Germans in England - Ian D. Colvin




XIII. The First of the Tudors

"With the happy event of the Treaty of Utrecht." says Lappenberg, "we have reached the high-water mark of the Hanseatic, perhaps the German, influence in England." And he adds that, by "the traditional wisdom of the English statesmen," this influence lived on for more than half a century. What he really means is that the traditional neediness of the English kings and the power of the Hanseatic navy left England at the mercy of Germany. Warwick, the only great statesman that England possessed at this time, died fighting the Germans. Edward IV was the Charles II of the Middle Ages: money and pleasure were the two ends for which he lived. He drew a pension from France, raised loans from the Germans, and forced benevolences out of the London merchants—thus contriving to do without the Parliament he had betrayed.

As for Richard III, his "traditional wisdom" was chiefly displayed in the murders of which he made a fine art. His King, his brother, his two nephews, and his wife, all fell to the traditional wisdom of this statesman, who improved even in the rude Middle Ages on the methods of such moderns as a Crippen or a Smith.

No, the English had been betrayed by their Government, and were fain to trust to their own resources. The Treaty of Utrecht had hardly been signed before the sailors of Bristol and Hull were fighting the Germans in Iceland. The perfidious and piratical people of Hartlepool attacked a Lubeck and Hamburg ship off the English coast, and when the Hanse closed Norway to English trade the English replied by robbing German ships on the high seas. All these German grievances were brought before the King and duly visited, we may be certain, upon the transgressors. In the meantime, under our free trade policy, England had fallen into a bad way. In 1482 Parliament granted £6000 for the relief of decayed towns. In 1484 Richard granted Hull, which had suffered terribly at the hands of the Hanseatics, a partial relief from export duties, "in consideration of its ruin, decay, and poverty." He did not dare to touch the Hanse, but he made at least some concession to the strange English prejudice against foreigners.

In 1483 he signed an Act, which began by observing that,

"whereas merchant strangers of the nation of Italy, as Venetians, Florentines, Apulians, Sicilians, Lucaners, and Catilians (!) do in great numbers, keep houses in London and other great cities and Burghs, taking warehouses and cellars for the merchandise they import, and where they deceitfully pack, mingle, and keep their said merchandise till their prices greatly advance—and they likewise buy here our native commodities and sell them again at their pleasure; and do not employ a great part of the money coming thereof upon the commodities of this realm, but take it oversea to divers other countries, to the King's great loss in his customs, and the impoverishment of his subjects . . . and do buy in divers places of this realm great quantities of wool, woolen cloth, and other merchandise of the King's subjects, part of which they sell again here," they were to be prohibited from selling in retail, and were to export all their wool and woolen cloth and other English merchandise beyond sea through the Straits of Morocco.

They were to lay out their money in English commodities. They were not to set up as master handicraftsmen in England, they were not to take English apprentices. They could, however, go into the retail book trade. Now, there may be several explanations of this measure against foreigners who were not Germans. It might have been a concession to the Hanse, who were jealous of Italian commerce; but this is unlikely, as the statute seems to favor the Gibraltar route. Or it might have been a concession to the English Merchant Adventurers and the Protection Party in England, and this is the more likely, because there are other Acts of the same year protecting the cloth trade, and a very large number of other trades. One omnibus measure prohibits the importation of goods produced by "girdlers, point-makers, pinners, pursers, glovers, joiners, painters, card-makers, wiremongers, weavers, horners, bottle-makers, and coppersmiths." It is plain that the cause of Protection is not dead.

And there were other signs and portents that must have caused the League, even at the height of its power, a little uneasiness. In 1478 their monopoly at Novgorod was attacked by the Russians. In 1494 the Hanseatic properties at that famous Kontor were confiscated. The Russians, like the Danes and the English, were a patient people, but the Hanse had brought them to the limits of their patience. Venice, the great depot of the German Mediterranean trade, had been hit hard by Lisbon, whose great sailors circumnavigated Africa, and diverted the trade of the East from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. Spain, by the discovery of America, brought about another revolution in the trade of the world, shifting more and more the center of wealth to the South and West.

