112 North
conditions did they wish to hinder the English trade in its entirety, because a
ban would have harmful consequences for the cities’ weavers.
Nevertheless, Lübeck obtained an investigation of Stade’s dealings through
the Aulic Council in 1601. Ehrenfried von Minkwitz was, on one hand, supposed
to take account of the trade practices of the English and, on the other hand,
to move the Hanseatic cities to financial contribution toward the war with the
Turks. Because Lübeck and Hamburg had proved unfriendly towards the lat-
est affair, Minkwitz could confirm no blatant violations against Imperial man-
date in Stade. Moreover, Stade contributed four thousand florins to the war
against the Turks. 22 Beginning in 1610, the Hanseatic cities were infused with
new hope, as they wrested a mandate against the English trade in Northern
Germany from the Emperor during the Julich-Kleveberg succession contro-
versy, which was, however, not executed. As a result, Hamburg took a logical
step and in the same year invited the English to return to the Elbe. After the
arrival of the English cloth fleet in June of 1611, the English trading post was
favored by the council, which, by way of a Hamburg legation and the Diet,
was also favored by the Emperor. A renewed counter-initiative by Lübeck and
Cologne at the Imperial Diet had no impact.23
The English historian Richard Grassby explains this by means of the mas-
terful propaganda of the English, which propaganda the Hanseatic law-
yers could have only opposed with academically composed, dispassionate
memorandums.24 The medium of the arguments (pamphlet vs. tract) would
have thus decided success or failure. This view is correct when we include
public opinion in the discussion. In keeping company with public opinion,
the Merchant Adventurers and their publicists were altogether superior to the
Hanseatic League, and the “crocodile” did immediate damage to the Hanseatic
League in the eyes of observers. According to a contemporary text on the
22 Beutin, Hanse und Reich, 32–35. Nils Jörn, “Die Versuche von Kaiser und Reich zur
Einbeziehung der Hanse in die Anstrengungen zur Abwehr der Türken im 16. und
- Jahrhundert,” in Nils Jörn, and Michael North, eds., Die Integration des südlichen
Ostseeraumes in das Alte Reich (Cologne/Weimar/Vienna, 2000), 393–423.
23 Beutin, Hanse und Reich, 68–70.
24 Richard Grassby, “die letzten Verhandlungen zwischen England und der Hanse (1603–
1604),” Hansische Geschichsblätter. 76 (1958), 73–120, hier 106, 114. See also/recently Nils
Jörn, “The crocodile creature merchant: the Dutch Hanse. Die Widerspiegelung der
englisch-hansischen Auseinandersetzungen in den Denkschriften englischer Kaufleute
und Politiker in der zweiten Hälfte des 16. Jahrhunderts,” in Antjekathrin Grassmann,
Niedergang oder Übergang? Zur Spätzeit der Hanse im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert (Cologne,
1998), 63–91.