THE STEELYARD, LONDON. (From an old Print.)
The rich merchants of Cologne were the earliest to obtain special favours. These were accorded by Richard Cœur de Lion, who, halting in that city to attend high mass in the cathedral after his release from Austrian imprisonment, received there such ample supplies towards the heavy ransom money required for his person, that, to show his gratitude, he gave to his "beloved burghers of Cologne" a letter of freedom, in which he released them from their annual rent of two shillings for their guildhall in London, and from all other taxes due to the king upon their persons or their merchandise. It was long ere King John, his successor, could make up his mind to renew these privileges, but his own difficulties with his turbulent barons, and the pressure which the merchants could bring to bear by their riches, at last overcame his hesitation. Edward I. and his followers further extended these prerogatives, for the Plantagenets found the Hanseatic Rothschilds even more useful in aiding their war schemes than the skilful alchymists whom they had summoned to their Court, and who knew how to shape the Rose noble (the money of the period) out of artificial gold. Then, too, the Hanseatics were considerate creditors, who did not press unduly, and even overlooked a debt if some favour were extended in default of payment.
Edward the Third's crown and most costly jewels were long retained at Cologne in pawn for a heavy sum of money. The details concerning this transaction are preserved to this day in a correspondence deposited in the State Paper Office of London. It seems that when the time for redemption came the king had not the money. He was in special straits just then, for the celebrated commercial firm of the Bardi, at Florence, which constituted the very focus of the Italian money business, had failed, and the King of England appeared in their books as a debtor for the sum of one million golden gulden. The merchants of the Steelyard were not slow adroitly to turn the royal perplexity to their profit. They undertook to redeem the pawned jewels and offered the king loans of more money, although he already owed them much. Edward was in sore need, for the wars with France strained his resources to the utmost. He drew upon them for thirty thousand pounds, a sum worth fifteen times more then than to-day. Thus it came about that the great victories of the Black Prince at Crecy and Poitiers were gained in no small degree by the help of German capital. Needless to add that the Hanseatic merchants showed no diffidence in accepting for their factory important privileges in return for these services.
BARDI PALACE, FLORENCE.
It was to a German merchant prince that the king let the tin mines belonging to the Black Prince in the Duchy of Cornwall. To the same firm he ceded a large number of farms situated in different shires for the space of a thousand years.
The Easterlings are spoken of in records as the allies of the English kings, and there seemed at last no limit to the royal favours.
That the people did not look upon them with the same friendly eye is easy to understand. The English, full of a just sentiment of what they could do by themselves, and of what they were hindered from doing by these foreign monopolists, bore their presence with extreme impatience. Feuds and riots were not infrequent, and no royal favours, no Hanseatic ships of war could save them from occasional brutal attacks at the hands of the mob. Thus during the Wat Tyler rebellion the people pursued the hated foreigners even into the sanctuary of the church, murdering mercilessly all those who could not pronounce the words "bread and cheese" with the pure English accent. But these rebellions were quelled by the royal commands, or extinguished themselves by the fact that the Hanseatics were also useful to the English people, oppressed by the feudal system and engaged in constant wars, whose trade industries were thus unable to develop quickly. Nor did such passing storms shake the power or the resistance of the Hanseatics. Bloody encounters, rude tumults were entirely in keeping with the license and roughness of those earlier ages, and were met by the League, more or less, in all their foreign stations.