As always, the Hansa was strongly averse to the proposed diet for a final settlement, and the allotted year in which it was to be held slipped by without any steps being taken. Conscious that the diet was a trap which would mutilate still further their diminished privileges, they postponed the evil day as long as possible, trusting doubtless that international complications would arise to save them, as had happened so often on previous occasions. The year elapsed and no delegates appeared. Nevertheless, on April 12, 1557, the Council resolved that, notwithstanding the expiry of the last settlement, judgement should be suspended for five weeks longer, during which period they might export 2,000 cloths, on the understanding that the diet should commence without delay.[[142]] This produced yet another embassy. It arrived before the end of the same month, and we read that Sir James Tregonwell was appointed to conduct the negotiations. They were hopeless from the first; the points of view of the two parties were irreconcilable, and in less than a month the ambassadors were taking their departure, leaving the business on the same footing as before.[[143]] Again, in October, the queen was corresponding direct with Lubeck, still pressing the question of the diet. The concessions of March 1556 had long expired, but the Easterlings were still carrying on a languishing trade on the same terms as other aliens. It was a situation their pride could not submit to, and by the end of the year all intercourse was at an end between England and the League.
The first hostilities emanated from the latter. During the summer all English ships arriving at Danzig were arrested, compelled to land their cargoes, and to pay extortionate duties on the same, forbidden to load anything in return, and only allowed to depart on the merchants taking oath that they would go home in ballast without purchasing grain anywhere else. It was alleged that fifty-five English vessels were served in this way. At Hamburg also the English were molested. Finally, on August 24, a decree of the Council of the Hansa at Lubeck proclaimed the banishment of all English ships, men, and goods from the Hanse towns.[[144]] Negotiations were still continued by letter, but the expulsion was enforced, as is shown by a missive from the Duke of Schleswig to the queen. Writing on January 1, 1558, he suggested that several places in his dominions might be found suitable for the trade of English merchants, in consequence of the suspension of intercourse between England and the Hansa.
The quarrel threatened to entail serious consequences to England and Spain in their war with France. A shortage of corn in England emphasized the closing of the Baltic marts and increased popular discontent against the Government. Serious fears were entertained[[145]] of a maritime league between the Hansa, Denmark, and the French; and King Philip was unceasing in his recommendations of peace. But he had shown only too thoroughly his utter callousness towards English interests, and no attention was paid to his advice. Another embassy from the Hansa appeared in March 1558, but failed as the others had done. No permanent agreement was to be expected before the conclusion of a general European pacification, in which all the international questions which had been ripening for half a century might receive consideration. England and Spain had for the past two years been fighting France. As far as England was concerned, the war represented the last chapter in the history of the great Burgundian alliance, which, after enduring for a century and a half and bringing numerous benefits, was now ending in shame and ruin. France had indeed been worsted on the Flemish frontier, but England had sustained the disastrous loss of Calais. On all sides there was a genuine weariness of strife.
The peace congress opened at Arras and concluded its labours at Câteau Cambrésis, from which place the treaty took its name. To the conferences the Hansa sent representatives,[[146]] and the English envoys received instructions to conclude a peace with them if terms could possibly be arranged.[[147]] But still both sides remained obstinate. The larger questions were settled or in process of settlement, while the commercial matter seemed insoluble. At this juncture the death of Mary introduced fresh factors into the problem, which proved not to be auspicious to the Hansa. One of the promoters of the original revocation of the Hanse privileges, Sir William Cecil, was called to a prominent position in the counsels of the new queen. Acting doubtless on his advice, Elizabeth maintained a firm attitude, resolving to secure once and for all the equitable treatment of English commerce in the North Sea.
