The Muscovy merchants of 1555

71 Pages·1978·17.7 MB·English

by  Thomas Stuart Willan

UN IV
ICON
CONTENTS
PAGB
A llllllUVIATIONS vii
I 111 SllTTING I
Published by 1be University of Manchesicr at ii I 1111 CllARTIJR MEMBERS 9
Tu1! UNIVUSITY PRESS,
3 x6-324, Oxford Road, ill I UAl>ING ACTIVITIES 22
Manchester, 13
IV 47
WIAllll
1953
V t CIN('i,USlON 69
lhc 11.1tAPlllCAL APPENDIX 7S
INllC X OF PERSONS AND PLACES 133
l'rin~ in Great Britain by'nutler & Tanner Ltd., Frome and London
v
Nt
COii
ABBREVIATIONS
h 1,1 MSS. Additional Manuscripts.
Acts of the Privy Co1111cil.
A. B. Beaven, The alder111eu of the city of Lo11do11.
]. W. Blake, ed. E11ropea11s i11 West Africa, 1451>-1560,
Hakluyt Society, second series, lxxxvi, lxxxvii.
ll11y.I • P. Doyd, Roll of the Drapers' Company of Lo11do11.
lllllj\•111 ]. W. Burgon, The life aml times of Sir Thomas
Gresha111.
C. T. Carr, ed. Select charters of tradillg co111pa11ies,
I 111
1531>-1707, Selden Society, :iorviii.
I l111l1• C. M. Clode, The early liistory oft he C11ild ofM erchant
Taylors.
Caleudar of Pate11t Rolls.
Cale11dar of Stale Papers Domestic.
Cale11dar of State Papers Foreig11.
I IN II • Dictionary of Natio11al Biography.
I 1111 E11glisfi Historical Review.
I l1 l<.R. Exchequer, King's Remembrancer.
1
111~ l11y1 R. Hakluyt, The prillcipall 11avigatio11s, voiages a11d
discoveries oft ire English 11atio11 (Everyman edition).
11111 MliS. Harleian Manuscripts.
11111111 • E. Hasted, History of Ke11t. Part 1. The Hundred
of Blackhcath, ed. H. H. Drake.
11 I /\,. High Court of Admiralty.
JI M C' Historical Ma1111scripts Co111missiot1.
I If I' 111 IA1nd. Abstracts of lnq11isitiones post mortem relati11g to tire city
of Lo11do11. {lndex Library, vols. 15 26, 36.)
1
1 .ltu,1111 A. H. Johnson, The history of the worslripji1l Company
of the Drapers of Lo11do11.
]. J. Lambert, ed. Records of the Ski1111ers of Loudon,
Edward I to James I.
I 111• MSS, Lansdowne Manuscripts.
vii
Abbreviations
Vlll
The diary of Heury Macliyt1, ed. J. G. Nichols, Camden
Machyn
Society, xlii.
R. G. Marsden, ed. Select pleas;,, tlie Court ofA dmiralty,
Marsden CHAPTER I
Selden Society, vi, xi.
E. D. Morgan and C. H. Coote, eds. Early vo~ages THE SETTING
Morgan and Coote
a11d travels to R11ssia a11d Persia, Hakluyt Society,
lxxii, lxxiii. ENGLISH society in the sixteenth century was at once hier
J. Nicholl, Some acco1111t of tlie worsliipfiil Company of archical and fluid. It possessed a theoretical rigidity which
Nicholl
Iro11111011gers. assigned to men their proper places in the social structure and
w. H. and H. C. Overall, Analytical iudex of tlie series a practical flexibility which allowed them to move up or down
Overall.
of records luro11111 as tire Re111embra11cia preserved among the social scale. Such movements no doubt impaired the ideal
the arcliives of tire city of Lo11do11.
of a well-ordered society, but even without them it was not
Prerogative Court of Canterbury.
P.C.C. . always easy to assign some men to their proper places within
Ret11m Retum of Members of Parlia111e11t (1878). the social hierarchy. Such a difficulty arose in the case of the
H. J. Smit, ed. Bromren tot de gescl1iede11is va11 den merchant. It arose partly from the nature of the contemporary
Smit
haudel met Engela11d, Schotlar1d e11 lerla11d, 1485-1585.
classification into which he had to be fitted and partly from the
S.P .. State Papers. wide diversity within his occupational group. The conventional
State Papers Domestic. gradations of labourer, husbandman, yeoman, gentleman,
S.P.D.
J. Stow, A mrvey of Lo1ido11, ed. C. L. Kingsford. esquire, and knight were more applicable to rural than to urban
Stow
J. Stow, A survey of London, ed. J. Strype. London, life, and the merchant was usually a townsman. Moreover the
Strype .
1720. term' merchant ' was not clearly defined. Even ifit were limited
Trar1sactiot1s of tlie Royal Historical Society. to those engaged in foreign trade, it could still embrace a very
T.R.H.S.
