A Source-Book of English Social History

by M. E. Monckton Jones

INTRODUCTORY NOTES

Hansards in London

Stow’s account of the Steelyard and the work of the Easterlings, is valuable for the history of trade. It exhibits the alien as the great importer, practically monopolizing the foreign trade with England up to the reign of Henry IV, and continuing to dominate it till Elizabeth ended their privileges. It also shows their relations with self-governing London, and in the whole story can be traced the working out of conditions which the English later applied to their own overseas enterprises. The status of Merchant Adventurers, East India Company, etc., as self-governing communities privileged to exist in a foreign country seems the precise reproduction of the Hansard in England, and often reproduced the same injustice for the native merchant. The report of R. Wynyngton’s capture of the Hansard fleet should be read in conjunction with this, and the position of the Hansards also compared to that of gilds of English merchants.

London Extracts

The enumeration of places, recently open country, serves to make vivid the part London was playing in the great increase of population and wealth due to the cloth industry, and the foreign adventures in trade of the Tudor period. The vivid Rembrandt picture of the night-watch suggests the utter darkness of the narrow mediæval lanes and alleys; while the regulations for rebuilding London give further suggestive details, e.g. shop-windows are still temporary, houses hitherto neither flush with one line of pavement nor of one height or style, and wood and thatch still prevail. The account of Skinner’s Well also emphasizes this period of transition from an age of intimate feudal relations between great and small, with its accompanying inequalities, to the more individualistic and mercantile relations of the modern world.

East Indies

Sir T. Roe’s embassy from James I to the Great Mogul (Jehanghir), gives the best account of that Indian court and government, and of the trade and position of the East India Co., still in its teens. The Portuguese, under Albuquerque, had created an empire in the Persian Gulf and Indian shores a century earlier. This had been challenged by Dutch traders, especially in the islands of the Indian Ocean and Malay Straits, who, in 1604, formed the Dutch East India Co. Persia had always traded with the Mogul Empire. Roe gives in this passage a valuable sketch of the relations of all five races, and lays down firmly the policy on which the English Company always hereafter insisted in theory, though constantly forced to abandon it in practice, namely that trade, and not territory, was their aim.

He also sets up the standard of honesty and honour in face of Oriental despotism, which British officials have always been expected to maintain. His statement, too, of the need of carefully selected presents, shows that the old practice seen in the Old Testament scriptures still existed in Asiatic negotiations. The Company’s servants found themselves from the first obliged both to give and to receive them, even despite the Company’s orders, and in 1773 “a talent of silver and two changes of raiment,” i.e. a Kelaat, was the recognized gift of the Mogul’s messenger.

The account of a “Court” meeting of the East India Company’s Committees in London gives a glimpse of the regular course of their work in dividing gains, etc., and has an especially interesting note of the way they conducted their relations with the King, their debtor, through the mediation of a famous courtier.

Captain Rannie’s evidence, as a Company’s military officer on the spot, is striking as showing how the struggle between Dupleix and Clive in the Carnatic had reacted by alarming the Nawabs of Bengal; and, again, in tracing their hostility further to the interference with trade and its dues, on which, perhaps as much as on land-dues, the ruler’s treasury depended. These were the grievances which caused our later troubles with Mir Jaffier and Mir Cossim, our own nominees, and they were not ended till Warren Hastings, with twenty years’ experience as a trader, came to govern and to reform them in 1773.

Life of T. Raymond

The chief value of these extracts lies in the insight they give into the domestic life of courtiers, of an ambassadors’ suite, of common soldiers and officers on campaign, of the utter ruin of the population at the seat of war. This is an interesting commentary on the condition to which most of the German states must have been reduced during the incessant campaigning of the Thirty Years’ War.

A Court Leet

Both the origin and name of courts leet is obscure; they were possibly survivals of the Anglo-Saxon hundred courts, seem to have a popular origin, and were certainly the courts in which review of Frankpledge was held, and other petty police work done.

Dugdale’s “History of Draining”

This is valuable for a picture of the gradual process by which England changed from the fen and forest condition in which the Romans found it, to the corn-producing country of to-day. The passages quoted deal with the draining of the area about the Wash, from which the sea had gradually receded, and which is known as the Great Level, or the Bedford Level. Dugdale wrote at the close of the Commonwealth period, and his review brings out the value of the monastic care of the drainage works up to the dissolution of the abbeys; also the fact that such undertakings as this requiring capital were managed by companies of Adventurers, exactly similar to those who took up colonization. The grants of land by which Bedford and his associates were repaid, are an instance of the way the members of such Companies grew to be the plutocrats who, in the eighteenth century, were able to control politics by the purchase of seats or of votes in Parliament. Bedford was the recognized head of a great party under George II and George III.

LONDON
THE HANSA LEAGUE’S HOUSE IN LONDON

(Stow, Book II, p. 202)

Next to [Cofin Lane] is the Stelehouse, or Steleyard (as they term it) a Place for Merchants of Almaine [German States] that used to bring hither, as well Wheat, Rye, and other Grain, as Cables, Ropes, Masts, Pitch, Tarr, Flax, Hemp, Linen Cloth, Wainscots, Wax, Steel and other profitable Merchandises. Unto these Merchants, in the Year 1239, Henry III at the request of his brother, Richard Earl of Cornwall, King of Almaine, granted that all and singular the Merchants have a House in the City of London, commonly called Guilda Aula Theutonicorum, should be maintained and upholden through the whole Realm, by all such Freedoms, and free Usages or Liberties, as by the King and in his noble Progenitors Time, they had enjoyed....