In the ‘considerations’ delivered to the Parliament of 1559 it is recommended that ‘the Queen’s Highness in no wise restore to the Steelyard their liberties; for they not only intercepted much of the English merchants’ trade but, by concealment of strangers’ goods, robbed the Queen of customs 10,000 marks a year at least, which was so sweet to them that, as some of them confess, they gained in Queen Mary’s time among solicitors above £10,000 in bribes’.[[148]] Elizabeth pursued the line of policy here indicated. On July 2, 1559, she wrote to the Council of Lubeck saying that she had consulted the councillors of Queen Mary, who had informed her that, during the reign of Edward VI, the privileges had been withdrawn by the Crown in consequence of abuse. Although Queen Mary, out of regard for them, had introduced certain just modifications, they had neglected to observe them, and had behaved with great cruelty to England, publicly forbidding intercourse. The late queen might have retaliated, but did not, satisfying herself with imposing certain reasonable conditions on the intercourse of the Hanse towns with England. These regulations had again been violated, and the former acts of ingratitude and inhumanity repeated. She (Elizabeth) would not proceed to interdict all intercourse, but would continue things as Queen Mary left them. If they had reasons against this they were to declare them.[[149]]
Here was obviously an invitation to the Hansa to come to terms, although the terms must be those formulated by England. Accordingly, after further delay, the long struggle was finally settled in 1560. The Easterlings were given the liberty of exporting cloth to their own states at the same duty as paid by Englishmen, provided that they sent none to the Low Countries or Italy. Goods imported by them into England from other than their own states were to pay 1d. less in the £ than those imported by other foreigners; while cloths exported by them to other than their own states were to pay 12d. per cloth less. Counter-balancing privileges were secured for Englishmen in the Hanse towns.[[150]] Thus the two great questions of the cloth export and the carrying trade were settled substantially in favour of England, an auspicious opening to a reign which was to witness a hitherto unprecedented expansion of her maritime interests. Shorn of a great part of their ancient privileges, and with their pride humbled by defeat in a long-contested struggle, the tenants of the Steelyard lived peaceably in London for nearly half a century more, until their final expulsion in 1598. By that time England had become so relatively great and the Hansa so small that the eviction of the Easterlings was accomplished with no more stir than would have accompanied the seizure by the bailiffs of a private debtor’s house.
CHAPTER VIII
THE ENGLISH IN THE NORTH SEA
The first half of the reign of Henry VIII was undoubtedly the palmiest time in the history of the Merchant Adventurers. Under Henry VII their position in the North Sea had been firmly established by the series of treaties which that monarch had concluded with the Netherlands and by his unbending attitude towards the Hansa. Their constitution had also been settled on a permanent basis by the failure of the attempt of the ring of London capitalists to form a small and exclusive society and by the new charter of incorporation granted in 1505. Thus at the outset of the new period which commenced in 1509 they had only to push on their expansion along lines already laid down, and to gather strength for the culminating struggle with the Hanseatic League which has been described in the previous chapter.
The earlier wars and politics of Henry VIII had little, if any, prejudicial effect on the North Sea merchants. French sea-power did not often manifest itself east of the Straits of Dover, while that of Scotland was so vastly inferior to the forces it had to face that it constituted little hindrance to English trade. It is true that the piracies of Andrew Barton and his associates created a great stir at the time; but it is probable that the actual damage done was small in proportion, and English warships were able to make the occupation of the rovers much more risky than was that of their quarry. The cardinal point of Henry’s policy, previous to the Reformation, was friendship with the Empire. As long, therefore, as this state of affairs endured, Englishmen enjoyed comparatively favourable treatment in the Netherlands. The ties of self-interest united the two countries; England requiring a market for her surplus produce of cloth and wool, and the Flemings needing raw or semi-manufactured material for the refined products of their craftsmen, who supplied the wealthy of the whole of northern Europe with delicate garments, velvets, tapestries and metal ware. The cargoes shipped into England from the Low Countries were now also beginning to include the spices, drugs, sugar, and other oriental luxuries[[151]] which had hitherto been brought by the carracks and galleys of the Italian merchant states.
The warlike preparations consequent on Henry’s entry into the Holy League were largely furthered by supplies drawn from the Netherlands. The craft of gunfounding was in its infancy in England, and most of the heavier weapons were obtained from the foundries of Mechlin. Hans Popenruyter of that town supplied forty-eight heavy guns in 1512, the largest weighing nearly two tons.[[152]] At this time the ships of the Merchant Adventurers sailed as usual, proceeding in company for greater safety, and being convoyed or ‘wafted’ by warships detailed for the purpose.