READING HALL DOORS OF WISDOM

DOORS OF WISDOM

ENGLAND UNDER THE TUDORS.KING HENRY VII(1485-1509).

CHAPTER II.

FOREIGN COMPLICATIONS: FRANCE, BRITTANY, AND SPAIN.

When Henry VII ascended the throne, England had lost that magnificent position in Europe which had been acquired for her by Henry V. As piece by piece the continental conquests fell back again to France, England’s prestige disappeared, and the long and destructive civil war caused the influence of the kingdom to lie completely fallow, so far as foreign affairs were concerned. To dream of regaining the former powerful position was out of the question; the new ruler had to be content, if he could regain for England that measure of respect which she could not dispense with in her intercourse with her neighbours.

It was in France that Henry had last found shelter and help to enable him to come home; therefore, on his return from exile, a definite connection existed between him and France, not at all in keeping with the national tradition, founded on a century of enmity. Thus he appeared from the first destined to put an end to the old quarrel between the two countries; as early as the 12th of October, 1485, even before his coronation, he announced a one year’s truce with France, which promised for his subjects safe commercial intercourse, and this after some negotiations was extended to two years, and again on the 17th of January, i486, replaced by a new three years’ treaty.

Besides the French ambassador, others also had soon appeared, from the Archduke Maximilian of Austria and the Duke of Brittany; all, it was believed, with peaceful intentions. But to keep up such friendly relations on all sides for any length of time was obviously impossible; for Anne de Beaujeu still continued to strive with ever-increasing energy for the final incorporation of the duchy. The neighbouring States, such as Burgundy, Spain, and England, had an interest in its preservation; they could not fail to regard the extension of the power of France with dislike; England, especially, after the disappearance of an independent Brittany, would find herself exposed to a long line of unbroken French coast. It remained to be seen whether this interest would so far outweigh the desire for peace and internal stability for England and his new monarchy, that Henry would, for the sake of it, risk the danger of difficult foreign entanglements, and the rupture of relations lately established with France.

In Brittany the enemies of Landois had contrived in July, 1485, to get the hated favourite into their power, and to have him executed, whereupon De Rieux and his companions again returned from France. The victory of her friends was also a gain for Anne de Beaujeu, especially as in France itself the overthrow of the Duke of Orleans took place at the same time, and an advance of Maximilian’s into Artois was checked. Of no less importance for Anne was Henry’s victory over Richard, which would withdraw England from the ranks of her enemies; she intended now to spend all her energies on Brittany.

How could Duke Francis resist such a foe without allies? As a reward for help, he offered the hand of his eldest daughter Anne, still a child, whom the Breton Estates had acknowledged by an oath of fealty to be his heiress and successor.

The indefatigable Maximilian was the first in the field. Since the death of his wife, Mary (March 26, 1482), he had laid claim to the government of her greatly diminished Burgundian inheritance, in the place of his son Philip, still a minor ; but it was not till the summer of 1485, after a long dispute, that he was recognised as guardian by the Flemish Estates, who were constantly being stirred up and helped against him by France. On the 16th of February, 1486, took place at Frankfort his election as king of the Romans and successor to his father, the old Emperor Frederick III. Eager to requite his enemies for the support afforded to his Flemish foes, he concluded on the 15th of March, 1486, a treaty which was to secure independence to Brittany, and which promised to him the hand of the Princess Anne, and to his son Philip that of her younger sister Isabeau.

This did not prevent Duke Francis from making the same offer of his daughter’s hand to the powerful Lord d’Albret in the south of France, in order to gain his support for Brittany. France, however, arrived more quickly on the scene of action, and made the attack with three armies at once. Meanwhile a sharp contention was going on in the Breton Government between the native nobles and the fugitive French, amongst whom was Louis of Orleans. A series of fortified places fell, and D’Albret, who was advancing with a few thousand men, was driven back. But the siege of the strongly fortified town of Nantes had to be raised in August, 1487, and thus the campaign, which had begun successfully for the French, ended with a disaster; and still more serious was Rieux’s defection from the treaty concluded with Anne de Beaujeu. Maximilian’s offer to send forces for the purpose of protecting Brittany caused her less anxiety, for he was soon entirely taken up with his quarrel with the rebellious Flemish towns.

Notwithstanding the conclusion of a treaty of peace, Anne de Beaujeu deemed it advisable, in consequence of recent events, to secure for herself the neutrality of Henry. Perhaps she was not very sorry that Simnel’s insurrection should keep a check on the king, but the victory at Stoke, in June, 1487, had quickly brought it to an end. When, after a long stay in the north of England, Henry was returning slowly to London, there met him in Leicester, at the beginning of September, a French embassage which was to justify the action of France, and, if possible, to beg for Henry’s aid. No one had more cause to draw back from foreign complications than Henry, who had but just passed through dangers at home; still, prudence bade him assume, at least outwardly, an independent attitude, that he might thereby not appear indifferent in an affair which concerned English interests. He seized on the convenient plan of offering to both parties his mediation, through Christopher Urswick, in May, 1488, and the French Government, hoping thus to gain time, agreed. But in Brittany, where Louis of Orleans was the ruling spirit, Urswick was dismissed, and a demand made for help from England, whilst France made use of the delay thus given to again beleaguer Nantes.

Henry had reserved for himself a free hand: Brittany had not been mentioned in the French treaty, nor indeed had France, in a similar commercial treaty with Duke Francis. He endeavoured to inspire a certain amount of respect for his office of mediator by equipping a fleet, for which Parliament had granted the necessary funds, but much to his annoyance, and against his express command, his wife’s uncle, Edward, Lord Woodville, sailed over secretly from Southampton in a Breton ship, with two hundred warlike adventurers, to take part in the war against France. On the way too they captured a French vessel, and so arrived in Brittany with war booty. Henry immediately made his apologies to France, where the occurrence had caused such bitterness of feeling that the English ambassador, Urswick, was even exposed to personal danger. Henry’s best apology was the renewal, at Windsor, on the 14th of July, 1488, of the treaty which would have expired in the coming January, and was now extended for a year longer, to January, 1490.

Breton affairs entered shortly afterwards upon a new phase. On the 28th of July, 1488, at St. Aubin du Cormier, a decisive battle was fought between the victoriously advancing French, under the youthful La Tremouille, and the Bretons, on whose side were fighting Orleans, D’Albret, and Woodville. It ended in a complete victory for the French. Orleans was taken prisoner, Woodville fell, and with him nearly all the Englishmen. After some further small engagements, Duke Francis was forced to beg for peace in a humble epistle to his “sovereign lord,” Charles VIII, and to promise, in the treaty of Sablé (August 20, 1488), to send the enemies of France out of his country, and, above all, not to marry his daughter without the permission of the French king. On the 31st of August he signed the treaty, and on the 9th of September he died, to be succeeded by his daughter Anne, a child of twelve.

Anne de Beaujeu, whose husband had, at the beginning of 1488, inherited the power and dignity of the Dukes of Bourbon, now at once raised a claim for the wardship, in opposition to the Marshal de Rieux. She disputed the right of the youthful Anne to bear the ducal title, and the consequence was that the war of devastation in Brittany went on. The young duchess Anne could expect but little help in this juncture from her suitor Maximilian, for he had been taken prisoner at Bruges in February, 1488, by the rebellious Flemings, and although, at the price of certain concessions, he had regained his freedom in May, he subsequently took part in the war of retaliation undertaken by his father against the Netherlands. The most important places remained in the hands of the French, who had marched to the assistance of the Flemings. In the following year Maximilian betook himself to the Empire to beg for help against the French, and was there for a time detained. On the other hand, Henry of England had made good his peaceful intentions by renewing the treaty with France, and, in spite of some scruples, he would certainly rather have seen Brittany become French than throw himself between France and the duchy, while he was not yet firmly established in England. But now a change began.

In the autumn of 1488 Henry again entered into friendly relations with the government of the regency in Brittany. He offered his help, even to come himself, and proposed that Anne should be united in marriage with the son of his cousin, the Duke of Buckingham who had been executed. Not long after, in December, embassies were despatched to the various powers—to France, Brittany, Spain, Portugal, to Maximilian, Philip, and the Flemish Estates, all with instructions to conclude friendly treaties of peace. The great almoner, Urswick, was to renew in France Henry’s offer of mediation for peace, whilst Edgecombe, on the other hand, in Brittany was to make an offer of English help for the war, and demand portions of the land as security, and also the pledge that the marriage of the Duchess Anne should be made to depend on Henry’s consent. Thus the offers in Brittany and France stood in marked opposition the one to the other. The proposal of mediation in France appears to be only a first attempt to secure for himself in case of necessity, as dignified a retreat as possible from the existing covenant. Henry said also to the Pope’s collector, De Giglis, that he was plotting nothing against the French king. The gratitude he owed to the late Duke Francis obliged him to protect the interests of Brittany, which, owing to the close connection between the two countries, were also those of England; for, should the duchy be broken up, his own kingdom would be in danger. If he succeeded in his efforts at mediation, all would then be well; if not, he would defend Brittany and her duchess with all his might.