The sailors of the "upstart towns" of Holland had long been fighting the League in a rough alliance with the sailors of England, and certain Dutch discoveries in the fine art of pickling herrings had deprived Germany of its valuable monopoly in the salt-fish trade. The herrings, too, had shown themselves fickle in their habits, and shifted their ground from the coasts of Germany to the coasts of England. Denmark was in revolt. A Danish trading company had been founded to fight the Hanse, and in 1475, in support of this movement. Christian I dissolved the German Hanse in Denmark. In 1470 the Swedish Regent forbade the election of Germans of the Hanse as Swedish town councilors. These arrogant symptoms of revolt were sternly suppressed by Lubeck, but it was clear that neither Scandinavia nor Russia was as docile as of old.

Worse still, England settled both her wars with France and her Wars of the Roses. In 1485 Henry VII killed Richard on Bosworth Field. In 1486 he married Elizabeth, and ended the long feud between York and Lancaster. France had sheltered him in his exile. He had no reason either to hate the French or to love the Germans. Even before his coronation he announced a truce with France, and promised an Anglo-French commercial alliance. By 17th January 1486 he had concluded a three years' treaty with France, and as France was then at war with Maximilian, this did not promise well for the "natural ally." The English merchants crowded in upon their new King with long complaints of Hanseatic privileges and Hanseatic tyranny. They represented that English traders had been expelled from Bergen, from Iceland, and from Burgundy, and they complained of the bad treatment received in the towns of the Hanse.

But Henry was a wary monarch; he knew the Hanseatic power and his own weakness. With an empty treasury and without a navy it would have been madness to attack the greatest sea-power in Europe. He called the Hanse merchants before Parliament to answer the accusations, and on 9th March 1486 he confirmed the Hanseatic charters and the Treaty of Utrecht. But the English merchants persisted: when their first accusations were answered they brought more. They asserted that the Hanse had fitted out pirates in the harbors of the Netherlands to raid English commerce, and they accused the Kontor at Bruges of being behind the freebooters. The Germans in London replied that the pirates were in the service of the King of Denmark. The English rejoined that the Easterlings changed their nationality to suit their convenience.

The King still temporized. The Steelyard proposed a conference, and in October 1487 the King agreed. The English merchants had before them the dismal prospect of negotiations without end, carried on by the Germans with that slow and devious cunning which had defeated so many English embassies. But the German cards were now in clumsy hands. That indomitable old lady, Margaret, Dowager-Duchess of Burgundy, widow of Charles the Bold and sister of Edward IV, was bent on restoring the fortunes of the House of York. Her nephew, John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, and his friends were ready for any desperate adventure. Her stepson, Maximilian, King of the Romans, was chafing because England was no longer a mere tool in his hands against France. Both he and the Hanse failed to realize that the Tudors had come to stay, and they set about to plot for Henry's downfall.

"And so in the year 1487," says the Dantzig chronicler, "there was a new discord in England between their King Richmond and the lords of the country, so that some of the lords went from England to Zeeland, and there by the help of Charles of Burgundy's old lady (olden Frauen) fitted out a powerful expedition—19 ships full of well-armed men, to sail to Ireland. The son of the Duke of Clarence, the brother of the before-mentioned old lady, was there, and they wanted to bring him with a great force to England, to drive out Richmond and to be king under his name of George."

Weinreich is not quite accurate. The pretender was in reality Lambert Simnel, who called himself Edward of Warwick, and pretended to be the son of George, Duke of Clarence. Now Maximilian—and probably the Hanse—was deep in this conspiracy. Two thousand German soldiers, under the command of an experienced leader, Martin Schwarz, were placed at the pretender's disposal. The force landed in Ireland on 5th May 1487. Lambert was borne in triumph through the streets of Dublin, and crowned King of Ireland with a crown taken from an image of the Virgin. The German-Irish army crossed over to Lancashire, and was defeated at Stoke on the 16th of June. The views of Henry on this affair are revealed in a conversation with the Spanish ambassador in 1488:

"Henry enumerated all the ill turns the King of the Romans had done him. . . . The King of the Romans had sent his excuses for all that had happened, and threw the blame on his stepmother. Henry had replied that he could not accept these excuses."

And this story is fully confirmed by the reply of the English ambassadors to the complaints of Cologne at Antwerp in 1491:

"Martin Schwarz had by force of arms invaded England, etc., for which cause the King had fallen out with the King of the Romans, and had issued a proclamation prohibiting, on pain of confiscation, the merchants of these countries to export."

