Henry VIII and the Merchants by Susan Rose

Author:Susan Rose
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781350134119
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2022-12-23T00:00:00+00:00

6

War with France

Despite the shock of Cromwell’s precipitate fall and execution, it must at first have seemed to Stephen that business as usual was the order of the day (Figures 7 and 8). In early June 1541, he was once more commissioned to travel to the court of Mary of Hungary in Brussels to negotiate in a quarrel between the Merchant Adventurers and their counterparts in Antwerp and other Flemish towns over alleged changes in the way trade between them was conducted. From Vaughan’s point of view this would have seemed like a further recurrence of the arguments over the interpretation of the terms of the Intercursus Magnus of 1493, and other regulations governing the trade which had occurred at regular intervals in the intervening years. Stephen Vaughan himself would have recalled his involvement with John Hackett in a dispute of this nature in 1532. In the past, however, these commercial quarrels had often been used as something of a proxy for political disputes between England and the empire. It soon became apparent that this was also the case in 1541.

Figure 7 William Paget first Baron Beaudesert. Public domain.

Figure 8 Mary of Hungary sister of Charles V, Regent of the Netherlands. Public domain.

Vaughan was commissioned to act with Sir Edward Carne, who had been his colleague in the abortive discussions in 1538–9 regarding a possible marriage of the king and the Duchess of Milan. Both men had the advantage of knowing the style of negotiation to be expected at the court of the Regent as well as having personal contacts with many of her advisers. Their earlier experience would have prepared them to expect no quick solutions to any problems but rather delays and time-wasting, and the avoidance of any definite conclusions. The problem this time ostensibly related to an English Act of Parliament passed in 1540 called innocuously enough Concerning Strangers. 1 This was intended to gather together all the earlier legislation regarding strangers (foreigners or aliens) resident in England, especially those engaged in any form of trade or business. The preamble to the Act declared that all sorts of useful regulations had been ‘infringed frustrated and defrauded’ by means of letters patent obtained by the ‘craftie sutis inventions and practisis’ of foreigners who had obtained letters of denization. These had the effect of removing all the legal distinctions between aliens and ‘Englishmen naturally borne within the “Kinges Graces Dominions”’. To remedy this situation the new Act laid down that, from the first of September next, all the legislation regarding aliens would apply to all ‘strangers’ irrespective of any letters patent they might have obtained. All letters of denization would in the future include a proviso that all relevant laws had to be obeyed. The Flemings saw this Act as a direct attack on their trading privileges in England and when no concessions were offered, prevailed on Mary of Hungary to issue a decree forcing English merchants to use Flemish ships to carry goods being exported to England. Such a decree would gravely hinder trade and decrease its profitability.

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