As early as December, 1488, orders to muster had been sent out to the counties, as the king, “with the agreement of his council, wished to send an armed force to the assistance of Brittany.” Six hundred men were to be raised at once, and embarked; fresh orders followed in January, and the manufacture of war material was proceeded with. On the 13th of January, 1489, a new Parliament met, from which Henry demanded £100,000 for the maintenance of ten thousand archers for the war. After a long discussion an agreement was entered into with the convocations of Canterbury and York, then also sitting, that the clergy should undertake one quarter, and the lay population raise the remaining £75,000 by the levy of a tenth on all incomes. On the 23rd of February the consent of the Commons was given by the mouth of the Speaker, and Parliament, which besides this had prepared no noteworthy measure, was prorogued till the 14th of October.

At the same time, the emissaries sent out in December had concluded treaties, which were really the very opposite of peaceful. In Portugal there had simply been a resumption of friendly relations by the conferring of the Order of the Garter, and the renewal of an old friendly treaty concluded under Richard II, in 1387. The treaty made by the plenipotentiaries of Maximilian and Philip was of greater importance.

Henry’s relations with Burgundy had been shortly before rather strained. The first overtures were of a more friendly nature; the treaty with Burgundy, concluded by Edward IV in 1478, was first of all renewed for a year on the 2nd of January, 1487, and Henry declared himself ready for further negotiations, but at the same time made complaints about the annoyance caused to Englishmen by Flemish pirates. He was especially vexed because Margaret’s dower court in Burgundy had become the centre of Yorkist intrigues. We find accordingly, in the beginning of 1488, a partial restriction of trade placed on the dominions of the King of the Romans, whilst Henry met fresh piracies with special counter measures. He expressed himself, in July, 1488, with much irritation, before the Spanish ambassador Puebla, on the subject of Maximilian, with whom he refused to enter into any alliance. Nevertheless even in this we find him subsequently turning round again, for in December an embassage of peace was sent to Maximilian as well as to the other monarchs, and on the 14th of February, 1489, a friendly alliance for mutual defence was concluded.

But far closer than this alliance was the covenant with the Breton Government. The ambassador, Edgecombe, who, on his landing, had scarcely escaped imprisonment, concluded, on the 10th of February, a treaty which completely fulfilled the wishes of England. Henry promised to the duchess protection for her dominions at his own cost, but against securities in Brittany until repayment of the same; Anne’s marriage and every treaty of alliance, except with Maximilian or the Spaniards, were to be subject to his approval.

Only the direst necessity could force the Bretons to such concessions; Henry had gained the consent of Parliament for war expenses, and besides had stipulated for compensation and securities from Brittany. The most important thing, however, was this, that England was drifting fast into open war with France.

What could induce Henry to make such a venture? We feel from his behaviour that he was only driven against his will to take such decided steps. His rule in England, still by no means secure, ran great danger thereby; there was no sign, either, of any warlike disposition in the nation. That Woodville should have been able so soon after the long civil war to get together a few hundred adventurous spirits means nothing ; the length of the discussion in Parliament, before consent was at last given, points rather to disapproval and opposition, and, worst of all, the levy of a war contribution called forth a fresh and serious rebellion. The north of England was not yet pacified; in February, 1489, there were disturbances in York at the time of the election of a mayor. But far worse was to- follow. The royal tax-collectors encountered opposition in York and Durham. The Earl of Northumberland, Richard’s companion at Bosworth, but raised by Henry to be Warden-General of the East and Middle Marches against Scotland, and later, Sheriff of Northumberland, tried in person to quell the threatening storm, but he was slain on the 28th of April, 1489, by the rebels who had collected at Topcliff under a certain John a Chambre. The signal thus given, John Egremond, a restless knight, took the lead. The town of York even was attacked, but Henry at once went to the rescue. Again a former partisan of Richard’s, the Earl of Surrey, who had lately been released from captivity, was given the chief command; the king himself followed him to meet the insurgents, who were repulsed. John a Chambre was executed at York, and Egremont fled to that refuge for all the Tudor’s enemies, Margaret of Burgundy. Surrey’s reward was his appointment, soon afterwards, as the successor of Northumberland.

The consequences of a war policy in England being so bad, why was it pursued? Various views are possible, but this at least is certain—public opinion did not incline to war. Nor is the motive for this change of policy to be sought in Henry’s relations with France, to which country he was bound by a heavy debt of gratitude, nor in Brittany, nor in England itself, least of all in Henry’s personal inclination; this change was really the first important result of a new alliance, now just beginning, between England and Spain and their royal Houses, the maintenance of which was to be the central point of Henry’s whole policy throughout a decade and a half.

One thing was especially needful for Henry, as a means of consolidating his power—to get his youthful dynasty recognised as of equal standing by the older ruling Houses of Europe. For this it was not enough to conclude a political alliance binding the States together; a connection by marriage was also necessary, which should mark the recognition by the kings themselves of his perfect right to be held their equal. Therefore a future wife should be chosen as early as possible for his first-born, Arthur, still an infant in the cradle; and this was specially in Henry’s thoughts when he turned his eyes towards Spain. Friendly relations had indeed existed between England and the Spanish kingdoms, but of late they had relaxed somewhat, and the existing commercial intercourse had but little effect in drawing the two countries together. Was it accident, or was it the far-sightedness of the English king, which led him to seek a union with those prominent rulers, who had raised Spain to the important position she was destined to hold in Europe throughout the following century?

Spain, too, was then at the beginning of a new and important development; a certain likeness prevailed between the constitutional problems set before the two kings, Ferdinand and Henry, in their respective countries. The tendency towards disruption, which had long since disappeared in England, was especially strong in Spain. No united Spanish kingdom really yet existed, and it was only through the union by marriage of their rulers that the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon held together. King Ferdinand of Aragon owed it to a long struggle between his father, Henry II, and the insurgent Catalonians, that the undivided authority of the Aragonese throne, to which Sardinia and Sicily belonged, had passed to him. His wife, Isabella of Castile, found herself, after the death of the king, her brother, face to face with a strong party wishing to raise to the throne his daughter, whose legitimacy was much called in question. As this princess was betrothed to Alfonso V of Portugal, the triumph of Isabella and her husband decided the great question of the future—whether the dominating kingdom in the Pyrenean peninsula should be formed into a homogeneous State with Portugal or with Aragon. In a hard but successful struggle, this royal couple had maintained the dignity of their throne as representatives of the State in the face of an independent and turbulent nobility, and their new centralising monarchy was now to exercise complete authority over the separative forces of the old feudal State. By raising the government and the administration of justice, by a prudent if unscrupulous financial policy, by the use in politics of the Inquisition and of the authority of the Church, combined with a firm and unrelenting consistency of purpose, but also by harsh and even foul means, Ferdinand and Isabella advanced step by step towards their goal. Though completely separate in their internal government, the two king­doms appeared in their external action as one, far outweighing those kingdoms which still remained independent in the peninsula—Portugal in the west, the little kingdom of Navarre in the north, and Granada, the last remnant of Moorish power, in the south.

The leading mind in this joint rule was Ferdinand’s, and it is an evidence of Henry’s insight, that he spared no pains and no sacrifice to secure as an ally this prince, the greatest statesman of his day. These two sovereigns were somewhat kindred spirits, not so much in the outwardly prominent hardness and the darker side of their nature, as in the lofty aims of their monarchical policy.

It was an important moment for England’s future, when Henry made the first step towards an understanding with Spain by issuing powers for an embassage on the 10th of March, 1488. He proposed a treaty of mutual peace and commerce, but the main point in the English demands was the matrimonial alliance between Arthur, Prince of Wales, and Katharine, the youngest child of the Spanish monarch, born on the 5th of December, 1485. The powers in reply from the Spaniards are dated the 30th of April, and were brought to England by a special envoy called Sepulveda. In them they agreed to all Henry’s proposals for a friendly and matrimonial alliance. The plenipotentiaries in London were able to meet at once for the first preliminaries, and on the 7th of July, 1488, a provisional settlement was prepared. Agreed as to first principles, they reserved the more detailed conditions for future arrangement. Henry had received with unaffected pleasure the intelligence of the favourable reception of his proposals by the Spaniards, whose ambassador, Puebla, reports that he showed his satisfaction by the joyful exclamation, “Te Deum laudamus!”

