By this time there was on both sides a sufficient accumulation of grievances to warrant the holding of another diet to clear the air. It was fixed to take place at Antwerp in 1542. But the League made the customary excuses when it came to the point. What they feared most was a searching discussion of their whole position. They were conscious that, whatever a parchment signed and sealed seventy years before might say, their privileges were an absurdity in the light of common sense, and that any modification could only be in one direction. Accordingly the Consuls and Senators of Lubeck wrote to Henry thanking him for appointing a day for the diet, but begging to be excused from sending representatives as the wars rendered Antwerp an unsafe meeting-place.[[113]] This persistent evasion of discussion shows the weakness of their position. The morale of the attack was with the English merchants and, even in an age when morality went for very little in public matters, their sense of injustice rendered the reduction of the preposterous advantages enjoyed by a company of aliens only a matter of time. For the moment, however, the inevitable conclusion was again postponed. A new war was in progress with Scotland and in prospect with France, and, as usual, naval and military necessities rendered peace with the Hansa indispensable.
The fact that the League’s naval power was never used against Henry VIII must not be allowed to obscure the fact that it could have been so used, and that, if it had been, the consequences to him would have been most serious. As it was, in this last French war of his, the navies on either side of the Channel were practically equal; the French, indeed, were superior in material strength. Thus the king simply could not afford to quarrel with the League, and, instead of pressing the matter of the diet, he appears to have made extensive concessions. Such is the implication to be derived from a letter from Lubeck dated April 6, 1543, in which it is stated that the Hanse towns are greatly indebted to Henry and will never do anything to his prejudice.[[114]] Two years later several Hanse vessels served in his fleet against the French.
So ended the last passage of arms between the League and Henry VIII. Friendly alliance persisted thenceforward to the end of the reign. In 1544 a large consignment of ships, rigging, and stores was received from Danzig for the use of the Navy.[[115]] Henry was treacherously treated by the emperor, who made an unexpected peace with France in 1544. The hostile relations which resulted between England and the Imperial Government placed the Merchant Adventurers in difficulties in the Netherlands. Oppressive taxes were imposed on them and, for a time, they and their goods were under arrest.[[116]] From these troubles the Hansa made its profit, and was soon absorbing an ever-increasing share of the cloth export to Antwerp, a trade which the Merchant Adventurers had always regarded as peculiarly their own. When Henry died the prosperity of the London Hansa was at its highest point, and formed a striking contrast to the ruin which overtook it a few years later. Broadly considered, it seems surprising that such an undoubted anachronism should have survived so far into the noon-day of Tudor rule. The explanation, as has been shown, is to be found in the wars of Henry VIII and the relative weakness of his navy as compared with the demands he made upon it. His personal position was so elevated and commanding that he seldom needed to stoop to ignoble truckling with factions, as did the rulers who immediately succeeded him. From his lofty standpoint he viewed the interests of the nation as a whole, and placed its safety above the more sectional desire of the merchants to score off their foreign rivals. Consequently he seems to have been over-generous in his treatment of the Hanseatic League, to have failed to realize that it must be crushed before England could take a leading place among the maritime nations. But it is doubtful if precipitate action would better have advanced the interests of English commerce than did the policy actually pursued. When the time was ripe the inevitable happened, and our trade was free to expand without the drag of privileged competition within our gates.
The accession to power of the Duke of Somerset did not produce any immediate change in the position of the Hansa, although doubtless the Merchant Adventurers were quick to see that their chance had come with the troublous times of a minority. The Act granting tonnage and poundage for the reign contained a clause in favour of the ancient privileges of the Steelyard, but with a proviso for their maintenance during the existing Parliament only. For the time being the prospect of trouble with Scotland and France forced Somerset to hold his hand, if indeed he had any intention of yielding to the demands of the League’s enemies. The Protestant sympathies of the new Government tended rather towards alliance with the German powers. Within two months of Henry’s death a proposal was on foot to lend 50,000 crowns to the Duke of Saxony and the Free Towns, to be repaid by the latter in cables, masts, anchors, pitch, and other naval stores;[[117]] and in the same year the suspension of the statutes limiting the export of unwrought cloth, and the permission of the free export of the same by Englishmen, was extended to the Hansa also for a limited period. This favourable treatment continued even after the deposition of Somerset, during the two years from the autumn of 1549 to autumn of 1551, in which Warwick was consolidating his power. Thus, when the Hanse establishment at Hull was being oppressively used by the civic authorities, letters were addressed to the Mayor and Jurats enjoining them to cease their aggressions and to refrain from imposing new imposts.[[118]] Hitherto the only measure suggestive of hostility to the Hansa had been an Act passed in 1548 to suppress ‘colouring’. This was a method of defrauding the customs and consisted in the passing of the property of others through the custom-house as their own by those who paid reduced duties, as did the Easterlings. The offence was extensively charged against them, probably with good reason.
