[97] In 1447 exactions in England were so heavy “as that the minds of men were not set upon foreign war, but vexed above measure how to repel private and domestical injuries, and that therefore neither pay for the soldier nor supply for the army were as need required put in readiness.” (Polydore Vergil, 77 Camden Soc.) For interruption of trade by the war, Paston, i. 425-6. Davies’ Southampton, 252-3. The Staplers complain that before the war the French bought yearly 2,000 sacks of wool, now only 400 (Schanz, ii. 568). For effect of the war on the salt trade, Rogers’ Econ. Interpretation of History, 100. For the wine trade, &c., Schanz, i. 299-300, 643-50. “It cannot be brought to pass by any mean that a French man born will much love an English man, or, contrary, that an English will love a French man; such is the hatred that hath sprung of contention for honour and empire.” (Pol. Vergil, 82.)
[98] Schanz, i. 32-33.
[99] See the series of statutes with which the reign of Edward the Fourth opens. 4, Ed. IV. c. 1-8. Schanz, i. 447.
[100] Ashley’s Wool. Ind. 81-2; expanded in his Economic History, part ii. Schanz, i. 445.
[101] Schanz, i. 446. “The caryage out of wolle to the Stapul ys a grete hurte to the pepul of Englond; though hyt be profitabul both to the prynce and to the marchant also.” (Starkey, England in the Reign of Henry the Eighth. Early English Text Society, p. 173.)
[102] Brinklow’s Complaynt, E. E. Text Soc. p. 11. Schanz, i. 479, note.
[103] The fellowship of the mercers and other merchants and adventurers living in London “by confederacy made among themselves of their uncharitable and inordinate covetous for their singular profit and lucre contrary to every Englishman’s liberty, and to the liberty of the Mart there” made an ordinance and constitution that every Englishman trading with the marts of Flanders or under the Archduke of Burgundy should first pay a fine to the Merchants’ Fellowship in London on pain of forfeiture of all their wares bought and sold. The fine was at first half an old noble, and demanded by a colour of a fraternity of S. Thomas at Canterbury, and “so by colour of such feigned holiness it hath been suffered to be taken for a few years past.” Finally, however, the London Fellowship raised the fine to £20, then the other merchants began to withdraw from the marts and the cloth trade to suffer. On the complaint of the merchant adventurers living outside London Parliament ordered that the fine should only be ten marks. (12 Henry VII., cap. 6.) For the complaint of the Hull traders against the merchant adventurers of London in 1622 see Lambert’s Gild Life, 171-2.
[104] Schanz, i. 342.
[105] Schanz, ii. 571.
[106] 3 Ed. IV. c. 4.