There was a good reason for this prompt agreement. When Henry made his overtures to Ferdinand and Isabella, they were in the midst of that ten years’ war, which they had been carrying on since 1482, to the complete destruction of the Moorish power, a war which gave to the Spaniards their great military school, fanned the last flicker of crusading enthusiasm, and called together combatants from foreign lands, from Germany, France, and England, which was the chief object at that time of the whole Spanish policy, and in which all their strength was employed. Even before the struggle for Brittany began, the Spaniards had achieved a brilliant success by the capture and fearful punishment of Malaga in the summer of 1487, a foretaste of what would be the fate of Granada. In the middle of this great struggle they were but little inclined to split up their strength over the affairs of Brittany. On the other hand, this complication aroused their own not unimportant claims against France, Ferdinand’s father had been obliged to give in pledge to Louis XI the two border countries—Cerdagne and the county of Roussillon—in return for his powerful aid against the Catalonians (1462). During the ten years between 1470 and 1480, the French monarchy had held out victoriously against a revolt of the inhabitants, supported by Aragon. Spanish policy, however, continued to aim at regaining the lost provinces, and for this purpose the Breton complication afforded the most favourable opportunity, exciting as it did enmity from all sides against the greed of France.

In no case should this opportunity be allowed to pass unused; the Moorish war, however, obliged them to reduce as much as possible the forces for this additional task, and the English offer of friendship came to them as the most welcome solution of the dilemma. The price which Henry had to pay for the matrimonial alliance was fixed by them at the outset. Roussillon and Cerdagne were to be conquered for Spain, in Brittany.

This reason for their prompt acquiescence came out undisguisedly in the stipulation that Henry, if Spain declared war on France, should immediately join in the war, and that without Spain he must not conclude any peace or truce with France. Ferdinand and Isabella only promised to include England in any peace of their own with France. The English plenipotentiaries naturally refused thus to sacrifice England to Spanish interests; it was “against right, against God and their conscience.” They were then reminded of the painful truth, that Spain’s powerful alliance was valuable to Henry “in order to make that impossible which has so often happened to English kings, and still happens.” The hollow show of an equality of conditions was given by the subsequent proposal that Henry should have the right to retreat alone from the war, if France gave him back the English possessions, Guienne and Normandy; Spain retaining the same right in the event of the two counties, Roussillon and Cerdagne, being ceded. One glance at the map will make us perceive the cleverness of the tactics which made England’s withdrawal from the war depend upon a price such as France would never pay until she was at the last extremity, whilst for Spain it was merely a question of a corner of territory, and that a possession held only in forfeit by France. In return for this, Henry received very doubtful promises that in the event of an English attack the Spaniards would also support Brittany, while all the time they were even raising objections against his project of a marriage between the Duchess Anne and young Buckingham.

The aim of Spanish policy was expressed in the treaty of alliance in such plain words, that to mistake that aim was altogether impossible; nevertheless, to Henry, the Spanish alliance seemed worth such a heavy price. How resigned his words sounded—that he felt himself in duty bound to Charles of France, that to break with him would cost him many friends, but that he was ready to give them up in order to come to an understanding with Spain.1 Ferdinand and Isabella not only demanded the breaking up of this old friendship, but Henry was also obliged, simply that he might please them, to forget his grudge against Maximilian. In accord­ance with their wishes, in December, 1488, he prepared the draft on which the subsequent treaty with Maximilian, directed solely against France, was based.

On the same day, as we know, on the 11th of December, 1488, he despatched an embassy to Spain. It was conducted by Thomas Savage and Richard Nanfan, and its duty was to conclude a treaty of friendship, commerce, and marriage, on the lines laid down, and agreed upon in London. The same ambassadors had then to take the Order of the Garter to Portugal; Puebla and Sepulveda accompanied the Englishmen. The outward course of the journey is described in detail to us by Richmond herald, who was of the party; of the negotiations themselves we learn next to nothing. On the 19th of January, 1489, the ambassadors took ship, but contrary winds drove them back, and detained them in England for a month. On the 16th of February they landed in Laredo, on the north coast of Spain. They passed through all sorts of petty travelling adventures during their journey through the country. One scene was amusing, when the Englishmen, trying to make themselves agreeable, were almost turned out of doors by a rough and cross-grained hostess. On the 12th of March they entered the royal camp at Medina del Campo, to the south of Valladolid. Two days after, they were received in solemn audience; the Bishop of Ciudad Rodrigo answered Savage’s speech of greeting, “but the good bishop was very old, and had lost all his teeth, so that only with great trouble could we understand what he said.” Receptions and tournaments alternated for the next few days. Not till the 26th of March, as the herald relates, were the envoys sent for “in order to bring to an end the settlement of that business which they had to perform”; on one article alone they could not agree until the following day, when the Spanish king swore to the treaty, the ratification of which bears the date of the 28th of March.

The work had indeed been quickly accomplished. This treaty of the 27th of March, 1489, marks the first important alliance which the Tudor monarch concluded with a foreign power. Friendship and alliance, mutual protection for their present and future possessions, free intercourse between their subjects—these were the leading provisions; each one promised, and this was the principal point for Henry, neither to harbour nor support any rebels against the other, and the war with France was determined on, according to the Spanish demand. It was indeed settled that neither party should make peace without the other; but then, either was bound to begin the war against France at the wish of the other. The Spaniards were indeed safe against such a wish on the part of Henry. They even saw how to turn the affair sophistically, in such wise that, with a show of regard for the Anglo-French truce, which was still to last till the 17th of January, 1490, they might leave the conduct of the war in 1489 to the English king, and wait till the next year to take part in it themselves. And so accordingly they did. The fact that owing to circumstances one clause, contrary, no doubt, to the intentions of the Spaniards, still put into Henry’s hands a right by treaty to decide for himself when to begin the war, could be of no practical use to him, under the actual relations which existed between them. Of course there remained as a condition for breaking off the war, the acquisition of Guienne and Normandy on the one part, or Cerdagne and Roussillon on the other. As the price for this very one-sided preservation of Spanish interests, Henry was granted his marriage treaty: the marriage was to be concluded as soon as the royal children were of suitable age, the dowry was to amount to two hundred thousand scudi, at the rate of four shilling and two pence, the half of it payable on Katharine’s arrival in England, the other half two years later; the right of succession to the thrones of Castile and Aragon was to remain to Katharine.

Thus in one year—a time certainly not very long when we remember the pace at which business matters were carried on in those days—the close alliance had been concluded, the Tudor dynasty acknowledged as of equal standing by its family connection with the royal Houses of Spain, and a certain guarantee thus secured for their assistance, in particular against the hostility of Yorkist rivals and their friends from abroad. But the sacrifice Henry had to pay was great, it was the breach with his old ally, the French Government. Henry had given a proof of the honesty of his intentions, for even while negotiations were still in progress, he began arming for war, and at once made the first advance. It was a kind of payment beforehand, to make the settlement still more secure for him.

Hostilities had already begun. France regarded with some uneasiness the threatening preparations of her former friend; an English attack on St. Omer was expected there, while in England, in the autumn of 1488, there was talk of an unsuccessful attempt by the French on Calais. Once again the French made an effort to send envoys to negotiate peace, but just as these were returning home without success, the English troops crossed over, and on landing in April, 1489, took Guingamp, which had shortly before been vacated by their adversaries; otherwise they did not do much harm. It was only on Flemish soil that any English passage of arms worthy of mention took place: there the covenant with Maximilian really led to some action in common.

The rebellious Flemings still continued to hold out, with the help of France, whose troops, under D’Esquerdes, were besieging Dixmuiden, a little fortress not far from the border. A company under Lord Morley, reinforced by the English garrison of the Calais district under Lord Daubeney and by a few hundred Germans, first relieved the place—where in the struggle Lord Morley fell—and afterwards brought assistance to hard-pressed Nieuport.

This was indeed a slight success; but as a whole the deeds of arms by no means fulfilled the expectations which had been called forth by the preparations, and were quite inadequate, if it was really desired to give Brittany the aid that had been promised. Another cause of hindrance was the divided condition of the Breton Government, and the English plenipotentiary Edgecombe had much trouble, owing to the personal quarrels between the leading men. Henry, however, was not at all in earnest with his help, he did only what was necessary in order to carry out his desire for a treaty with Spain, besides seeking to keep some advantage for himself by the rich grants from Parliament, and the money for Breton fortresses held in pledge. His position with regard to France was strange enough; war was not even declared, and yet English and French troops were fighting in various places in Flanders and Brittany.

