English trade in those days was hampered by a multitude of restrictions. There were monopolies, there were laws forbidding the export of this and that, or the making of goods by any one outside certain guilds, there were arrangements favoring foreign traders who had got their foothold during the War of the Roses,--when kings needed money from any source that would promise it. The Hanse merchants at the Steelyard alone controlled the markets of more than a hundred towns. Their grim stone buildings rose like a fort commanding London Bridge, and they paid less both in duties and customs than English merchants did. They employed no English ships, and could underbuy and undersell the English manufacturer and the English trader. Their men were all bachelors, with no families to found or houses to keep up in England. The farmer might get half price for his wool and pay more than one price for whatever he was obliged to buy. There was plenty of private exasperation, but no open fighting, against this ruling of the London markets by Hamburg, Luebeck, Antwerp and Cologne. Cabot's clear head and wide experience plainly showed him the enormous waste of such a system, but he did not see how to unlock the harbors. Neither, at present, did the King, whose shrewd brain was at work on the problem. Henry Tudor had the thrift of a youth spent in poverty, and the turn for finance inherited from Welsh ancestors, but his kingdom was not rich, and his throne not over-secure. He was prejudiced against doing anything rash, both by nature and by the very limited income of the crown. He had given an audience to Bartholomew Columbus while the older brother was still haunting the court of Castile with his unfulfilled plans, and had gone so far as to tell the Genoese captain to bring his brother Christopher to England that he might talk with him. Had it not been for Queen Isabella's impulsive decision England instead of Spain might have made the lucky throw in the great game of discovery. But by the time Bartholomew could get the message to his brother the matter had been settled and the expedition was already taking shape. Henry VII. always kept one foot on the ground, and until he could see some other way to bring wealth into the royal treasury he let the monopolies go on. In 1495 he took a chance. He gave to John Cabot and his sons a license to search "for islands, provinces or regions in the eastern, western or northern seas; and, as vassals of the King, to occupy the territories that might be found, with an exclusive right to their commerce, on paying the King a fifth part of the profits."