Now a plot which fails is always inconvenient for the plotters, and Henry, although he moved warily, knew how to strike. Towards the end of 1486, when, as Henry well knew, the conspiracy was being hatched, Henry issued his famous proclamation prohibiting the export of cloth to the Netherlands. The Germans represented that this was done in order to obstruct their commerce, and the learned Schafer regards it as the English answer to the Danish-German freebooters. The no less learned Schanz holds that it was not directed against the Hanse, but against the King of the Romans and Burgundy. Probably its effect was calculated on all three. Henry did not want to quarrel openly with the whole German power, but he could give them a hint that he was not to be trifled with.

Whatever Henry's intention, the effect of the interdict was felt and resented by the Hanse. The Cologne and West German trade felt it most, and in the Hanseatic archives we find many complaints as to the restriction of their liberties. Henry's reply was what we have seen. If the King of the Romans chose to finance pretenders to the English crown, he could not expect English trade for his subjects. The reply of the Hanse was to organise a great contraband trade into the Netherlands by way of Hamburg, and here we touch upon an argument for a national trade policy which finds no place in the learned treatises of the economists. Whereas the Hanse sought by all means to set England's foreign policy at naught, the Merchant Adventurers assisted the King. Thus Francis Bacon, in his history of those times: "The Merchant Adventurers, being a strong company at that time, and well underset with rich men, did hold out bravely, taking off the commodities of the kingdom, though they lay dead upon their hands for want of vent." That is to say, the English merchants with their capital took the strain of the boycott off the cloth-workers, and helped Henry to carry through a daring stroke of policy.

These interdicts of trade between Flanders and England lasted for some years. They were renewed as Margaret and Maximilian dealt stroke after stroke at the English throne. We find Henry writing to Lubeck, in October 1487, that he had removed the prohibition. But the very next year the export to Burgundy is again prohibited, and Hanseatic merchants have to bind themselves not to export any more goods to Flanders. Let us see how the thing works out. Perkin Warbeck, a Fleming of Cologne descent, is adopted by the Germans as the new pretender. In 1493, in the city of Vienna, Albert of Saxony presents Perkin to the King of the Romans, and the young rascal goes in great state to the funeral ceremony of the Emperor Frederick III. "In February 1493," says Busch, "he (Perkin) had already from Flanders entered into relations with confederates at Westminster, and there seems to have been some suspicion that on this occasion the Hanse merchants were prepared to act the part of a go-between."

Henry, in reply, stops all commerce with the Netherlands, expels the Flemish from England, and transfers the staple for English cloth, tin, thread, leather, and so forth from Antwerp to Calais. This time Henry s injunction covers subjects to the countries of the King of the Romans, which does not, however, cover the Baltic, and the Hanse merchants remain in London. The Hanse renew their contraband trade. "It brought," says Lappenberg with pride, "the greatest profit to the Hanse, which now became the sole agent for imports and exports."

The Londoners are furious; Merchant Adventurers, mercers, cloth-workers and cloth-sellers, who have lost their work for the national policy, rise in a body against the Germans. In the middle of October the crowd, united by a secret oath, enter the Steelyard and ransack its chambers and packing-rooms. The Germans, after a desperate struggle, throw the invaders into the street; but the 'prentices and artisans, with clubs and lifting-jacks, hammer at the doors until the Mayor of London arrives with an armed force, quells the riot, and takes eighty of the rioters into custody. The Steelyard is saved—the Mayor, it may be, is not unmindful of his cask of sturgeon; but the King intervenes, not to the advantage of the Hanse. The Germans have to pay surety of £20,000 against their undertaking not to export any goods into the harbors of the Netherlands. The most they can do is to send their Cologne commerce by the costly and circuitous route via Hamburg.

In vain they implore the King to give them an opening into Flanders by way of Kampen and Groningen. Not until 1496 does Henry end the interdict with the famous victory of the "Intercursus Magnus."

