The untimely death of Edward VI. (6 July, 1553), while it operated as a severe check on the advancing commercial prosperity of England, was no less inauspicious to the fortunes of Sebastian Cabot, who had given to it the first great impulse. The generosity of the youthful monarch, his ingenuous and enterprising spirit, and his fondness for maritime affairs, offer a melancholy contrast to the sullen bigotry of Mary.[94] Without one spark of feeling for the commercial interests of the people whom she had been called to govern, or one thought about their happiness, she deputed all such matters to her husband, who reduced Cabot’s pension one half, and materially curtailed the influence he so long possessed, it may be with some gain to his own peace of mind in his now declining years, though to England’s loss. Foreign traders with England had now their former special privileges partially restored, while the Steel-Yard merchants, bringing the influence of Germany to bear upon Philip II., were thus enabled to obtain relief from the Act passed by Edward VI. They were not, however, satisfied with these changes in their favour, for “at an assembly of the Houses at Lubeck, an Edict was published against all Englishmen, forbidding all trade or commerce with them.”[95] [Sidenote: and dies at a very advanced age.] From this time Cabot sank into comparative insignificance. Sixty-one years had elapsed since the date of his first commission from Henry VII.; he was now a very old man, and the powers of nature, fast failing through age, were still more rapidly exhausted by the usage he received from the court. The exact date of his death is not known, nor has any record been left where he was buried. He who, with Christopher Columbus, had presented a new world to his sovereign, died like him neglected, if not despised, and at last so thoroughly unknown, that England cannot point to the spot of earth where rests all that was mortal of one of her best and bravest seamen.[96] FOOTNOTES: [48] 1 Hen. VII. c. 8. [49] Hen. VII. c. 8; see Parl. Hist. vol. i. p. 407. [50] Rymer’s ‘Fœdera,’ vol. xii. p. 335. [51] According to Hakluyt, “In the yeeres of our Lord 1511, 1512, &c., till the year 1534” (ii., p. 96). [52] Hakluyt’s remark here is worthy of note, “Neither did our merchants onely employ their owne English shipping before mentioned, but sundry strangers also—Candiots, Raguseans, Venetian galiasses, Spanish and Portugal ships” (II., p. 96). [53] Macpherson, vol. ii. p. 46. [54] Macpherson, vol. ii. p. 11. The charter of patent is dated at Westminster, March 5, 1495-6.—Rymer, xii. p. 595.