Authors: Susan Ronald
Still, the competition was bruising. For each English merchant prepared to carry cloth or other English exports like tin to the Continent, there were at least two “strangers,” or foreigners, prepared to take his place in any market. London itself, while it had a number of foreign traders, especially from Italy and the German Hanseatic League, never openly welcomed them in the way that Antwerp did. They were mistrusted as “strangers,” with the government and competitors alike keeping a close eye on them, making business and living needlessly uncomfortable and at times claustrophobic. In contrast, the openness of Antwerp allowed the city and the whole of the Spanish Netherlands to prosper from its acceptance of foreign traders, and the city burgomasters welcomed “strangers” in its midst in a way that was as yet unheard of in England. In this welcoming attitude, Antwerp was unique, and the city profited from it.
15
At the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign, there were well over 185 Italian firms in Antwerp alone, with more than that number again in German (from both the Hanse cities and Swabia), Spanish, Portuguese, Danish, Swedish, and English trading houses joining the thriving market. The main reason for this extraordinary commercial bustle was that the “Lords of Antwerp,” as the English referred to them, were themselves serious players in the luxury trades and excellent businessmen. This contrasted sharply with London,
where “citizenship” of London would normally be acquired early in life through an apprenticeship to one of the large medieval City corporations (the Mercers, Merchants Adventurers, Staplers, or others), and even then, the proud possessor would be only one rung above the despised “stranger.”
16
Yet by 1561, Antwerp had passed its heyday. While it still flaunted its ancient privileges handed down from the Burgundy dukes as a free city of the Holy Roman Empire, Philip II had already hatched other ideas.
17
The envisaged changes were spurred on by a number of factors, but the first of these would have been the dishonor of his parlous financial state at the time of becoming King of Spain in 1557. His “bankruptcy” of 1557 had devastated a number of the merchants trading in Antwerp—of all nationalities—and made them wary of taking any further sovereign debt. As if this weren’t bad enough, other monarchs, including the Portuguese and French governments, repudiated their financial obligations as well, causing a second wave of bankruptcies among the merchants.
18
Nothing undermines economies more than a lack of confidence, even war. And Philip of Spain, by his inability to pay the huge war debt inherited from his bellicose father and aggravated in his war against France, promoted the decline of Antwerp unwittingly. He was truly dismayed at the anger of the international merchant community; yet as an absolute monarch, he refused all rebuke. He longed for the warmth and comforts of Spain, and took this opportunity to decide that Seville would become the heart of his world trading operations. He resolved that Spain, which he cherished more than any other of his dominions, would become the center of his personal universe and his political empire. Now that his French war was over, his English wife, Queen Mary, soon to be replaced by Elisabeth of France,
19
Philip needed to get on and build his personal dynasty. Fatefully, the only place to do that, in his mind, was Spain. He left the Low Countries in disarray in July 1559, never to return.
Meanwhile, Elizabeth was ready to turn the economic adversity caused by Philip and his misuse of the Antwerp merchants to her advantage. Her first step was to negotiate through Gresham to buy arms and ammunition for the Scottish war. But more important
from Antwerp’s viewpoint, Elizabeth sent a clear message through Gresham to reimburse the merchant princes for their loans to her half sister Mary I. At a stroke, Elizabeth of England had set herself above the other monarchs of the time, and especially Philip, by making good her sister’s foreign sovereign debt.
20
Yet despite the queen’s ascendancy in Antwerp, England’s Merchants Adventurers could not escape unscathed. Philip made his second declaration of “bankruptcy” in 1560, taking down with him some of the top merchant banking families of Europe. Naturally with so many merchants forced to close down operations or tighten their belts as a result of the bankruptcies, there were a number of trades with the English, too, that defaulted. The monumental rise in litigation in Antwerp is a clear indicator of how tricky business dealings had become. English merchants who were not part of the Company of Merchants Adventurers, like the Hawkinses, found that their Spanish and Canaries trades were likewise affected. But most significantly for Elizabeth was if her Merchants Adventurers had dubious royal debtors. In that eventuality, they would be less likely to support her crown with loans in the future unless she could really make it worth their while.