Henry became soon enough aware of the faithlessness of his allies, and the first who disregarded the covenant was the friend imposed on him by Spain, Maximilian, king of the Romans. The idea of the Spanish monarchs had been to put pressure on France by annoyance from all sides, but none of her adversaries had shown themselves very formidable. It was not till the beginning of 1490 that the Spaniards themselves sent a thousand men into Brittany, who besieged Redon, and with inconsiderable forces undertook an advance on Roussillon. Still France, hemmed in by a circle of hostile alliances, was obliged to look about for a way of escape, and tried to do so by gaining over Maximilian, to whom she promised her help as arbitrator in his dispute with the Flemings. In the Frankfort treaty of the 22nd of July, 1489, they wisely postponed a decision on questions of territory to a later time; the French Government promised, besides their help in Flanders, to give up the places they held in Brittany to the duchess, if she would have all Englishmen sent out of the country and pledge herself not to allow them to settle in it again.

Treaties at that time were seldom concluded on a basis of really common interests, which would have guaranteed joint action. The art of diplomacy consisted solely in the endea­vour of each power, in its own interests, to overreach the other, and it was considered quite justifiable to pass over to the enemy at any moment, for more favourable offers. The bewildering number and variety of the treaties entered into by each State are the sign of their complete untrustworthiness; the standard of political morality was very low, and that this lack of principle should have been so universal is the excuse for individual monarchs. So France and Maximilian combined together, without hesitation, abandoning their former allies, the Flemish towns and Henry of England.

With Spain, too, France sought, in the summer of 1489, an independent alliance. A meeting between Anne of Beaujeu and Isabella was already spoken of for the next year, to settle the question of Roussillon. The Spanish monarchs, upon the whole, had the same ends in view. For them the Frankfort treaty was naturally inopportune, and the hopes they had entertained from the alliance with Eng­land seemed likely to be realised. In all the difficulties that beset the French government there was no talk of the Spaniards, so that after the Frankfort treaty Henry seemed the only remaining obstacle to a settlement.

Henry’s situation had thus become anything but pleasant. Once entangled in this business, so disagreeable to himself, he could not well draw back again without having achieved some success, and without recouping himself for the expense he had incurred. The Spanish and English troops in the duchy did not pull very well together; there were disagreements too between the English captains and the Breton Government. The French Orleanist party, which had the control of the duchess, sus­pected the Englishmen of treating with Marshal de Rieux, who was again working vigorously for an agreement with the French government. However, there was less danger for the English king in the prosecution of this war, which was simply devastating unhappy Brittany, than there would have been to his authority and to the position of his dynasty in England, if he had broken it off without accomplishing anything. His negotiations with France, however, did not cease. Whilst the troops, without indeed doing each other much injury, were standing face to face in Brittany, the diplomatists were discussing a renewal of the armistice, which would expire in January, 1490. Henry, with much astuteness, made his envoys give the Parliament, which had just met together for a new session on the 14th of October, 1489, some insight into these negotiations. He would thus be able to meet the demands of the French by a reference to the adverse attitude of his Parliament. Then he prorogued Parliament, from the 4th of December to the 24th of January, 1490, and when the negoti­ations still did not advance one step, the Estates had to agree to a new grant for the war on the 27th of February, the last day of this third session. This grant was at the same time to indemnify the king, because the last had been almost two-thirds below the estimate. The usual form of taxation of a fifteenth and tenth was now again chosen, amounting, with the expenses deducted, to about .£32,000, which were distributed over two years.

Thus Henry had secured for himself the means of carry­ing on the war, the sole aim of which was to keep hold on the Breton towns pledged to him, until they were redeemed. In the spring of 1490, Pope Innocent VIII had, very much to Spain’s annoyance, sent a message of peace to Henry’s court by Lionel Chieregato, Bishop of Concordia. This had failed, indeed, but the bishop renewed his efforts in the summer of 1490, at a peace congress at Boulogne and Calais, where, besides the English and French plenipotentiaries, envoys had also come from the Emperor Frederick, from Maximilian, and Brittany. But as England demanded compensation for her expenses even from France, and France the evacuation of the fortresses, and the Bretons at least a respite, the negotiations were broken off in August, and French, Spaniards, and English remained in the country.

Whilst these unsuccessful attempts at making peace were going on, Henry, with greater success, had negotiated again on his own account with the Breton Government. He fitted out new forces by land and sea, and managed to obtain, as a further security, the seaport of Morlaix, the revenues of which were to bring him in six thousand crowns a year. During the progress of these settlements, the English garrison quartered in the town had to suppress an insurrection of Breton peasants, who, driven to despair by the never-ending misery of war, revolted against their own government. Elsewhere, too, similar outbreaks took place among the unhappy inhabitants.

Henry himself tried to gain new confederates for the war, and to retain his old ones. It was just then, on the 27th of July,1490, that a treaty of peace and commerce, which had already been mooted, was concluded with Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan; even a matrimonial alliance between their Houses was thought of. Besides this, Henry made a league again with his faithless ally of the year before, the King of the Romans. As the English would not give up the places they held, and the French, on that account, would not vacate the duchy, one condition of the Frankfort treaty remained unfulfilled. Maximilian had attained his principal end in this treaty, when, by means of French help, he accomplished the subjection of the Flemings, on the 30th of October, 1489, and was recognised as guardian of his son. He therefore made use of the continued presence in Brittany of the French troops as a pretext to declare the Frankfort treaty, now become useless to him, broken off, and to make friends again with England. On the nth of September, 1490, a treaty for mutual defence was drawn up, the special intention of which was the joint protection of Brittany against France. As a special mark of friendship, Henry sent to the King of the Romans the Order of the Garter. On the 17th of September the treaty was publicly announced in England, and with it the treaty of alliance long before concluded with Spain.

The latter had had a peculiar history. Henry had striven for it with all the means in his power, but when his envoys came home after the treaty of Medina del Campo, with the Spanish ratification, Henry hesitated to confirm it. He took advantage of the Spanish project of a marriage between Anne of Brittany and the Infant Don Juan to make his consent depend upon the condition that the treaty should be altered, that Katharine should be sent to him earlier and the dowry paid sooner. Perhaps he thought, on the whole, that he would wait to see whether the fortune of war would put him in a favourable position for altering the treaty according to his wishes; but all these expectations were disappointed, and on the 23rd of September, 1490, Henry himself also signed the treaty on the terms settled at Medina del Campo. Still he held to his proposal of altera­tions; certain undefined points in the marriage treaty were to be settled. The manner and time of mutual help in war were to be fixed more definitely, and according to a second proposal, the articles favouring Spain alone about the war with France were to be set aside. He had both proposals drafted in the form of supplementary treaties already ratified by him.

The situation had changed; Henry appears as the one who wished to keep to the great coalition against France, and he was rightly anxious lest his unreliable allies should leave him in the lurch. He had good cause for these fears, for Maximilian, as well as the Spaniards, were withdrawn from Brittany by more important tasks. Henry could hope for but little advantage from a covenant with Maximilian, who had undertaken to fight with France, whilst in the summer of 1490, he was really engaged in driving out the Hungarians from Lower Austria, and pursuing after them as far as Stuhlweissenburg. His prospects with Ferdinand and Isabella were not much better; in the eighth year of the Moorish war, 1489, they made unusual efforts, and conquered Baza, after an unfortunate campaign, whereupon Almeria and the whole district of El Zagals in the east of Granada fell into their hands. They then armed themselves for a great and decisive attack on the town of Granada in the year 1491.

Maximilian had special reasons for an alliance with England. It did not suit him to give up a project so easily; the prospect of the once-promised hand of Anne of Brittany had disappeared, as long as her counsellors inclined to France, but when France refused Rieux’s attempt at an agreement in the summer of 1490, and prepared a new attack, Maximilian could hope again. Accordingly, believing Eng­land to be occupied in Brittany, he urged on the arrangements for the marriage, and in December, 1490, his marriage with the duchess, then scarcely fourteen years of age, took place by proxy, and with the usual ceremonial. Anne assumed the title of “Queen of the Romans.”

