Distress among shipowners, not royal favourites A.D. 1461.
These intestine commotions and civil wars, combined with the impolicy of the crown, had reduced the merchant shipping of England to a state of great distress. A few merchants, however, during the long but unfortunate reign of Henry VI. had been, by special favour, enabled to realize large fortunes. John Taverner, a ship-owner of Kingston-upon-Hull, having built in 1449 one of the largest merchant vessels of the period, received a licence to take on board wool, tin, lambs’-skins, hides, or any other merchandise, the property of English or foreign merchants, and carry them to Italy, on “paying alien’s duty.”[634] William Canynge, an eminent merchant of Bristol, who sent his factors to foreign parts, was likewise favoured by letters from the king to the grand master of Prussia and the magistrates of Danzig, recommending to their good offices the representatives of “his beloved and honourable merchant.”[635] Although prohibited by Act of Parliament, Canynge, when mayor of Bristol, on account of services said to have been rendered to the king, had a special licence to employ two ships, of whatever burden he pleased, during two years, in the trade between England and Iceland and Finmark, and to export any species of goods not restricted by the staple of Calais.[636] Canynge appears to have been one of the most important ship-owners of England of the period. He is said to have possessed ships of four, five, and even nine hundred tons burden, which were far above the average size of the merchant vessels of the period. On one occasion he supplied Edward IV. with two thousand six hundred and seventy tons of shipping, a fact recorded on his famous monument in the church of St. Mary Redcliffe, Bristol, itself one of the most beautiful structures of the fifteenth century.[637]
Fresh legislative enactments.
First “sliding scale,”
As the commercial legislation of England, previously to the reign of Edward IV., had been full of irregularities and inconsistencies, exhibiting itself as at one time liberal in the extreme to foreigners against its own subjects, at another retaliatory to its own prejudice and unwise in its prohibitions; this monarch, on his accession to the throne, introduced various legislative measures professing to regulate upon something like fixed principles the maritime commerce of the country. Thus Parliament, in the third year of his reign, granted the king, for life, a subsidy of 3s. upon every tun of wine imported, and a poundage of twelve pennies in perpetuity on the prime cost of all goods exported or imported for the defence of the realm and especially for the guard of the sea. Another Act in the same year, which had for its object the encouragement of home manufactures, prohibited foreigners from buying or shipping wool from either England or Wales; and ordained, adopting the permissive principles of a former Act, that no English merchant should ship any goods, outward or homeward, in foreign vessels unless sufficient space could not be found in English shipping.[638] In the following year the importation of corn, except the produce of Wales, Ireland, or of the islands belonging to England, was prohibited whenever wheat did not exceed 6s. 8d., rye, 4s., and barley 3s. per quarter.
applied to the importation of corn.
Nor did these prohibitory and protective laws end here. Another law[639] enacts, on the faith of “representations made by the male and female artificers of London, and of other cities, towns, and villages of England and Wales,” that as certain foreign articles were of inferior quality, their importation be limited for a time by the king’s pleasure; while the sale of woollen caps or cloths, ribands, fringes of silk or thread, saddles, stirrups, harness, spurs, fire-tongs, dripping-pans, dice, tennis-balls, purses, gloves, and innumerable other articles, were entirely prohibited. It soon, however, became apparent that the articles of foreign manufacture, which had been thus prohibited, were far superior in quality to similar articles produced in England; so that the change of the law, while greatly increasing their cost, to the benefit, it is true, of the manufacturer, entailed a corresponding loss upon those who were his customers.
Relaxation of the laws by means of treaties, A.D. 1467.
The Scottish Parliament, following the example of England, passed several Acts of a similar character, all, no doubt, intended for the advancement, but most of them probably operating for the obstruction, of commerce. Experience soon proved to even the framers of these prohibitory laws that considerable relaxation must be made. Indeed, towards the close of the very year on which the most stringent of them were passed, a treaty of alliance between England and Denmark allowed the merchants of both countries free access to the ports of the other; while a treaty between Edward and the Duke of Bretagne permitted the subjects of both princes a mutual liberty of trade in all merchandise not specially prohibited.[640]
A.D. 1471.