And in the 10th Year of the same Edward II Henry Wales being Maior, a great Controversie did arise between the said Maior and the Merchants of the Haunce of Almaine, about the Reparations of Bishopsgate, then likely to fall; for the said Merchants enjoyed divers Privileges, in respect of maintaining the said Gate, which they now denied to repair ... a Precept was sent to the Maior and Sheriffs, to destrain the said Merchants to make the Reparations.... And so they granted 210 Marks sterling to the Maior and Citizens and undertook that they and their Successors should (from Time to Time), repair the said Gate, and bear the third Part of the Charges in Money and Men to defend it when need were.

And for this Agreement, the said Maior and Citizens granted to the said Merchants their Liberties, which, till of late they have enjoyed; as, namely, amongst other, that they might lay up their Grain, which they brought into this Realm, in Inns, and sell it in their Garners, by the Space of forty Days after they had laid it up, except by the Maior and Citizens they were expressly forbidden because of Dearth, or other reasonable Occasions. Also they might have their Alderman, as they had been accustomed, foreseen always, that he were of the City, and presented to the Maior and Aldermen of the City, so oft as any should be chosen, and should take an Oath before them to maintain Justice in their Courts, and to behave themselves in their Office according to Law, and as it stood with the Customs of the City....

Their Hall is large, builded of Stone, with three arched Gates towards the Street, the middlemost whereof is far bigger than the other, and is seldom opened, and the other two be mured up: The same is now called the Old Hall. Of later time, to wit ... Richard II they hired one House next adjoining.... This also was a great House, with a large Wharf on the Thames. And the way thereunto was called ... Windgoose Alley, for that the same Alley is (for the most part) builded on by the Stilyard Merchants (p. 204).

About the time of King Henry IV the English began to trade themselves into the East Parts. At which the Easterlings, or Merchants of the Dutch Hauns, were so offended that they took several of their Ships and Goods.... The result of which in short was this, that the said King Henry IV did revoke Parts of the Privileges of the aforesaid Dutch Company as were inconsistent with the carrying on of a Trade by the Natives of this Realm: And ... grant his first Charter to the [English Merchants trading into the East Land].

In the first and second of Philip and Mary, was granted the Charter to the Russia Company afterwards confirmed by ... Queen Elizabeth. Until whose time, though the Trade of this Nation was driven much more by the Natives thereof, than had been formerly, yet had the Society of the Dutch Hans at the Steel Yard much the advantage of them by means of their well-regulated Societies and the Privileges they enjoyed. Insomuch that almost the whole Trade was driven by them, to that degree that Queen Elizabeth herself, when she came to have a War, was forced to buy the Hemp, Pitch, Tar, Powder, and other naval Provisions; which she wanted, of Foreigners: and that too at their Rates. Nor was there any Stores of either in the Land, to supply her Occasions on a sudden, but what at great Rates she prevailed with them to fetch for her, even in time of War: Her own subjects then being but very little Traders. To remedy which she fell upon the Consideration [of] encouraging her own subjects to be Merchants ... and cancelling many of the Privileges of the afore-mentioned Dutch Hans Society, the Trade in general by degrees came to be managed by the Natives of this Realm. And consequently the Profit of all these Trades accrued to the English Nation. Trade in general and English Shipping was encreased; her own Customs vastly augmented and, what was at first the great End of all, obtained, viz., that she had constantly lying at home, in the Hands of her own Subjects, all sorts of naval Provisions and Stores; which she could make use of, as her Occasions required them without any dependence on her Neighbours for the same. And thus by means of encouraging the ... Merchant Adventurers ... was the Trade at first gained from the Foreigners.... Then is one other great House ... which in the fifteenth of Edward IV was confirmed unto the said Merchants (p. 205).

In the year 1551 ... through Complaint of the English Merchants, the Liberty of the Steelyard Merchants was seized into the King’s Hands, and so it resteth.

CHANGES IN LONDON

(Stow, Book II, p. 1)

This great and populous City contains in the whole six or seven hundred Streets, Lanes, Alleys, Courts and Yards of Name, and generally very full of Inhabitants. Before the late dreadful Fire of London, the Houses within the Walls were computed to be about 13000; and that is accounted not a sixthe Part ... and in these late Years whole Fields have been converted into Builded Streets, ... as the great Buildings about the Abbey of Westminster, Tuthill Fields, and those Parts; Then the greatest part of St. James’ Parish, ... all the Streets in the Soho Fields,. .. also all Bloomsbury ... all Hatton Garden ... the Great and Little Lincoln’s Inn Fields, all Covent Garden ... etc., etc., and in the East and North Parts, the Spittle Fields, etc. All which were only Fields and Waste Grounds.

1598. (Ibid. p. 242)

In our Time ... other [Enormities] are come in place ... meet to be reformed. And first ... Encroachments on the High Ways, Lanes, and common Grounds, in and about this City....

Then the number of Cars, Drays, Carts, and Coaches, more than hath been accustomed (the Streets and Lanes being straightened), must needs be dangerous, as daily Experience proveth.

The Coachman rides behind the Horse Tails, lasheth them and looketh not behind him. The drayman sitteth and sleepeth on his Dray and letteth his Horse lead him home.

I know, that by the good Laws and Customs of this City, shod[28] Carts are forbidden to enter the same, except upon reasonable Causes (as the Service of the Prince, or such like) they be tolerated. Also that the Fore Horse of every Carriage, should be led by Hand. But these good orders are not observed.

[In the time of King Richard II] Anne, Daughter to the King of Bohemia ... first brought hither the riding upon side-saddles; and so was the riding in ... Whirlicotes and Chariots forsaken ... but now of late Years, the Use of Coaches brought out of Germany, is taken up and made so common, as there is neither Distinction of Time, nor Difference of Persons observed; for the World runs on Wheels with many, whose Parents were glad to go on foot.