Nobody could expect that France would remain silent after this, and that this fresh provocation should be given her must have been very unwelcome to Henry. Maximilian, who could not hope to defend alone the claims raised by his marriage, looked to Brittany and her other allies to do his work for him. But the Spaniards, who were just now gathering all their forces for a decisive struggle with Granada, behaved as might have been expected; they agreed with France upon an armistice for half a year, and, at the beginning of the winter, withdrew their troops from Brittany on account, as they afterwards said, of the insurmountable difficulties of their maintenance; only in Redon, which they held in pledge, did they leave a small garrison. In the spring the troops were to return, but instead of them, came a summons from Isabella to Henry that he should send sufficient troops to Brittany while hers were occupied in the south of Spain. Thus, whilst they themselves, contrary to the precise terms of the treaty, suspended hostilities against France, they required from their ally that he should conform to it exactly.

In spite therefore of the ratification of the Spanish treaty, in spite of the new covenant with Maximilian, Henry stood alone, exposed to the danger of a war with France. For France, at the same time, the position had become particularly favourable. Rieux’s defection and the reunion of the two parties in the Breton Government was indeed painful to her, but in return she succeeded in gaining that old suitor for Anne’s hand, the Lord of Albret, till then protected by Rieux. For the sake of money and other advantages he delivered up Nantes, which still held out, to the enemy, and on the 4th of April, 1491, Charles VIII made his entry. In France itself, the unfortunate quarrel between the two parties had been made up, and Louis of Orleans was set free from captivity by the king who just now came of age. On the 4th of September the formal reconciliation with the Bourbons took place. By this means, the Orleanist party, which before had been working against them in Brittany, was won over.

The Duchess Anne was now in the most difficult position. Her contract of marriage with Maximilian only hastened the advance of France, whilst her still unknown husband was vacillating between the duties which called him imperatively alike to the east and to the west. He had contemplated seriously a war with France, but at last the fighting in Hungary became as much more important to him than Brittany, as the struggle in Granada was to the Spanish monarchs. Henry remained Anne’s last hope. Whilst he was only thinking of the damages he could claim, a new appeal for help came to him in May, 1491, from Anne in her own and her husband’s name; but could Henry venture on a great war with France, the burden of which would fall on him alone? This almost seemed to be his intention, for he made exceptionally great war preparations. In order to get more substantial assistance, he followed an example set by Edward IV, and turned to private individuals of property with demands for money. On a resolution of the Council, commissioners were sent out in July, 1491, to appeal to his faithful subjects “to support him according to their means, and to grant him aid either personally or in any other way as seemed best,” against the danger that was threatening him from France; the commissioners treated with private individuals, who then, “willing or no” had to contribute considerable sums. This not very popular way of exacting money was called a “benevolence.”

But this was not enough. Even before the expiration of the second term of payment for the grant of the preceding year, the fourth Parliament met on the 14th of October, 1491, and Morton, in his opening speech, drew out the points of similarity between the Jugurthian campaign of Sallust, and the English one now before them. Two fifteenths and tenths were granted to the king, who wished to take the field in person, and, if the war should last eight months, the half again of that sum. On the 4th of November the sittings were prorogued till the following January.

Henry displayed remarkable ardour in this cause, which he had espoused only under pressure from Spain, and it was he who now urged on his loitering allies. The proposals he had made in September, 1490, for the alteration of the treaty of Medina del Campo appear to have met with opposition in Spain. On the 22nd of November, 1491, he had two new propositions drawn up on the model of the old ones, and the warlike energy he at the same time displayed was the best advocate for his wishes. This time he divided the treaty of marriage and the treaty of alliance into two separate documents, and, with remarkable moderation, he only demanded that the necessary supplements to the old treaty of marriage should be made on those points which had remained either not clearly defined or open to question; the war with France he proposed they should both declare on the 15th of April, 1492, and begin it at any time before the 15th of June. In everything else, and we know what that meant for Henry, those clauses of the treaty of Medina del Campo, which were advantageous to Spain, remained unchanged.

Henry showed great earnestness in his demands for money from his subjects; he went to the very limit of their capacity for giving, although he, whose crown was anything but secure, had to risk all by so doing.

Even if his allies had been able at once to respond to his appeal, it was already too late. France seized her opportunity when Maximilian was detained in the East, and the Spaniards in the South, and gave the king of the Romans the answer that was to be expected. Nantes was in Charles’s hand; his troops, who had marched in during the summer, took from the Spaniards Redon, from the English Concarneau, and besieged Anne in Rennes; only in Morlaix did the English garrison hold out. Even though Henry was making great preparations for war, his mere written assurances of aid from Maximilian and his own promise not to fail her, could no longer help the duchess in her extremity. She yielded to the strongest. After a preliminary treaty of the 15th of November, there followed at Langeais in Touraine, on the 6th of December, 1491, the final agreement which united Anne with Charles VIII, and her duchy with the kingdom of France.

It was a grand success, this that the policy of Anne of Beaujeu had so long striven to obtain, and a humiliating defeat for the three kings leagued together to defend Brittany. Henry, with all his preparations for war, was the least interested of the three. He was neither concerned in Spanish designs on Roussillon and Cerdagne, nor in Maximilian’s desire to win Anne, who had been betrothed to him. It was Maximilian who suffered the most. By the earlier treaty of Arras (December 23, 1482), he had bestowed on Louis XI. the Duchy of Burgundy, together with the hand of his little daughter Margaret, for Charles, the heir to the throne. King Charles VIII, however, by his treaty at Langeais, contemptuously set aside the daughter of the king of the Romans, who had been brought up in France, but kept the duchy, and at the same time robbed Maximilian of his affianced wife.

But though exasperated at this twofold humiliation, Maximilian and his father could do nothing. Maximilian, indeed, towards the end of 1491, spoke of marching once more into “Britani or Burgundi,” when he should have finished his work in the east of Europe; but he could not bring matters to a close there and all his efforts to obtain help from the Empire were in vain. If power was wanting to him, so was good will to the Spaniards. The news that Granada had fallen at last, in January, 1492, was hailed with befitting ceremony in England, and, in the following April, Ferdinand and Isabella appointed plenipotentiaries in order to discuss the changes in the treaty, which had been proposed by Henry; otherwise a profound silence was observed on the affair of the league; just once a hint of war was given, but no more.

Henry was thus thrown back on his own resources. He tried to make other alliances, appealed to the Pope, warned his newly won friend of Milan, Ludovico Sforza, of the danger that threatened him from Charles VIII, and summoned him to take part in the war, but without success. In January, 1492, he made a plan for getting Brest into his hands by combining with treacherous Bretons, and at the same time negotiated with the disaffected nobles in the country. During the new session (from January 24 to March 5, 1492), Parliament issued regulations for war, for the levying and payment of troops; and the convocation of the clergy added a tenth to the grants made by the laymen. Ships and war material were provided, contracts for levying soldiers were concluded with the great lords. The troops were to assemble at Portsmouth in June, and the king had three great breweries erected there, in order to provide them with beer. The fleet then actually crossed the Channel, but without accomplishing much. The French Government also discovered the Breton conspiracy, and entertained the idea of anticipating Henry by an attack on England. An order was accordingly issued at the beginning of August to the inhabitants of the south­eastern counties of Kent and Sussex to hold themselves in readiness to respond at any time to a hasty summons.

Winter, spring, and summer passed away in these preparations; a really great war seemed in prospect. Henry himself announced as his aim the reconquest of his French possessions—of “his kingdom of serious France.” It remained, however, inexplicable, that he did not make use of the fine season of the year, that autumn came, and a fresh winter was at the doors, before he made ready to cross the Channel. Meanwhile a few skirmishes by land and sea took place; the small forces which Maximilian had left behind in the Low Countries under Albert of Saxony took Sluys, supported from the sea by the English under Sir Edward Poynings. A partisan of the rebellious towns, the Lord of Ravenstein, had, with the help of France, held Sluys, and made it a centre from whence he carried on a privateering war,2 causing damage even to the trade of England. Arras also was taken by German troops, but the bulk of the English army remained quietly in their own land.

The king hoped by noisy threats of war to avoid war himself, and to exercise some effect on the peace negotiations which were being carried on without interruption from the end of spring right through the summer, at first by two plenipotentiaries, and later by a regular congress of ambassadors at Calais and Etaples. The result was unsatisfactory; sorely against his will and with a heavy heart, Henry had to pass from threats to deeds. He requisitioned Venetian merchant galleys for the transport of his troops, and after he had formally invested the young Prince of Wales at Sandwich on the 2nd of October, 1492, with the dignity of viceroy during his absence, he crossed over to France on the same day in the Swan. Minstrels played before him during the passage, and his Spanish fool entertained him with jokes, till he landed at Calais at eleven o’clock. There he lingered for nearly two weeks. At last, on the 18th of October, he appeared before Boulogne and besieged the town.