And here we may finish the lamentable story of Perkin Warbeck. When Maximilian enters the Netherlands in August 1494, Perkin is prominent in his train. He lives in Antwerp, at the "Hotel des Anglais," in great pomp as Duke of York, with the white rose hung over his door. A mob of angry Englishmen tear it down and have to flee the city. Perkin Warbeck makes Maximilian his heir. In return Maximilian equips Perkin for his invasion of England. The Emperor's reason for supporting Warbeck is revealed very clearly in the correspondence with the Venetian ambassador in Germany. On 9th June 1495, Contarini writes "that the Duke of York (Warbeck) is now attacking the island with 1500 men, independently of mariners. His Majesty the King of the Romans [German Emperor] means to send him a reinforcement of 800 men, and the Scotch ambassadors at Worms tell him they hope for certain victory." On July 7th he mentions a report that Warbeck had reached England, "whereat His Majesty rejoiced greatly, as he could dispose of this Duke of York ad libitum suum."

[NOTE: Perkin Warbeck was the son of Jehan Warbeque, described in the Register de la loi of Tournai as a "pireman" of Cologne; Perkin was placed at Middleburg with a merchant called John Strewe, and afterward went to Portugal in the service of the wife of Sir Edward Brampton, an adherent of tho House of York. Perkin was probably a German or Flemish Jew, and moved from country to country with the freedom and address of that marvelous race.]

On July 19th "his Caesarean Majesty" unburdens himself as follows: "With regard to the Duke of York we entertain great hopes that after obtaining the kingdom of England he will soon attack the King of France; and to this effect have we received every promise and certainty from the Duke aforesaid." Again, on 14th February 1496, Contarini writes to the Doge: "Were the Duke of York (Perkin Warbeck) to obtain the crown, the King of the Romans and the League might avail themselves of England against the King of France as if the island were their own." The League here mentioned is, of course, not the Hanseatic League, but the Holy League.

But the Hanse as well as the German king was interested in the overthrow of Henry VII. For despite his quiet, moderate, and reasonable way of treating them, his renewals of their privileges and his offers of conferences, there was a subtle and dangerous squeeze in his policy. He was, in fact, slowly but surely making England independent of the foreigner, and laying the foundations for the triumph of Elizabeth. In 1488 he signs a statute prohibiting to all foreigners the export of undressed cloth. This regulation has for its object the encouragement of cloth-making in England. It hits the Germans hard, because they have a great trade with Flanders in the undressed cloths of England, Flanders having fallen at this time in great part from cloth-making to cloth-finishing. The Hanse arrogantly tell Henry that his policy is bad for his country, and that it is directed against the German cities.

"This matter," they say, "had been instituted neither for the common good nor for the promotion of the cloth-working industry, but merely to drive the merchants of the Hanse out of this trade in England, in order to satisfy the Londoners, the inventors of the innovation, and to put in their hands the trade that is now being carried on by the Germans." And they continue: "Although the English cloths are not fit to be dressed, and the English Government know this well, it takes no measures against the making of bad cloth, but demands that the Hanse should export only well-finished cloth."

Further, the Germans assert that the Act is administered severely against Germans and leniently against Englishmen, so that the Antwerp merchants are willing to buy undressed cloth from Englishmen, but refuse to buy it from Germans for fear of getting into trouble.

In 1487 an Act is passed prohibiting the importation of silk fabrics—a concession to the silk industry of London. We find evidence here that at first the protective policy was applied gingerly as far as the Germans were concerned.

"And such silk," says a document in the Hanse Recesse for that year, "comes sometimes into England, although the Act has not been revoked, as is only right, having regard to the privileges of the (Hanse) merchant. Still the merchant has great trouble with the King's officers on account of this silk."

But by 1489 the "jealousy" of the English merchants has forced the King to bring the Germans into line. They are even forbidden to import silk from Cologne. In 1494 we find that city writing to the Hanse: "Also the silk which is prepared here in our town, and which our people always brought into England on the strength of our privileges, is also not to be imported: nay, it is daily confiscated by the King's officers like contraband goods."

Again, in the first year of his reign Henry VII partly re-enacted the Navigation Law of Edward IV. Wines from the South of France and wood from Toulouse are to be imported only in English ships. It is a cautious measure, calculated not to hit the Germans hard enough to give serious trouble. Nevertheless, it hits the Hanse a little, for we find a reference in the Hanse archives to a cargo of Bordeaux wine which is confiscated because the Hanse import it in a non-Hanseatic ship.

