106 North
Hamburg’s merchants drew back from active trade with England. This is taken
from the account of the English merchant Matthias Hoep, who worked in
London as a contact for Hamburg’s merchants until 1570, and who for short
time after his return to Hamburg received cloth from London and purchased
it from the “Merchant Adventurers” in Hamburg from 1572 on. In the years
to come the trade with England took place almost exclusively in Hamburg,
whereby the Hamburg Clothiers Guild was involved in the marketing of the
“Merchant Adventurers” imported cloth.9
However, the settlement of the “Merchant Adventurers” in Hamburg led to
great conflicts between Lübeck and Hamburg, as well as between the Hanseatic
Cities and England, which, in light of the background for the conflict between
England and Spain, became a great explosive force in foreign policy.
The Lengthy Negotiations with England, the Emperor, and the
Empire Concerning the Settlement of the “Merchant Adventurers”
In 1567, Hamburg had opened a residence for the English merchants
(Merchant Adventurers) for ten years, which benefited both parties. Due to
the loss of the Dutch market as a result of the Dutch Revolt, this trading post
was critical for the “Merchant Adventurers”. With this in mind, the Hanseatic
League smelled an opportunity to regain the most preferable trade privileges
on the British Isles, which were at that time disputed by England. Therefore,
the Hanseatic Diet (Hansetag) called upon Hamburg to close the trading post
of the “Merchant Adventurers” after the expiration of the ten year agreement,
which England responded to with countermeasures such as the lockout of
Hanseatic merchants from the cloth trading center in Blackwell Hall, London.
In this situation the counts of East Friesia and Emden as well as the city
of Elbing offered the “Merchant Adventurers” a new domicile where they
would be protected from the repressions of the Hanseatic League. Because
protests against East Friesia bore no fruit, the Emperor and the Imperial Diet
(Reichstag) were the only ones who could settle the situation; therefore they
ordered an expulsion of the English. The Electoral Council (Kurfürstenrat)
was already concerned with the affair at the outset of the year 1580,10 and in
9 Richard Ehrenberg, Hamburg und England im Zeitalter der Königin Elisabeth ( Jena, 1896),
76–101, 125.
10 Danziger Inventar 1531–1591, ed. Paul Simson, Nr. 8088 (Munich/Leipzig, 1913), 636. For the
following see Michael North, “Reich und Reichstag im 16. Jahrhundert—der Blick aus
der angeblichen Reichsferne”, in Maximilian Lanzinner, and Arno Strohmeyer, eds., Der