Philip had lost the confidence of his European financiers, relying instead as much as possible in the future on the steady stream of the flota, the Spanish treasure fleet, arriving yearly from New Spain. The Low Countries, and indeed Protestant northern Europe, were proving too great a diversion for him, since the real threat to Spain, or so Philip believed, was the Turkish domination of the Mediterranean, not the heretic English queen. His decision to remove Spanish troops from the defense of the Netherlands against France in the early 1560s was directly linked to his inability to continue to fight European wars on two or more fronts
and
finance them.
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What Philip had failed to understand was that, at a stroke, he had lost his best chance of taming a young Elizabeth, who, with the Low Countries, would all too soon represent the greatest threat to his empire.
While, the Queen of England took the tough decisions to sort out the “base monies,” Elizabeth’s Merchants Adventurers had seen all too
clearly from the Spanish king’s actions that Spain was not invincible. Long before the king had made his decision to return to Spain, they had decided to try their hand at plying trade themselves to the Indies, or Cathay, cutting out the middlemen from Iberia, the Arabs, or the Venetians—all of whom had long-established business in the region. But unlike the Spanish and Portuguese, England’s Merchants Adventurers would approach the Indies from the Northeast and Russia, or Muscovy, as it was then called.
The idea was the brainchild of the Muscovy Company’s first governor, Sebastian Cabot, a Merchant Adventurer himself and self-proclaimed “governor of the mystery and company of the Merchants Adventurers for the Discovery of Regions, Dominions, Islands and Places unknown” as early as 1548, the first year of Edward VI’s reign.
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Cabot, whose father had discovered Newfoundland in an expedition financed by Elizabeth’s grandfather in 1497, had been a long-distance sea captain and merchant in his own right since 1508. The company’s first voyage to Russia set out in 1553 to tremendous fanfare while the adolescent King Edward VI lay dying at Greenwich.
And it was simply a voyage organized on a scale that had never before been contemplated. The “admiral” or flagship was the
Bona Esperanza
of 120 tons, commanded by Sir Hugh Willoughby and carrying thirty-one men with provisions for eighteen months. His “vice admiral” was the
Edward Bonaventure
of 160 tons, sailing under Richard Chancellor, pilot major of the fleet, with thirty-nine men. The third ship in the tiny flotilla was the
Bona Confidentia
of 90 tons, carrying twenty-five men and the master of the fleet. Each vessel had been “new built,” that is, repaired with good planking and timbers with their keels sheathed in lead against sea worm. Each ship had its own pinnace, arms, and victuals. And since this was a trading voyage, there were important merchants, Protestant ministers, and musicians who helped to make up the complement of 116 men in all. There were two hundred subscribers—all the great and the good of the land from peers and privy councillors to wealthy City merchants—whose fully paid-up share capital amounted to the staggering sum of £6,000 ($2.78 million or £1.5 million today). Even the lord high admiral, John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, and his son-in-law, Henry Sidney, were pivotal investors.
23
Envy of the luxury trades, so long monopolized by the Spaniards and the Portuguese, was the strongest motive for the enterprise. But it was its component backers—from the common seaman to the lord high admiral and City merchants—that set the blueprint for the future of English maritime expansion. The distinction among England’s sea dogs, her merchants, and her rulers would become more and more blurred as the Elizabethan age progressed, with maritime exploits and successes becoming the most certain way of rising quickly in society and in wealth.
Even more extraordinary than the armchair admirals backing the voyage was the privation and degradation that the English would suffer until they could at last call success their own in long-distance voyages. This first voyage of discovery to Russia was, in simple terms, a financial disaster with huge loss of life. The ships were delayed by “fickle winds,” and Willoughby, who had been chosen to lead the voyage for his “goodly person” overshot landfall and had to turn south to Arzina on the Lapland coast in September, where they decided to over-winter. He had lost contact with Chancellor in the
Edward
and presumed that Chancellor, the less-experienced man, would not survive. Willoughby’s journal abruptly ended with that thought. It was found the following summer by Russian fishermen, who had discovered it among the frozen bodies of seventy men.