It is nearly always the English merchants who are behind these prosecutions. Englishmen seem to have constituted themselves a sort of private police against the Germans. London cloth-dressers, for example, have Hanseatic ships stopped before they sail, in order to have them searched for undressed cloth. When the undressed cloth is found, the German merchants have to deposit a guarantee of £600, to be forfeited if they transgress again.

The King is always apologizsing to the Hanse for the prejudices of his subjects. He is forced to do this and that because he can no longer restrain them. Englishmen are taking affairs into their own hands. Several English towns put municipal limitations on the German free trade charters. The Mayor of London, in spite of his cask of sturgeon, fixes the selling price for salt, wine, and grain, and forces the Germans to offer their staple goods, like wood and herrings, at the London staple—that is to say, at the wholesale market. In Hull they are compelled to sell all imported goods inside the town, and have to buy English goods within the same limits. The inhabitants of Hull are indeed so angry with the Hanse, on account of the recent loss of two of their ships, that they declare they will recompense themselves with the first Hanseatic ship that comes into their harbor.

The London Steelyard writes to the German towns in some alarm, that at Hull feeling is so strong against the Hanse that the authorities are hardly able to keep back the citizens. To prevent murder and bloodshed the Germans are forbidden to go to Hull. In other towns, too, the Hanse merchants run risks of ill-treatment. In 1490, in the streets of London, several merchants of Cologne are attacked and seriously wounded. The assailants remain unpunished, in spite of the efforts of the Steelyard to bring them to justice.

All the time the Merchant Adventurers are pressing their grievances at Dantzig and the other Hanse towns. The King asks for a peaceful settlement. The cities, on their Hanse Day at Lubeck in 1487, contemptuously decline to send an embassy to London, "inasmuch as things are so bad in that country that people often do not know who happens to be King." They do not realize that at last a King has come to England. Henry, in his quiet, persistent way, keeps pressing the Hanse for a conference. In March 1490 he writes to the towns that he can no longer deny his subjects justice. His sentiments towards the Hanse are the same as ever, but he cannot look on while his merchants suffer heavily day by day. The German Guild in London know the new situation better. They beg the towns to accede to the King's request and send ambassadors, otherwise they will not be able to keep the Kontor going in England much longer.

At last Lubeck begins to wake up. It declares itself prepared to send envoys to Utrecht or Antwerp. Accordingly a Day is held in Antwerp, in June 1491. They debate on grievances on both sides. The English stand firm on their cloth-dressing regulations: "It cannot be rescinded, because it is in the interest of the old and honorable Guild of Cloth-shearers."

But they promise to investigate a few other of the German complaints, and add that it is the will of their King that Hanseatic privileges be maintained. They complain, however, that the liberties guaranteed to English merchants by the reciprocity article in the Utrecht treaty has not been observed, and they demand that it be re-enacted in the new treaty under discussion. Dantzig opposes this demand keenly. If Englishmen are to be allowed into Dantzig, their status must be clearly specified. The other Hanse ambassadors take the English side. It is evident that the open hostility of Dantzig to England has become inconvenient. Dantzig gives way, but in a formal protest declares that, despite the article, the English merchants shall not, in their town, enjoy any more privileges than the non-Prussian Hanse merchants who trade there. In common with all foreigners, they are to be allowed Free Trade only at the "Dominik" Market in August, and as a concession they are to be allowed access to the "Artus Court," from which they had recently been excluded.

All these "concessions" had, in fact, been included in the rights of English merchants in former treaties, so that Dantzig made no real surrender after all, in spite of what Dr. Schanz says to the contrary. Nevertheless, there was some gain: Dantzig was at least compelled to reaffirm and define the English position. The new agreement, in fact, which was concluded on 28th June, confirmed the Treaty of Utrecht. It is chiefly important because it shows a more independent attitude on the part of the English. If they have yielded the old privileges, they have not surrendered the new protection—which, in fact, infringes on these privileges—and they agree to the treaty only until the 1st of May 1492. The counter-claims as to damages remain unsettled. As to the Baltic, we might perhaps accept Busch's estimate:

"Henry had made an opening, though that a small one, in the exclusive system of Prussian trade; a modest gain certainly, but one which in connection with his new relations with Denmark was of some value, as representing the first definite success of his commercial policy towards the North."