Now at last Henry achieved his end; on the 27th of October, he was able to lay before his counsellors and chief officers the scheme of a treaty sent by him to Etaples. In high-sounding words he had summoned his people to war, and now that all hopes of glory and of great conquests were frustrated, he managed matters so cleverly that he made it appear as if his chief captains had forced him to this inglorious peace. He himself had never thought of conquest, for him the war was, after all, only a money affair, which he was anxious to finish without loss. It was also a clever idea on his part to point to the similar treaty of Picquigny, between Edward IV and Louis XI (August 29, 1475) as the model to which he had closely adhered. The opinion of his generals naturally agreed with his own, they put forward the difficulty of the season, the strength of Boulogne, the success at Sluys, the disloyal conduct of the allies, the rich offer of money from France. On the 30th of October, Henry sent a new power to his representatives, who, at Etaples, on the 3rd of November, 1492, agreed upon a treaty of peace, which they sent to the kings to be ratified.

Peace, friendship, and liberty of trading, the same as the former treaties had determined, were to exist between the two kings and their people; each side promised not to support the enemies of the other, Henry, especially, was not to help Maximilian, should the latter continue the war with France. Charles undertook to pay 745,000 gold crowns in half-yearly instalments of 25,000 francs, he promised also in a special document, that he would not harbour any rebels against Henry. The Estates of both realms were to agree to the treaty.

On the 4th of November the peace was announced before Boulogne; at once the camp was broken up and the troops began to make their way back by Calais. On the 9th of November the Lord Mayor of London read out at Guildhall the royal message of peace, and the Chancellor ordered a “ Te Deum” to be sung in St. Paul’s.

On the 22nd of December, Henry visited the capital; the Lord Mayor, aldermen, and citizens went to greet him on Blackheath, and accompanied him through the city to Westminster. The announcement of peace must have sounded pleasanter in the ears of the commercial and tax-paying citizens than it did to the war-loving barons, whose hopes of fame and booty were dashed to pieces by this mercenary peace.

Henry himself had gained by it all he could wish for. The Spanish alliance, to him the first prize of the war, was not indeed regarded as such in the eyes of the world; but he had brought the war, which had been forced upon him, to a conclusion with some considerable gain, and this meant so much the more for him, since he had to aim at establishing a well-ordered and prosperous system of finance. Henry had, on the whole, nothing to demand from France, for he no longer held to the medieval policy of conquest, and what he had let fall on the subject in public was uttered with a purpose. It was just on the preservation of her isolated position as an island that, for the future, England’s greatness depended, and this insular policy, clearly pronounced before the world in the peace of Etaples, was pursued by Henry throughout the rest of his reign.

In fact, there was no reason for him to be vexed that his allies, without the same effort, had outwardly arrived at greater results than he. Spain gained by the treaty of Barcelona (January 19, 1493), the two border countries without having to give anything in return; Ferdinand and Isabella did not hesitate to promise Charles that they would lend him their help, especially against his “old enemies” the English, and against the king of the Romans, and that they would not marry their own children with them or with their children. Thus the king of the Romans was left in the lurch by both his allies; still he did not lay down his arms; his commander-in-chief, Kappeller, gained on the 19th of January a decisive victory at Dournon in Franche Comté, and in spite of his unfortunate position, Maximilian kept his hold on that country as well as on Artois. Both were confirmed to him in the peace of Senlis on the 23rd of May, 1493, and his daughter, who had been brought up in France, was conducted home to him with much ceremony.

What had especially contributed to the advantageous, terms that Maximilian as well as the Spaniards and Henry had secured, was the ambitious policy of the French king, who with each sacrifice purchased for himself freedom of action, that he might be able to hasten on towards his great aim, the conquest of Naples; thus sacrificing a secure possession on his border for a phantom. But Maximilian still pursued the English king with bitter hatred for his. defection, without reflecting that Henry at Etaples had only been retaliating on him for his conduct at Frankfort. The dislike these two monarchs had early conceived for each other, though vigorously combated by Spain, was now stronger than ever; after the peace of Etaples, Henry could' not help seeing in Maximilian an embittered enemy, who was soon to have an opportunity of wreaking his vengeance.

The treaty of Etaples had enabled Henry again to relapse into that inaction out of which he had only allowed himself to be forced by weighty considerations, and which he was henceforth to observe in all questions of general policy. Nowhere else but in the British isles did he again take up arms. The liberty and accumulation of strength which he gained from this inaction, he spent by entering boldly and energetically on a fresh field in politics, that of trade, in which he was to promote to a remarkable degree the future development of England. The commercial efforts of the English, and the guiding, enterprising, or else restrictive commercial policy of the king, stood not only in the closest connection with his State policy in general—the one acting upon the other—but more particularly with the relations he endeavoured to establish with foreign powers.

Commerce was the pulse of the whole economic life of the nation; on it depended the breeding of sheep, which supplied foreign countries with wool; on it the prosperity of the youthful industry, seeking a foreign market; it threw, as it were, a bridge across the sea, and connected the island of England with the states of the Continent. Already in the Middle Ages, English trade had reached a flourishing condition; afterwards, in consequence of the civil wars and of reverses on the Continent, it had lost both in vigour within the country, and in the area of its predominance abroad. Ever since the' thirteenth century, England had been working towards her future destiny, that of a mercantile nation; the reigns of the great Edwards, the first and third, were periods of progressive development. Under Edward III, who had induced Flemish weavers to settle in England, the English cloth industry made rapid progress, and was able gradually to enter into competition with that of the Low Countries, which till then had been far superior. The cloth industry now became the petted child of royal care, the object of which was to enable English wool to be made up in the country itself, so that manufactured goods might gradually take the place of the raw material as an export.

Still, however, raw material predominated among the exports; it formed the connecting link between England and the Netherlands, which were through it inseparably England and united in their economic relations; the Netherlands, though the most advanced in industry, were really the most dependent, for if the English wool export stopped, the looms there would stand still. As befitted its importance, the Anglo-Flemish commerce was the first to assume definite forms; English merchants met together in companies in the Staple, which, after some changes, took as its fixed abode the English continental seaport of Calais. The Staple of Calais represented the conservative tendency in commerce, and was based on the privileges granted by monarchs to that rich and secure monopoly, the export trade in raw material with the neighbouring continent. To support this Staple was extremely important to the Government, from financial considerations, because of the heavy export duties on wool, and also from the ease with which a compact might be made with such a firmly united and exclusive association.

But the power of making further progress was taken away from the Staple. The pioneers of the expanding commerce were the Merchant Adventurers, who, since the beginning of the fifteenth century, had entered into more decided competition with the Staplers. They formed at first no close body, but included all who were not men of the Staple; being far more free in their movements than these, who were kept bound down to Calais, they attracted to themselves the trade with the Low Countries, and with other places over sea, and as the basis of the Staple was wool, which was confined more closely to its local markets, 'so the basis of the trade of the merchant adventurers was English cloth, for which new outlets were required. The Flemings knew how to protect themselves from this competition in their own country, but in the interior of Germany it had already become serious for them. Vexatious friction ensued, and the consequent transference of the English mart in the Low Countries from Bruges to Antwerp. The charter of Henry IV. (February 5, 1407) bestowed on the merchant adventurers rights of corporation and self-government; Englishmen on the Continent were by this means to be given a local centre, and an organised governing body. Henry VII. very soon felt how great the power of these merchant princes was, when they raised objections to the levying of 4onnage and poundage before the parliamentary grant, and the king had to make an abatement for them.1 They had been favoured also from another quarter, when their position with regard to native traders was fixed by the charter of Duke Philip of Burgundy (August 6, 1446). The trade of the English with Antwerp increased extraordinarily, they brought there almost all their cloth goods, also skins and hides, mineral products, and other articles, for which they exchanged the numerous commodities flowing in to that great market of the world.

Next in importance to the Netherlands for English commerce were the German Hansa towns in the north, and Italy, especially Venice, in the south of Europe. The competition of the trade carried on by the league of the Hansa and the Venetians with England, was more directly felt, as the enterprising foreigner, still far superior to the Englishmen in cleverness and mercantile experience, appeared in their own land, where, however, they could more easily protect themselves against him. Men had not yet abandoned the view held throughout antiquity and the Middle Ages, that the foreigner was simply an enemy; nations did not yet stand in close enough relation to one another; and the more limited their knowledge of foreigners was, the narrower was their view, and the more rude and prejudiced their self-satisfied arrogance. Each one who went abroad was conscious of this fault in others, without being aware of it in himself. English ambassadors wrote in the year 1505 from Spain to their king: “Many noblemen and gentlemen of this country have no knowledge of your grace nor of your kingdoms, they imagine there is no other country but Spain.” Such an opinion, however, is much more true about the English themselves, of whom an observant Italian spoke in almost the same words: “They have great affection for themselves and for all that they have. They fancy there are no other men but themselves, and no other world but England”; their highest praise for a stranger is that he looks like an Englishman. “They have a dislike to foreigners, who they imagine only come into the country to take possession of it, and to appropriate their goods.”

