About the year 1358 the Fraternity of Thomas Becket received privileges from Louis, Count of Flanders, for fixing their staple of English woollen cloth at Bruges. This Fraternity gave rise to the Mercers’ Company founded under Edward the Third. The Saint, son of a London mercer, was especially regarded as the protector of the Company. The Brotherhood was not at first possessed of exclusive rights, but if we suppose that they were backed by the richest traders in London, namely, the Mercers and the Drapers, and that no other London trader would compete with them, it is quite probable that they feared no competition. They got a Charter in 1406 when Henry the Fourth gave them the right of choosing their own governors; they then began to arrogate to themselves exclusive rights, which were confirmed by another Charter of 1436. So wealthy and powerful did they become that when, in 1444, they removed their headquarters from Middleburg to Antwerp, the magistrates and citizens met them outside the town, and offered them an entertainment. Their Secretary, John Wheeler (_Treatise of Commerce_, 1601), says that the “English Nation” were the real founders of Antwerp’s wealth. There were troubles as to the attempts of private merchants to trade; in 1497 it was provided by Act of Parliament that every Englishman should have free entrance to foreign marts on payment of ten marks, presumably to the Fraternity. Again, in 1505, a new Charter changed their name to that of the “Merchant Adventurers of England.” Under this Charter they held in their hands the export trade in woollen cloths, and were authorised to hold courts and to admit other merchants for a fee of ten marks to trade with them in Flanders, Holland, Brabant, Zeeland, and the countries adjacent under the Archduke’s government. The Merchant Adventurers became a power in the land; so great a power, indeed, that when Charles the Fifth proposed to establish the Inquisition in Antwerp, he was dissuaded by the Merchant Adventurers, who threatened to leave the City if he persisted. It is said that the Company then employed 50,000 persons in the Netherlands. At this time their limits comprised all the ports from the river Somme to the German ports within the Baltic. They exported white and coloured cloths to the value of one million sterling every year, and imported, among other things, wine, copper, steel, gunpowder (could we not make our own gunpowder?), silk, velvets, cloth of gold. This business was well nigh ruined by King James the First when he granted a monopoly for the sale of cloths dyed at home to Sir William Cockaine, Alderman. (See _London in the Time of the Stuarts_, p. 194.) [Illustration: _W. A. Mansell & Co._ MEDALS STRUCK IN COMMEMORATION OF THE ARMADA From medals in the British Museum. _p._ 232.]