Apparently, therefore, the death of Henry had made no difference to the position of the Hansa; and their privileges, which even he had never seriously challenged, seemed more strongly rooted than ever. During these years their business, by all accounts, increased to an enormous extent. It is to be hoped that they made some sacrifice to Nemesis, in the shape of insurance against the evil times that followed. The very weakness of the Government, which seemed their best guarantee, was in the end to be the cause of their ruin. By the year 1551 the administration was in serious financial difficulties, and was resorting to such desperate measures as the wholesale debasement of the coinage. English credit diminished abroad, and the rate of exchange at Antwerp fell alarmingly. Thomas Gresham, a protégé of Warwick’s, was sent to the Low Countries to exercise his business genius in remedying matters;[[119]] at the same time the Merchant Adventurers were called upon for extensive loans, and, backed by Gresham, they were clamorous for the revocation, in return, of the privileges of the Hansa. That momentous step was accordingly resolved upon by Warwick, not as the culminating act in a piece of patriotic diplomacy, but as a stake thrown on the table by an irresponsible gambler, risking what is not his own. That the consequences were not immediately disastrous may be admitted, but the country was scarcely in a strong enough position for such a risk to be taken, as the feebleness of the fleet in subsequent actions was to demonstrate. The suppression of the Hanse privileges was necessary and desirable; but it should have been deferred to a time when the English navy was strong enough to maintain unaided the command of the narrow seas. Such undoubtedly would have been the policy of Henry VIII.
Warwick was now on the point of consummating his triumph over the rival faction of Somerset, crippled, though not destroyed, two years before. In October 1551 he was created Duke of Northumberland by the pliant young king. The second and final arrest of Somerset followed, and his trial on fabricated charges began on December 1. On January 22, 1552, Somerset’s head fell on the scaffold and Northumberland was henceforth, in fact though not in name, supreme ruler of England.
Meanwhile the tragedy of the London Hansa was proceeding concomitantly with that of the great protector. The first hint of its impending fate was contained in an order sent on December 12 to the Clerk of Chancery to search for the last letters patent granted by the king to the Steelyard men, ‘about January was twelvemonth’, and to send a copy of the same for immediate consideration.[[120]] As compared with the prolonged diplomatic struggles which the Hansa had already survived, its suppression was accomplished with surprising rapidity. On the 29th the alderman and some of the merchants of the Steelyard were summoned before the Council.[[121]] The information laid against them by the Merchant Adventurers was recited and a copy delivered to them in writing. Briefly, the charges were as follows: That there was no definition of the exact extent of the League, and that thus it was enabled to admit whom it liked to its liberties, to the detriment of the revenue and of the trade of the English merchants; that the Steelyard men ‘coloured’ foreigners’ goods extensively; that their export of English cloth to the Low Countries and elsewhere, and the import of goods from neutral countries, constituted an infraction of their original privileges, which provided only that they should deal in suae merces, a phrase interpreted by the English as meaning the produce solely of their own territories; and that the treaty of 1474, providing that Englishmen should enjoy similar privileges in German ports, had not been adhered to.[[122]]
It is probable that, although they had been living under the shadow of some such crisis for over half a century, the blow fell unexpectedly at last. No preliminary warning of a categorical nature is discoverable in the surviving evidence, and it is natural to suppose that Northumberland, Gresham, and the governing clique of the Merchant Adventurers concerted their measures in secrecy. The whole process of trial and judgement certainly reads like a foregone conclusion. The Easterlings took nearly three weeks to consider their reply, which they presented on January 18, 1552. The Solicitor-General and three other lawyers were appointed to deal with it, and the matter was before the Council on January 25 and February 9. The advocates of the rival corporations argued their several cases, the Hansa showing ‘divers writings and charters’, which, however, were not thought to be of sufficient force. The hearing was adjourned to the 18th, when the Merchant Adventurers made their retort to the defence and nothing remained but for judgement to be pronounced.[[123]] Judgement was not slow to follow, since the case had been decided before ever it was opened, and it was desirable to make an end before the arrival of ambassadors known to be on their way from the Baltic towns. These latter must, in bare courtesy, be listened to, and their eloquence would but delay the inevitable result.
Accordingly, on February 24, 1552, the decision was promulgated in a document which still rests among the Public Records, endorsed in Cecil’s hand as ‘The Decree against the Styllyard’. The Calendar of Foreign State Papers gives the pith of it as follows:
1. The pretended privileges are void because the merchants have no sufficient corporation to receive the same.