, as the pioneer of great trading corporations. The
Gilds of the Middle Ages were municipal and local institutions. The
Hansa League in Germany was a bond, not between merchants dealing in
particular wares, but between a group of towns.
England in the fourteenth century had no manufactures. Her only
industries were cattle-breeding and agriculture; her exports were
raw materials, chiefly wool. English wool was famed for its quality,
and was much sought after by the cloth weavers of the Netherlands,
Germany, and Italy. The trade was almost entirely in the hands of
the Hansa and of Italians, who sent over agents to England to buy up
the wool and export it to the Continent. In England itself, before
a.d. 1300, the sale of the best wool, that of the royal flocks and
of the great landowners, was conducted under the royal licence by
an official body or group of merchants, known as 'Merchants of the
Staple'. A Staple (_stabile emporium_) was a place set apart for the
export and import of certain articles; and there were ten or a dozen
English towns, known as Staple Towns--among them Newcastle, York,
Norwich, Westminster, and Bristol--where alone the wool traffic
could be carried on. Also on the Continent there was a Staple
Town, which was the recognized centre of the foreign trade, having
exclusive rights. No wool could legally be shipped from England to
any other port. During almost the whole of the fourteenth century
the Staple was at Bruges. The institution by Philip the Good, Duke
of Burgundy, of the famous Order of the Golden Fleece, at Bruges
in 1430, had a direct reference to the English wool, which had so
much contributed to the town's prosperity. By that date, however,
a change had already taken place in England. Flemish refugees
had, during the troubled times of the Arteveldes, fled across the
Channel, taking with them their skill in the textile industries.
Many of them settled at Norwich, then one of the Staple towns, and
introduced the art of cloth-weaving. Only the coarser fabrics, rough
white cloths, baize, and kersey, were produced, and these were sent
over to Ghent, Bruges, Ypres, and other places, to be finished and
dyed. To a monopoly of this trade the Staple Company, which had in
1359 removed from Bruges to Calais, had no claim, and the exporting
of cloth fell into other hands. Enterprising English traders, under
the name of Merchant Adventurers, had already begun to visit foreign
countries with their wares, the pioneers of a commerce which was
one day to encircle the world. Their first official recognition
came from the Kings of the house of Lancaster. By a letter patent
of Henry IV, 1407, they were granted the privilege of appointing a
governor or consul to represent them in certain towns, where they
traded. Their consolidation into an organized society appears to
have been a gradual process, and little is known of the actual
steps by which the court or central governing body of the Merchant
Adventurers came into being, but in the middle of the fifteenth
century it was in existence, and at the same time Antwerp became the
port to which exclusively their goods were sent and from which they
were distributed to other parts of the continent--in other words,
their Staple. At Antwerp a wharf, warehouse, and dwellings were
erected for their use, and extensive privileges granted to them,
including a certain autonomous jurisdiction.
The Charter which constituted them into an organized corporation
was granted by Henry VI in 1462. By this Charter the Fellowship
obtained the monopoly of the trade in woollen goods, at least all
traders who were not members of the Fellowship had to pay a tax for
their privilege, low at first, but which at the end of the century
had risen so high as to be practically prohibitive. By this Charter
the right of jurisdiction at Antwerp was confirmed and placed in the
hands of a court consisting of a governor and twelve assistants, the
governor being appointed by the King, the assistants elected by the
members. Shortly after the granting of this Charter the activity
of the Adventurers at Antwerp aroused the hostility of the Flemish
weavers, and Duke Philip the Good was induced by their complaints
to forbid in 1464 the importation of English woollen goods into his
dominion. They had therefore for awhile to withdraw to Utrecht. On
Philip's death in 1467 the interdict was removed, and Antwerp again
became the Staple of the Adventurers, and was to be their home for
wellnigh two centuries.
The period of the greatest prosperity of the Fellowship was the
sixteenth century, the period of the Tudors. This prosperity was
built up on the privileges and monopoly granted to them by the
Charter of Henry VII in 1501, which was extended in 1505 and
remained in force until the reign of James I. The governing body
consisted of a governor and twenty-four assistants, elected by the
'General Court', as the whole assembly of members was styled. This
governing body had extensive powers, legislative, executive, and
judicial. Their jurisdiction over the members was not confined to
civil actions, but they had the power of inflicting heavy fines and
even imprisonment for criminal offences. To become a member--'a free
and sworn brother'--of the Fellowship an apprenticeship of not less
than eight years had to be served, except in the case of sons of
members; and proof had to be given of English birth and parentage. A
'brother' who married a foreigner or acquired foreign property was
disqualified.
