The pictures of battles and sieges at this period give us an odd medley of bows and arrows, crossbows, spears, cannon, and hand-guns. The old weapons were not left off, because the new ones were too imperfect and too difficult of locomotion to supersede them. The cannons, though often of immense bore and weight, throwing balls of from one to five hundredweight, were, for the most part, without carriages, and therefore difficult and tardy in their operations. The Scots were the first to anticipate the modern gun-carriage, by what they called their "carts of war," which carried two guns each, while many of the guns of the English required fifty horses to drag them. They had, however, smaller guns; as culverins, serpentines, basilisks, fowlers, scorpions, &c. The culverins were a species of hand-gun in general, fired from a rest, or from the shoulder. The Swiss had 10,000 culverins at the famous battle of Morat. These hand-guns are said to have been first brought into England by Edward IV. on his return from Flanders in 1471. Ships were also supplied with small guns.
The trade of England continued to flourish and extend itself through this century, in spite of the obstacles and ruinous effects of almost perpetual war. Our kings, however warlike they might be, were yet very sensible of the advantages of commerce, and during this century made numerous treaties in its favour. At the same time, it is curious that, even when two countries were at war, such was the spirit of trade, that the merchants went on trading whenever they could, just as if there was no war at all. This was the case, especially between England and Flanders. Our monarchs were already ambitious of reigning supreme masters of the seas, and this doctrine was as jealously urged upon them by the nation. In a rhyming pamphlet, written about 1433, and to be found in Hakluyt (Vol. I., p. 167), the writer says, that "if the English keep the seas, especially the main seas, they will compell all the world to be at peace with them, and to court their friendship."
Henry IV., though harassed by the difficulties of a usurped crown, strenuously set himself to promote commerce, and to put an end to the continual depredations committed upon each other by the English and the merchants of the Hanse Towns, as well as those of Prussia and Livonia, subject to the grand master of the Teutonic order of knights.
Henry V. was as victorious at sea as on land; and by his fleet, under his brother, the great Duke of Bedford, in 1416, and again in 1417, the Earl of Huntingdon being his admiral, swept the seas of the united fleets of France and Genoa, and made himself complete master of the ocean during his time. This ascendency was lost under the disastrous reign of Henry VI., but was regained by Edward IV., a monarch who, notwithstanding his voluptuous character, was fully alive to the vast benefits accruing to a nation from foreign trade, and thought it no dishonour to be, if not a merchant-prince, a prince-merchant. He had ships of his own, and in time of peace he did not suffer them to remain useless in harbour, but freighted them with goods on his own account, and grew rich by traffic.
Notwithstanding all this, the nation was not yet much more enlightened as to the real principles of trade than it was in the previous century. The same absurd restrictions were in force against foreign merchants. Such foreign merchants were required to lay out all the money received for goods imported in English merchandise. No gold or silver coin, plate or bullion, was, on any account, to be carried out of the kingdom. Banks were now established in most countries, and bills of exchange had been in use since the thirteenth century—so that these remedied, to a large extent, this evil; but it is clear that where the exports of a country exceeded its imports, the balance must be remitted in cash; and the commercial men were clever enough to evade all the laws of this kind. No fact was so notorious as that the coinage of England abounded in all the countries to which she traded.
Besides the prohibition of carrying out any English coin or even bullion, foreign merchants were to sell all the goods they brought within three months, but they were not to sell any of them to other merchant strangers, and when they arrived in any English town they were assigned to particular hosts, and were to lodge nowhere else. Yet, under all these obstacles, our commerce grew, and our merchants extended their voyages to ports and countries which they had not hitherto frequented. In 1413 they fitted out ships in the port of London for Morocco, having a cargo of wool and other merchandise valued at £24,000, or £240,000 of our money. This raised the ire of the Genoese, who seized these precious ships; but Henry IV. soon made ample reprisals by granting to his subjects letters of marque to seize the ships and goods of the Genoese wherever they could be found. And so well did the English kings follow this up, that we find them in Richard III.'s reign not only successfully competing with the Genoese, but obtaining a footing in Italy itself, and establishing a consul at Pisa. Consuls, or, as they were then called, governors, of the English traders abroad, were also employed during this period in Germany, Prussia, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Holland, and Flanders.
From the Froissart MS. in the British Museum.
FROISSART PRESENTING HIS BOOK OF LOVE POEMS TO RICHARD II. IN 1395.
ON HIS RETURN TO ENGLAND IN 1395, AFTER AN ABSENCE OF TWENTY-SEVEN YEARS, SIR JOHN FROISSART HAD AN INTERVIEW WITH THE KING, TO WHOM HE PRESENTED HIS BOOK OF LOVE POEMS. "THE ROMANCE OF MELIADOR."