This innate hatred for strangers was increased in the case of the merchants of the German Hanseatic League, by reason of their extraordinary privileges, which, after all sorts of persecutions, they had managed cleverly to revive, by taking advantage of the internal condition of England during the wars of the Roses. It was at that time that they drove the English out of their old commercial position in the Scandinavian kingdoms; only in Iceland, which belonged to the Crown of Norway, did the English keep their hold, by a flourishing contraband trade, which almost degenerated into piracy; otherwise the Hansa enjoyed almost exclusive monopoly. By way of thanks for their generous support against Henry VI, Edward IV gave them a quite exceptional commercial position in England, by the Utrecht treaty of the 28th of February, 1474. By this they were granted less heavy taxes than the English themselves had to pay, besides full liberty of trade, even in jealous London itself, and the right of judgment by special judges. Their home in London, the renowned Steelyard, on the left bank of the Thames, not far above London Bridge, was recognised as their free property, as well as the house in Boston; and at Lynn they received permission to acquire land. Further, the damages suffered by them in recent times were to be compensated for by ,£10,000, which they were allowed to deduct from the dues to be paid in the course of the following year,

These privileges were very one-sided, for the security granted in return to Englishmen in the territory of the Hansa was so vague, that they were exposed to much arbitrary treatment. The Prussian trade was not unimportant, in consequence of the export of cloth, and the commodities brought in exchange from thence to England; and in the chief town, Dantzic, the English had formerly possessed privileges of forming a guild, and a house of their own. This last had been taken from them in 1414, and their trade—especially the direct interchange with merchants coming from the East to Dantzic—had been impeded. The only concession to them in the covenant of Utrecht consisted in renewed permission to stay in the Hanse towns, and “to buy and sell with anybody.” In spite of this arrangement, the English found themselves pushed out from the markets of the Baltic, whilst the men of the Hansa played a not unimportant part in England’s own foreign trade.

This was the state of things Henry found, and he did not dare at once to irritate the powerful league of the towns, who might support his enemies, as before they had supported the Yorkist prince, Edward IV. In the grant of tonnage and poundage by his first Parliament, “the Merchaunts of the Hanze in Almayne, haveing a house in the cittè of London,” were exempted from the higher rates fixed for foreigners. A royal charter of the 9th of March, 1486, confirmed the Utrecht treaty, a second, of the 29th of June, specially ratified the grant of compensation to be deducted from the dues up to £10.000. Placed in a difficult position between the two parties, Henry had been obliged to grant these privileges, but how could he seriously hope that they would be exactly carried out, when in England these advantages to foreigners were most unpopular, where the complaint was that their’ trade, “an intolerable burden,” was driving out Englishmen in every place, and where towns like London, Hull, York, and Lynn took the matter into their own hands, and in opposition to the treaty, resorted to all sorts of vexatious measures against the Hanse merchants. It seemed as if Henry were only waiting for an opportunity and a pretext to act contrary to his promise. As early as the spring of i486 he began with complaints of Hanseatic piracies, the following year it was stated more plainly that the rights of the Hanse merchants would be observed if they would do the same. A restrictive export law of Richard III was also made use of against them. The Hanse traders complained of annoyances, that they were only allowed to export cloth which was completely finished, in order that the benefit from shearing to finish might fall to the English operative. With much craftiness the privilege of the Hanse trader with regard to “his own commodities” was restricted to the products of the Hanseatic towns alone. Henry seized with pleasure on the proposal of the Hanse merchants established in London to adjust grievances at a commercial diet, but Cologne, and, later on, the Diet of the Hansa at Lubeck (February, 1488) refused it; for it was clear that the English would only make use of such a diet to gain for themselves fresh privileges, whilst for the Hanse merchants it was simply a question of securing the recognition and observance of their declared rights. They complained that they were made to bear the burden of Danish piracies, and that the whole body of traders in general was held responsible for the offences of individuals.

His first victories in England itself, and his success in Spain, had encouraged Henry to more decisive measures; accordingly, while the Breton complication and the prepara­tions for the French war were going on, he opened an attack, though certainly with other weapons, on the mercantile supremacy of the Hanseatic league. Instead of abandoning his original views, he caused the new regulations to be carried out with greater severity than ever, and if before, in a complaint, the English merchants had said it would be better to change such a state of things for open war, cost what it might, now they were not far from a state of actual warfare.

The Hanse merchants were attacked quite openly on the sea. A Dantzic trading-vessel was captured by the royal guardships and taken off to Calais; the Hanse merchants were advised not to send ships to Hull, where there might be fighting and murder; the German merchant was no longer sure of his life in the London streets. Henry was trying to force on the diet; he hinted that it was no longer possible for him to shut his ears to the complaints of his subjects, and the Hanse merchants were even threatened with expulsion.

Meanwhile the king had been preparing for more vigorous action. On the 6th of August, 1489, he sent off Dr. James Hutton, accompanied by several others, charged to conclude a treaty with Denmark, with whom at that time England was engaged in a regular privateering warfare, and he gave his ambassador, as was his custom in the first years of his reign, the instrument of a treaty already fully executed on his part.

But the subsequent agreement entered into in Denmark on the 20th of January, 1490, far exceeded these proposals. King John of Denmark caught joyfully at the proffered alliance as a means of resisting the powers of the Hanseatic league. He gave to the English most favourable terms, conceding to them all the rights which they had ever enjoyed in Denmark: fullest liberty of trading in Iceland, rights of corporation, a court of justice of their own, permission to purchase land in various places. Whilst Henry in England was oppressing the men of the Hansa, he was trying by this treaty to gain a footing in the very region where they had a monopoly of trade. It was, however, no fresh conquest, but only the reclaiming of an old possession, from which the English had been obliged to retreat, as also from Bergen and Iceland, in the periods of their own weakness.

A herald brought the complaints and demands of the English king to the Hanseatic Diet, then sitting at Lubeck. The pressure from him, possibly also the danger that might accrue from an Anglo-Danish combination, took effect, and the towns gave in. They declared themselves willing to have the diet, and after a few further negotiations, Antwerp was selected as the place of meeting. Thither went, in the first days of May, 1491, the burgomasters of the leading towns, accompanied by capable assistants.

But the English envoys, who had already received their power on the 20th of April, did not appear. Henry had wished to humble the league less by an open breach of privilege than by petty vexations. He continued this policy by the contempt he openly displayed for the town republics, and he made it even worse by his utterances and by the scant apologies of his plenipotentiaries, who arrived on the scene a whole month too late. Besides, at the instigation of King John, Henry had entered upon fresh negotiations with Denmark, with an idea of a combined movement against the towns, and the towns’ deputies, hearing of this, suspected that the cause of the delay was Henry’s desire to wait first for an answer from Denmark.

The diet now had to hear claim against claim, complaint against complaint. In point of fact, right was on the side of the men of the Hansa, although they had paid but little heed to the limited trade privileges allowed to the English; but it was not possible that a great State could long be content to waive for itself claims which it had been obliged to grant to others. Henry was really only claiming for his subjects in the Hanseatic territory a part of the privileges allowed to Hanseatic traders in England. First of dill the ancient position of Englishmen in Dantzic had to be regained, but Dantzic held out firmly, even against the pressure put on her by her fellow towns. Only a few concessions, and these restricted, were wrung from her—permission to frequent the Dantzic “Artushof,” and for the English to traffic with other foreign merchants without the intermediary of the Dantzic citizens, during the Dominikus fair in August. The Utrecht treaty, if correctly carried out, would have conceded this last right without any limitation as to time. The agreement, signed at Antwerp on the 28th of June, 1491, gave to the Hanse merchants a confirmation of their established rights, whilst Henry had made one opening, though that a small one, in the exclusive system of Prussian trade ; a modest gain, certainly, but one which in connection with his new relations with Denmark was of some value, as representing the first definite success of his commercial policy towards the north. All this took place at the same time that continental affairs seemed to be entirely engaging his attention, and this no doubt accounts for his desire to keep his hands free a little longer, and the consequent postponement of negotiations with the Hanse towns till May, 1493.

