§ 5. OUR TRADE WITH FLANDERS. ANTWERP IN THE FIFTEENTH AND SIXTEENTH CENTURIES—We have mentioned before how the eastern ports and harbours of England used to swarm with small, light craft that plied all the summer through between our own country and Flanders. We have seen too that this continuous trade was due to the fact that we supplied the Flemish looms with wool. Up to the fifteenth century the great Flemish emporium, to which our English ships plied, was Bruges, but in the sixteenth century this town quite lost its former glory, and Antwerp took its place. The change was due to the action of Maximilian, the Emperor of Germany, to whom Henry VIII. was allied, and who, in revenge for a rebellion in which Ghent and Bruges took part, caused the canal {96} which connected Bruges with the sea to be blocked up at Sluys (1482), and thus English and other ships were compelled to direct their course to Antwerp, which then became a great and flourishing port. Antwerp remained without a rival till near the close of the sixteenth century, and every nation had its representatives there. Our own consul, to use a modern term, was, at the close of the fifteenth century, Sir Richard Gresham; and later, in the reign of Henry VIII., his celebrated son, the financier and economist, Sir Thomas Gresham. The fact of our having these representatives there is again a proof of the growth of trade in the sixteenth century. An Italian author, Ludovico Guicciardini (who died in 1589), gives a very precise account of our own commerce with Antwerp at this period, and it is interesting to note how varied our commerce has by this time become. This is what he says as to our _imports_: “To England Antwerp sends jewels, precious stones, silver bullion, quicksilver, wrought silks, gold and silver cloth and thread, camlets, grograms, spices, drugs, sugar, cotton, cummin, linens fine and coarse, serges, tapestry, madder, hops in great quantities, glass, salt, fish, metallic and other merceries of all sorts; arms of all kinds, ammunition for war, and household furniture.” As to our _exports_ he tells us: “From England Antwerp receives vast quantities of coarse and fine draperies, fringes and all other things of that kind to a great value; the finest wool; excellent saffron, but in small quantities; much lead and tin; sheep and rabbit skins without number, and various other sorts of the fine peltry (_i.e._ skins) and leather; beer, cheese, and other provisions in great quantities; also Malmsey wines, which the English import from Candia. It is marvellous to think of the vast quantity of drapery sent by the English into the Netherlands.” {97} This list is sufficient to show an extensive trade, and we shall comment upon one or two items of it in the next chapter. Here we need only remark upon the great growth of English manufactures of cloth.