24
Meanwhile, Chancellor had found landfall farther north at Vardo, and, having waited a week (as long as he dared in the enclosing gloom of August near the North Pole), sailed on to the White Sea, where he came ashore near the mouth of the River Dwina. Chancellor and his men made their way overland by sled to Moscow and the Russian czar’s “golden” court, presenting King Edward’s greetings to Ivan IV, later known as “the Terrible.” While the descriptions given of the Russian countryside were of an isolated and desolate icebound wasteland, the court of Ivan IV was much admired by Chancellor and his men:
They go, and being conducted into the Golden Court (for so they call it, although not very fair), they find the Emperor sitting upon a high and stately seat, apparelled with a robe of silver, and with another diadem on his head; our men, being placed over against him, sit down. In the midst of the room stood a mighty cupboard upon a square foot, whereupon stood also a round board, in a manner of a diamond, broad beneath, and towards the top narrow, and every step rose up more narrow than the other. Upon this cupboard was placed the Emperor’s plate, which was so much that the very cupboard itself was scant able to sustain the weight of it. The better part of all the vessels and goblets was made of very fine gold; and, amongst the rest, there were four pots of very large bigness, which did adorn the rest of the plate in great measure, for they were so high, that they thought them at the least five feet long. Then were also upon this cupboard certain silver casks, not much differing from the quantity of our firkins wherein was reserved the Emperor’s drink. On each side of the hall stood four tables, each of them laid and covered with very clean table-cloths…
25
Ivan, too, was impressed with the English mariners. A general agreement to commence trading with England was undertaken, and Ivan wrote back to Edward (who was already long dead), saying:
In the strength of the twentieth year of our governance, be it known that at our sea coasts arrived a ship, with one Richard and his company, and said, that he was desirous to come into our dominions, and according to his request hath seen our Majesty and our eyes; and hath declared unto us your Majesty’s desire as that we should grant unto your subjects, to go and come, and in our dominions, and among our subjects to frequent free marts, with all sorts of merchandises, and upon the same to have wares for their return. And they have also delivered us your letters which declare the same request. And hereupon we have given order, that wheresoever your faithful servant Hugh Willoughby land or touch in our dominions, to be well entertained, who as yet is not arrived as your servant Richard can declare…according to your honourable request and my honourable commandment will not leave it undone, and are furthermore willing that you send unto us your ships and vessels, when, and as often as they may have passage, with good assurance on our part to see them harmless. And if you send one of your Majesty’s council to treat with us, whereby your country merchants may with all kinds of wares, and where they will, make their market in our dominions, they shall have their free mart with all free liberties through my whole dominions with all kinds of wares, to come and go at their pleasure, without any let, damage, or impediment, according to this our letter, our word, and our seal…
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Chancellor returned to London in 1554 with the relative good news that the Russians had agreed to trade, and the Muscovy Company was officially incorporated under Queen Mary by royal charter. It was granted the monopoly on trade with Russia and all areas “northwards, northeastwards and northwestwards” which had been unknown to Englishmen prior to 1553.
27
But the hero of the Muscovy Company, Richard Chancellor, drowned two years later in the wreck of the
Edward Bonaventure
after one further voyage to the White Sea. While Chancellor had given his life for dreams of adventure (which he certainly had) and wealth (which he never quite got), the importance of his achievements lay not in the original discoveries made, but rather in the overall drama of his voyages, the royal charter, royal embassies, and its cumulative impact on the English nation. English merchants from the City of London had taken part and witnessed firsthand the impact of long-distance, heavily capitalized trade through a joint stock company involving several strata of society. This made the Muscovy Company the natural patron of geographical science and enterprise well into Elizabeth’s reign.