Four times a year the ships of the Fellowship gathered at London and
sailed to Antwerp, carrying a cargo of half-finished white cloths,
kerseys, and baize. The merchants themselves had to accompany their
goods, for it was prescribed 'that every one must sell his own
wares'. These sales could only take place in the Court-house, and
only three times a week, on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. The
carrying out of these regulations and jurisdiction within the Staple
was entrusted to a secondary governing body or court consisting,
like the head body in London, of an elected governor and assistants.
The great rival of the Adventurers had been the Staple Company and
the Hansa League, but both these bodies became in the sixteenth
century decadent, and with the capture of Calais in 1558 the Staple
Company ceased to exist. But though the loss of Calais made Antwerp
more than ever the centre of the English continental trade,
troubles were in store for the Merchant Adventurers.
With the accession of Elizabeth disputes arose between the English
and Spanish Governments about the interpretation of the treaty
of commerce, known as the _Magnus Intercursus_, concluded in
1496 between Henry VII and Philip the Fair. Margaret of Parma,
the Governor of the Netherlands, took in 1563 the strong step of
forbidding the entrance of English goods into the Netherlands.
Elizabeth replied by closing the English harbours to ships from the
Netherlands. For about a year this state of things spelt ruin to
the Adventurers, but no less so to Antwerp. In 1564, accordingly,
an understanding was reached, and the Court once more returned to
its old quarters on the Scheldt. But for a brief space only. The
outbreak of the Revolt led to the banishment of the Adventurers from
the Netherlands, and at the end of 1564 they left Antwerp finally.
Shut out from the Netherlands, the Fellowship now tried to set up
their Staple further north in the region dominated by their chief
rivals the Hansa League. At first they found a resting-place at
Emden, but in 1567 they were tempted by an invitation from Hamburg
to set up their Court in that great seaport, from whence by the Elbe
they had access to the German market. Hamburg thus played for its
own profit the part of traitor to the League, of which it was one
of the foremost members. The residence at Hamburg lasted ten years,
but the bitter opposition of the Hansa to their presence proved too
strong, and by an Imperial decree of Rudolph II they were in 1577
banished from German soil. The energies of the Adventurers were
now diverted into different channels, small factories being placed
at Stade, Emden, and even at Elbing near Dantzic. A more important
move was the attempt to re-enter the Netherlands by the erection of
a subsidiary court at Middelburg in 1582. Holland and Zeeland had
now practically freed themselves from Spanish rule, and Middelburg,
on the island of Walcheren, was the capital of Zeeland, and at that
time a flourishing port. With the growth of the United Provinces in
power and wealth, it was clearly the best policy of the Fellowship
to establish its chief Staple and Court within the boundaries of
the Republic. There were many claimants, among them Groningen,
Delft, and Rotterdam. But after many negotiations, an influential
deputation sent by Middelburg in January, 1598, to London, decided
the choice of the English Government and of the General Court of
the Adventurers in favour of making this town their sole Staple
upon the Continent, and the seat of their Great Court. Many points
concerning the rights and privileges to be enjoyed, together with
the restrictions imposed, were the subject of much discussion
before the terms of the agreement was finally settled between the
town of Middelburg, the States of Zeeland, and the States-General
on the one hand, and the English Privy Council and the governing
body of the Fellowship on the other. The principal conditions were
that the Adventurers should carry on their entire business within
the Republic at the one Staple-town, and all English subjects were
forbidden to bring woollen goods to any other port of the United
Provinces. Their later history is told in the lectures that precede.
The Staple and Court remained at Middelburg from 1598 to 1621;
at Delft from 1621 to 1634; at Rotterdam from 1634 to 1656; at
Dordrecht from 1656 to 1665. After the close of the Second English
War the States-General in 1668 refused to grant the Adventurers
their old privileges, and the long connexion with the Netherlands
ceased.