It was hardly a success, yet it was not a surrender, and it contained just a hint of the new Tudor policy which was yet to break the Hanse in pieces.

Further meetings are put off from time to time. Neither side will settle the complaints of the other. Sometimes the Hanse excuses itself, sometimes England. The cloth-dressing regulation, leniently enforced as it seems to have been, is the subject of constant complaints through two reigns. The embargo on Cologne silk is no less a grievance. In June 1499 there is a new meeting at Bruges. The Germans demand the repeal of the Acts of Parliament, which by protecting English industries are alleged to infringe upon German privileges. Henry declines to repeal his Acts of Parliament, and he declines to comply with their demands for damages. As the Hanse refuses to accept his offer for a mutual settlement, he appoints a judge for the Germans at Calais; but there must be a judge for the English at Bruges and at Antwerp. From this time on until 1504 there is deadlock. In that year Henry VII adjourns the meeting sine die, "because the Hanseatic grievances are settled." In that year Parliament passes an Act which appears to be a surrender to the Germans. The Act provides that any statutes which are at variance with the privileges are not to be applicable to the Hanse. The Kontor in London is overjoyed, and reports at once to the towns, and the King writes to Lubeck that he now hopes he has satisfied the Hanse in every way.

How far the Act was a surrender and how far an evasion is one of the many obscure points in our story. Henry VII was a wary king, and it would appear that he signed two copies of the statute, one in Latin for the Germans, and one in English for his own subjects. In the English statute there is a provision which does not appear in the Latin copy preserved in the Hanse archives. It is that nothing in the statute shall injure the interests, liberties, and rights of the town of London.

"We do not know," says Dr. Friedrich Schulz doubtfully, "if the Hanse knew about the assurance to London, and what influence it had on the application of the Act." As far as the archives inform us, German complaints on the subject appear to cease for a time. We know also that the exemption was renewed by Henry VIII, and that it was disliked by Parliament. Nevertheless, the German grievance on the point is again open in the reign of Henry VIII, although the Act remains in force. And if we look at the Act with a lawyer's eye, we see that there would still remain open the question of whether the statutes of which the Hanse complained really did affect its privileges. Over such a bone English and German jurists might well have taken different views.

There is another point over which the authorities quarrel. We know that on 31st October 1493, Henry made the Hanse deposit a surety for £20,000 as a guarantee that they would not export English cloth to the Netherlands. According to Schanz, this money was declared forfeit on 8th July 1508. Schulz, on the other hand, is doubtful. If it were forfeit, how is it that there is no complaint on the subject in the Hanseatic records? Such a stone would certainly have made a splash. Schanz's view of Henry's policy is that, while the King evaded a war with the Hanse, he still brought force to bear upon it; and he sums up that at this time the outlook for Germans in England was rather gloomy. Schulz takes the opposite view. Henry, he says, was the friend of the Hanse, and defended it manfully against his Parliament, and he triumphantly quotes in his support the persistent refusal of Henry to join Denmark in a war upon the towns.

Henry's words on this point are preserved in the Hanseatic archives, and are worth quoting. He declines Denmark's proposal "because the German Hanse, of which the town of Lubeck is no small part, has enjoyed in this our Realm for many years its liberties and privileges, and as it now is so it always was, so long as its liberties and immunities last as much united in friendship with ourselves as with our predecessors."

Before attempting to decide between these two scholars it is necessary to look at Henry's policy as a whole. When Henry was crowned on Bosworth Field he looked round on a weak and ruined England. For himself his exchequer was empty, and his crown was held on the insecure tenure of one victory. In Margaret of Flanders he had an implacable enemy, and, as he told the Spanish ambassadors, he regarded Maximilian also as his secret foe. But Flanders was also the enemy of the Merchant Adventurers. It was the enemy of the English cloth trade, and Cologne was the enemy of the English silk manufacture. The wealth of Flanders had rested for centuries on the insecure foundation of making cloth from English wool. When England began to make its own cloth Flanders was apprehensive, but as English cloth was rough and coarse, and Flemish cloth the finest in the world—save only, perhaps, the cloth of Florence—the Flemish consoled themselves with the hope that English cloth would have to be finished in Flanders, that Englishmen would remain their mere journeymen, and that they would always be supreme in the finishing process and in the finer counts.

