The first Spanish ships to meet their fate were the stragglers from the main body of the Armada. Above is shown one such vessel being engaged by an English captain. The great Spanish galleon is quite at the mercy of the smaller but handier vessel, which has got the wind of her enemy, and is pouring a destructive fire into her prow.
The adverse influence of this great confederation of German cities upon our country for two or three centuries has never been sufficiently emphasized in our histories. Possibly the earlier historians who were contemporary with the Hanseatics were "got at" by their representatives, who swarmed in this country and had an organized system of bribery, with a regulated scale of bribes for all sorts of people, from the Lord Mayor of London downwards. They seem to have been about the only people in the later Middle Ages with ready cash in the north of Europe, and they were glad to lend the Kings of England money to carry on their interminable wars with France in return for various concessions, which generally hit British trade pretty hard. They knew how to get good security for their loans, and in Edward III's time they actually had the British crown in pawn at Cologne! One proof of their tremendous financial influence in this country remains to this day in the word "sterling". We still say "one pound sterling", "sterling gold", &c. Now "sterling" is nothing but a corrupted form of "easterling"—a man from the eastward, as these Hanse traders used to be called—when they were not referred to as "Prussians".
At the Conquest, and for long afterwards, we were a nation of agriculturists, soldiers, fishermen, and sailors. Our only regular trade was in wool, therefore known as the "staple" industry—generally "the staple" for short. It was the desire to get their greedy fingers into this our only "pie" that first brought the Hanse traders into this country in force some time in the thirteenth century, though we had not been free from them since the days of Ethelred. They were allowed to make their head-quarters in the Steelyard in London (where Cannon Street Station now stands), to import merchandise on paying a nominal duty of 1 per cent, to be licensed victuallers, keeping inns, hotels, and wine shops, to have special courts of jurisdiction of their own, which put them above English law, and actually to hold one of the gates of the city. Have we not seen this financial, business, trading, and inn-keeping undermining of British interests in our own day by the modern easterlings?
Later historians preferred rather to dilate on our victories than to refer to our encounters at sea with the Hanseatics, in which we did not always show to advantage. For these traders, like their modern representatives, were good pirates on occasion, had a considerable number of fighting-ships at their command, and, according to some authorities, had complete control of the northern seas. Nor was there any reciprocity about their trading arrangements. They made a rule that only their own ships were to carry the goods they dealt in, and sank any English ship that attempted to break it. At the same time they would not allow our ships into the Baltic to interfere with their trade with Russia and Scandinavia, and now and again in return for some real or pretended grievance attacked our seaboard and hung the crews of our coasters to their own masts. All the time they were endeavouring to strangle our trade from their London head-quarters. Like an American "Trust", they were generally able to ruin individuals or smaller companies which endeavoured to compete with them.
LORD HOWARD ATTACKING A SHIP OF THE SPANISH ARMADA
In this fruitless attempt to invade our shores ten thousand Spaniards gave up their lives. England lost but one ship and about a hundred men.
Naturally the "Prussians" were not loved in this country, and it is said that Wat Tyler's insurrection was to a great extent directed against these interlopers, the insurgents killing as many of them as they could get hold of. But their influence with the Government always saved them till the days of the Tudors, when, in spite of all obstacles, our merchants began to make headway. Edward VI imposed heavy duties and restrictions on them, and established an alliance and a trading connection with Russia by sending a mission to Moscow by way of Archangel. The marriage of Queen Mary with Philip of Spain gave the Hanse merchants their chance, since the Prince Consort's father—Charles V—was Emperor of Germany. The privileges which had been taken away from the "Prussians" by her brother were restored; but they were not to hold them long. Queen Elizabeth had an eye to business; she saw how the Germans were hampering the development of our trade, and reimposed Edward VI's duty of 20 per cent on the Hanse merchants of the Steelyard. But she found that she still had to buy gunpowder and other munitions of war from them, because she could not get them elsewhere, and she did not like them the better for that. Neither did they like the reimposed duties, and they were only too glad to assist the Spanish Armada by sending a fleet laden with provisions and munitions to the Tagus. Drake and the navy countered by seizing the whole of these ships.
The Hanseatics, who had already before this laboured "to render the English merchants obnoxious to the other trading nations by various calumnies", retaliated by turning every Englishman out of Germany. This did not affect us very much, as, though there were a comparatively small number of the "merchants of the staple" and the "merchant adventurers" settled in that country, their trade and interests were not comparable with that of the merchants of the Steelyard in England. But the Hanseatics got a "knock out" blow in return from "good Queen Bess", who turned the whole collection of German merchants out of England, "lock, stock, and barrel", and so freed the country of a menace which, while not so obvious, was probably more insidiously dangerous than the Spanish Armada. Then followed the break-up of Germany in the Thirty Years' War, and British trade came by its own. It does seem a pity that "once bit" we were not "twice shy". Our historians are considerably to blame; but, in any case, we ought not to have so entirely forgotten what a menace German trade and German immigration might be to this country.
"What has all this to do with the navy?" may perhaps be asked. Possibly not much at first sight, but in reality a great deal. If, during the centuries the Hanse merchants were throttling our trade, we had maintained a formidable and national navy instead of pursuing a hand-to-mouth policy and utilizing our ships principally as ferry-boats to take our armies over to France, we might have been in a better position to deal with the Hanse League. We could have prevented interference with our ships, forced our way into the Baltic, and extended our trade. On the other hand, the navy was not a national navy, but, generally speaking, a personal appanage of the reigning monarch, who as often as not was very heavily in debt to the "Prussians". Gold is a very powerful factor, even in naval warfare, if judiciously applied, and not misapplied, as when some of our feebler Saxon kings bought off the viking invaders with "Danegelt".
I am tempted, before leaving the Hansa, to relate a story of one of their smaller naval operations, which, I must premise, is taken from a German source, so you can believe as much or as little of it as you please. But it is not a bad story in its way. Our King Edward IV had fallen out with the King of Denmark, who, in retaliation for a real or alleged piratical attack made by the traders of Lynn upon his dominions in Iceland, set to work to capture our merchantmen, using apparently the ships of his allies, the Hanse League, for the purpose. King Edward, in his turn, at once closed the Steelyard, and, according to this account, strangled many of its merchants, and demanded £20,000 compensation for his captured ships. At this time there were a couple of rather big Hanse ships lying in a Dutch harbour, the Mariendrache and the Anholt. Hearing of the English preparations for war, Paul Beneke, who was in command, stood over to Deal under French colours to intercept the Lord Mayor of London, who was expected to land there on his way back from Paris in La Cygne of Dieppe. How he discovered this we are not told.