Fellowship and Freedom: The Merchant Adventurers and the Restructuring of English Commerce, 1582-1700

349 Pages·2020·3.476 MB·English

by  Thomas Leng

Fellowship and Freedom

Fellowship and Freedom
The Merchant Adventurers and
the Restructuring of English
Commerce, 1582–1700
THOMAS LENG
1
1
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP,
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First Edition published in 2020
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2019954818
ISBN 978–0–19–879447–9
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Acknowledgements
Many scholars have helped in the course of the researching and writing of this book.
I would particularly like to thank my colleagues and students at the University of
Sheffield, especially Mike Braddick, James Shaw, and Phil Withington, and my
SCEMS co-director Tom Rutter. The organizers and audiences of research seminars
at the Institute of Historical Research, London, and the University of Warwick,
who heard parts of the book in progress, were very helpful. David Ormrod,
Patrick Wallis, and Nuala Zahedieh have been particularly hospitable and encour-
aging, as have Will Pettigrew and his project team, including Edmond Smith,
Aske Brock, Tristan Stein, and Liam Haydon. The anonymous readers for Oxford
University Press made constructive and useful comments, and Cathryn Steele has
been an excellent editor. The staff at the different archives and libraries listed in
the bibliography have also been extremely helpful. Finally, Miriam Dobson has
offered her support and advice throughout. This book is dedicated to her, Zoe,
and Adam.

Abbreviations
Add. Additional Manuscripts
APC Acts of the Privy Council of England, 46 vols (London, 1890–1946)
BL British Library
Bodl. Lib. Bodleian Library
Bradshaw Letters ‘The Manuscripts of Miss Farrington of Worden Hall, Co.
Lancaster’, in Sixth Report of The Royal Commission on Historical
Manuscripts (London, 1877), pp. 426–44
CJ Journals of the House of Commons
Coventry Papers Coventry Papers from the Archives of the Marquess of Bath at
Longleat, microfilm edition (1969)
CP Cecil Papers Online
Hamburg Register Register book of the Church of the English Court, Hamburg,
Staatsarchiv Hamburg, 521–1
HL Huntington Library
HMC Historical Manuscripts Commission (for details of particular
volumes, see Bibliography)
HMC Sackville I Calendar of the Manuscripts of Major-General Lord
Sackville . . . Preserved at Knole, Sevenoaks, Kent. Volume I. Cranfield
Papers 1551–1612, ed. A. P. Newton (London, 1942)
HMC Sackville II Calendar of the Manuscripts of The Right Honourable Lord
Sackville of Knole, Sevenoaks, Kent. Volume II. Papers Relating to
Lionel Cranfield’s Business Overseas, 1597–1612, ed. F. J. Fisher
(London, 1966).
HP Hartlib Papers
KHLC Kent History and Library Centre
Laws W. E. Lingelbach (ed.), The Merchant Adventurers of England:
Their Laws and Ordinances with Other Documents (1902)
Misselden, ‘Discourse’ Edward Misselden, ‘A Discourse, shewing the Necessity of
the Restoringe of the Marchaunts Aduenturers Priviledges &
Government in their Mart Towne in Germany’, BL, Sloane
MS 1453
NLW National Library of Wales
NRO Northamptonshire Record Office
x Abbreviations
ODNB Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, electronic edition,
Oxford University Press, 2004
SP State Papers
SRO Somerset Record Office
Thurloe State Papers Thomas Birch (ed.), A Collection of the State Papers of John
Thurloe, 7 vols (London, 1742)
TNA The National Archives
Whitelocke Papers Whitelocke Papers from the Archives of the Marquess of Bath,
microfilm edition (1972)
WSA Wiltshire and Swindon Archives
Conventions for Dating,
Transcriptions, and Money
Dates are given old style, with the exception that the new year is dated from
1 January. The original spelling has been retained in manuscript transcriptions, with
the exception that abbreviations and contractions have been silently expanded.
Both Hamburg and the Netherlands used a similar money of account to England,
based on pond/pfund, schelling/schilling and groot/grot: amounts of money in
these currencies are followed by the abbreviation vls, short for vlamische (i.e.
Flemish), following the practice in John J. McCusker, Money and Exchange in
Europe and America, 1600–1775: A Handbook (Chapel Hill, 1978). All other
amounts of money are in sterling.