Now, the Hanse, except for the silk manufacture of Cologne, was not directly interested in manufacture. Its interest was trade. It preferred, no doubt, to carry English wool to Bruges, and to sell Flemish cloth in England. There, as an uninterrupted trade process, lay its largest profits. But its case was somewhat complicated by the fact that, whereas English shippers enjoyed a preference in the export of wool, German shippers enjoyed a preference in the export of cloth. Amazing as it may sound, it is none the less true that under the English customs the Hanse in England had a substantial preference, not only over all foreign merchants, but over Englishmen themselves.

The amount of this preference can be definitely stated. On every piece of undyed cloth Englishmen paid an export duty of 1s. 2d., foreigners 2s. 9d., with an additional ad valorem duty of Is. in the £1, while the Germans of the Hanse only paid 1s. all told—that is to say, they had a preference of two-pence against Englishmen, and 1s. 9d. plus the ad valorem duty against all other foreigners. On half-dyed cloth their preference over Englishmen was again three-pence, their preference over all foreigners was 2s. 6d. plus the ad valorem duty as before. On finished cloth they had a preference of 4d. over Englishmen, and 3s. 6d. plus the ad valorem duty over all foreigners. Obviously they had an artificial reason for being content to export cloth rather than wool to the Flemish market, and we even find them siding with the English against the Flemish in the endeavour to open the markets of Flanders to the English manufacturer.

Now, if Henry was as clever a man as he is generally supposed to be, he would seek to divide the Germans from the Flemish by this difference of interest. He would allow the Hanse to continue their export trade, but he would quietly force them to export first English cloth instead of English wool, and, secondly, the English finished article instead of the English half-finished article.

Dr. Busch's view is that Henry was afraid of the Hanse: "He did not dare at once to irritate the powerful league of the towns, who might support his enemies, as before they had supported the Yorkist prince, Edward IV." And this is probably true, at least of the first years of his reign. And yet there is no weakness in Henry's policy; there is even a note of contempt in his treatment of the Hanse at Antwerp. He consistently refuses to allow the Hanse to raise the blockade of Flanders. And this is true of the last years of his reign. In 1504 he renews the interdict. The Hanse protests, and particularly Cologne; but Henry sets his face like flint, and the Hanse trade with Burgundy is stopped until the removal of the interdict in 1506.

And even in the North, where he has gained so little and acquiesces in so much, the alliance with John of Denmark must have been felt by the Hanse as a formidable portent. Henry might reassure them as to his intention, and disclaim all thought of hostility; but if the alliance with Denmark was not against the Hanse, I should like to know what it was against. It was, in fact, the foundation of a policy designed to open the Baltic to English trade.

The Baltic could wait. English trade and the Royal Exchequer were first to be established. A Spanish marriage would help both. By allying himself with Spain, Henry secured the Straits of Gibraltar for English shipping, and pushed forward to Italy and the Levant. Venice was hostile; but Henry opened negotiations with Florence, and secured the Italian market for English cloth.

We may say of Henry that, if he left for his successors the actual destruction of the Hanseatic power in England, he at least forged the anvil on which it was to be broken. By his navigation laws and commercial policy he founded an English navy in English shipping, and he placed the strength of the crown in the mercantile interest of England. The foundation of his whole policy was the English cloth trade. He realized that a strong English export of cloth would make England wealthy at home and a power in Europe. It would give him a key by which he could open the doors of every European market. To have a commodity which other people want is to take naturally a strong position. But Henry desired not only to create a cloth industry which should be independent of Flanders, but to create a shipping industry which should be independent of the Hanse.

The fight with Flanders had to come first; the fight with the Hanse would follow later. In the meantime, he strengthened the Merchant Adventurers' Company by vastly increasing its powers. His charter to the company showed that he regarded it not merely as an instrument of trade, but as a great weapon of foreign policy. He gave it a national foundation, and almost national powers. He helped to make it what the merchants proudly called it—an English Hanse, an organization which was to grow in strength until it could fight the great League on its own ground.