The conflict about privileges with the Hanseatic league was only one portion of a scheme of commercial policy embracing the whole north and south of Europe. As the Hanse towns had the ascendancy in the north, so had Venice in the south. The Italian who traded in England was, however, far less advantageously situated than the Hanse merchant, for he had to pay the heavy customs levied on foreigners, and was especially affected by the laws against aliens passed under Henry VI and Richard III. It was not, therefore, any privileged position which was the cause of the unpopularity of the Italian, but rather his superior acuteness in commercial matters, and that greater unscrupulousness which usually accompanies it. Richard tried to gain favour with his people by a hostile attitude towards these strangers, and their position at that time became so trying that the Venetians began to talk of reviving an ancient regulation, and giving up trade with England altogether.

But England would not allow matters to go as far as that. Was it not the Venetians who brought her the commodities of the East, as well as those of their own country—fine stuffs, glass wares, books, the wood that was indispensable for the bows of the English archers, and, above all, the wines of the South, for a country so unproductive of vines, and yet so in want of wine as England? In exchange they exported English cloth, and, like the Low Countries, were dependent on England for her excellent wool, which commanded the market. They made use at once of the change of dynasty to effect an improvement in their position. Cautiously modest in their demands, they did not beg that the legal restrictions on them should be set aside, but only that the heavy penalties should be removed, and even agreed that the king should be free to reimpose them at will. Henry complied with this reasonable request. Yet the Venetians could no more found expectations on this favourable policy of the new king with regard to strangers, than could the Hanse merchants on the ratification of their privileges. The heavy customs levied on foreigners remained as before, and when many tried to evade them by becoming naturalised English citizens, Henry’s first Parliament enacted that such naturalised Englishmen must pay the foreigner’s dues, in spite of the exemption already granted to them by Edward IV, while English-born subjects of the king were alone considered as natives by the tax-collectors. Naturalised foreigners were also accused of having been the means of smuggling in at cheaper rates the merchandise of strangers.

England was still only looked upon by the Venetians as a kind of midway station for Flemish trade. The ships going to the East bore the name of the Flanders galleys. These galleys were let out to merchant speculators, but belonged to the State, shipping in general being a government monopoly in Venice. In August, 1485, French pirates captured the four Flanders galleys, and the consequences were at once felt in Venice, from the non-arrival of the return cargo of English wool. The weavers appeared before the Senate, and begged that something might be done, as their trade was at a stand­still, and the operatives would starve. The government decreed a diminution in customs duties, in order to attract importation from other parts.

This state of affairs was evidently not unfavourable to England, and Henry hastened to make use of it. In the case of the Hanse merchants, it had been a question of ousting them from their privileged position in England herself, and opening up the hitherto closed North to foreign trade. In the case of Venice, things were more simple, the republic being itself dependent on English exports; so here the move was made exclusively for the advantage of the new navigation policy now inaugurated by Henry.

If the carrying trade of England still remained in the hands of foreigners, the main reason lay in the fact that the English merchant shipping was by no means adequate to demands made upon it. The fleet, like everything else in England, was at the con­clusion of the Middle Ages, in a complete state of decay. An attempt made by Edward IV. to direct English merchants as much as possible to use English ships had been abandoned. Henry followed on the same lines, but more cautiously. His first Parliament resolved that, on account of “the grete mynishyng and decaye that hathe ben now of late tyme of the navie within this Realme of England and ydelnesse of the Mariners within the same, by the whiche this noble Realme within short processe of tyme withoute reformacion be had therein shall not be of habilite and power to defend itself,” wines from Guienne and Gascony were to be imported into England only in English, Irish, or Welsh bottoms, manned by sailors of the same countries. This law was to hold good till the next Parliament. The king reserved for himself the right of granting exemptions but, excepting for the limitations in time, wares, and place, the same legislative idea is expressed in it, in a small way, which, nearly two centuries later, was expressed in a more comprehensive way in the great Navigation Act of the Commonwealth.

The same desire—to make the shipping of his country able to compete with that of others, and to make this com­petition easier—animated the king with regard to Venice. Under the name of malmsey—a wine much in demand in England—was understood, not only the growth of the Venetian Malvasia, but southern wines in general, and especially that from Candia, likewise belonging to Venice. The Flanders galleys exported it; but they were much interfered with by the English, who far underbid their rate of freight by charging four ducats the butt, instead of seven. The Venetian Senate, by a resolution, on the 18th of November, 1488, tried to regulate this by imposing an additional duty of four ducats the butt on every foreign ship. By this the English wine trade would have been made well-nigh impossible. Henry resolved on counter­measures, and endeavoured to frighten Venice, as he had the Hansa when he made the league with Denmark, by opening a trade with the Florentine seaport town of Pisa, where an English consul already resided. There, as at Calais for the neighbouring continent, a wool staple was to be established for the countries of the Mediterranean. By this the king sought to bully Venice, English wool being a necessity to her.

In vain Venice essayed to avert the blow, by entreaties and threats. On the 15th of April, 1490, in London, a treaty was concluded with Florence, which conceded to the English every advantage, even that wool should be conveyed exclusively in English ships, only obliging them to deliver the amount required by Italy. Venice alone was excepted. With regard to her, Henry reserved for himself freedom of action. This and the limitation of the treaty to the 15th of April, 1496, show that its purpose was hostile, that it was not intended to last, and that Henry scarcely believed in its being carried out. But for Florence, the hoped-for gain from an alliance with England was sufficient to make her accede to all the conditions, so that in this treaty also England came off with the lion’s share.

It is remarkable that the Navigation Act, which had not been renewed in the second Parliament, was, during the parliamentary session of January to February, 1490, again decreed to come into operation as a permanent law from the following 24th of June ; that it was extended to the Toulouse woad-dye, and further enlarged by the regulation that Englishmen should only freight foreign ships when no­English ones lay in the harbour. This extension of the Act with increased severity, shows us that the king now felt himself secure in the line of navigation policy on which he at first ventured so cautiously.

He held firmly and obstinately to his plan regarding Venice. When his demands for a diminution in the duties were refused, and when the Florentine treaty did not exercise the desired pressure, Parliament, at the beginning of the war year, 1492, resolved on a like high additional duty on every butt of malmsey wine imported into England by foreigners, and, in order to provide against an increase in the price of wine, fixed the rather low figure of £4 as the maximum price, and the rather high quantity of 126 gallons as the minimum measure of the butt. The Venetians, in alarm, threatened to stop the supply of wine. As, however, the continuance of the English duty was bound up with that of the Venetian duty, and the English were even then in a more favourable position than the Venetians, Henry let the republic do as it liked, and the duty was not taken off. For years this uncomfortable war of tariffs went on, with its constant friction; but at last the Venetians gave in, and justified the calculations of the king.

Thus Henry’s enterprising commercial policy soon embraced all Europe. In it were brought into play those powers of the State which had been fostered by a cautious home policy. Even in his intercourse with other powers, Henry always kept commercial interests in view: the first treaties with France were essentially commercial, his Navigation Act did not seem to be regarded there as a serious annoyance, until the war at last dissolved all connection between the two countries. The strained relations with Maximilian appeared doubly serious on account of the close mercantile connection with the Netherlands, and the damage to English commerce had been the principal reason for the first quarrel which was settled through the intervention of Spain.

Henry forgot his anxiety to be circumspect even with Spain, when it was a question of commercial interests. The treaty of Medina del Campo had arranged that for the future the duties which had been customary thirty years before should be paid, but in this matter the Spaniards did not remember that since then their merchants in England had been granted peculiar privileges. Hence the unforeseen consequence was a rise in duties. Ferdinand and Isabella at first demanded that the treaty should be carried out according to the spirit of the treaty, not according to the letter of the unsatisfactory clause, and finally that the clause should be altered. Owing to the unsafe condition of affairs, the Spanish merchants begged for royal licences in greater numbers, though in truth these had now become superfluous, in consequence of the treaty. Henry, however, troubled himself but little about such wishes on the part of his allies, he allowed the situation which suited him to remain the same for years; for it was to his advantage financially, and afforded at the same time a useful diplomatic weapon.

A monarch with clear insight and firm will stood at the head of the English Government. The first years of his reign show us his political character; temperate, disinclined to a policy of adventure, and with a remarkably clear comprehension of the special interests of his island kingdom. The new dynasty had consolidated itself, and was already inaugurating a new state of things for England. In July, 1490, the Milanese ambassador wrote that he had little to report on the condition of the kingdom, it being good. Henry, however, was not long to enjoy any rest; when he concluded the treaty of Etaples, a storm was brewing which would soon vent its fury on his head.

CHAPTER III.

PERKIN WARBECK.