v.c.H. Victoria Co1111ty History. wide group, whose members ranged from the provincial mer
chant, who might also be a tradesman and even a handicraftsman,
to the great merchant princes of London. It is not surpris-
111g therefore that the merchant was not easily classified or
rasily fitted into the hierarchical structure of sixteenth-century
aociety.
The merchant had not only an uncertain place in the social
~11 ucture, he had also an uncertain place in the opinions of his
n Liculate contemporaries. His cool secular approach to econ
1
omic matters disturbed those who regarded usury as a damnable
His operations in time and space disturbed those who
\Ill.
1< 'f.prded middlemen as the caterpillars of the commonwealth.
I Ii~ import of luxury goods disturbed statesmen who regarded a
I 1vourable balance of trade as an essential clement in national
I
2 The M11scovy Merchants of 1555 The Setting 3
power. On the other hand the merchant's operations led to an say whether these complaints of the increased numbers of
accumulation of wealth which could be tapped by the crown. merchants were justified. Biased observers, like the Russia
Moreover such operations, when they involved trade with foreign Company when applying for a statutory confirmation of its
cow1tries, seemed less perverse than the machinations of middle monopoly in 1566, could maintain that 'of late yeres almoste
men engaged in internal tra4e, who were alleged to corner the everye yonge mane of what occupation or scyens soever he be,
market and to raise the price of foodstuffs. Again, the merchant if he be abell to make xx or xxx powid stock, will over the sea
as an exporter of English manufactures was felt not only to be and be a marchant '.1 Such statements were however part of
providing employment, especially in the cloth industry, but also the stock-in-trade arguments of those who wished to obtain or
to be providing the basis for a favourable trade balance by which maintain their trading monopolies. Few attempted any statis
the bullion of the country might be increased. Thus the wealth tical estimate of the number of merchants either in London or
and activities of the larger merchants irn pressed contemporaries in the country as a whole, though Wheeler made the rash statement
who saw in them a sign ofn ational prosperity and greamess. The that there were 3500 members of the Merchant Adventurers'
Lawyer in Wilson's Discourse 11po11 11s11ry saw in the merchants' Company in 16o1.2 Halfa century earlier, according to Strype,
wealth ' the welfare of the rcalme '. After exposing the iniqui there had been ' but few English Merchants Adventurers ', but
ties of the mere retailer, he extolled the virtues of the merchant the numbers had increased until by 1561 there were 'in all 327'
adventurer who ' is and maye be taken for a lordes fellow in merchants in London. It seems a modest estimate.
dignitie '.1 Similarly Thomas Lodge, the poet, thought that Most contemporaries, when they thought of merchants as men
' no well governed state ' could exist without merchants, who essentially engaged in foreign trade, thought also of them as
brought in ' store of wealth from forrein nations ', but who also Londoners. There were probably two inter-connected reasons
enriched ' themselves mightelye by others misfortunes ' and ate for this emphasis on the metropolitan merchant-the part played
'our English gentrie out of house and home '.2 by London in the foreign trade of the country and the part
Some who realized that merchants played a necessary role played by the London merchant in the foreign trade of his city.
in the national economy nevertheless believed that they were London was ' the principall store house and staple of all com
becoming too numerous. Thus Harrison thought that their modities within this realme '. It was also the funnel through
t
number had so increased ' that theire onelie maintenance is the which most of the foreign trade of the country passed. Exactly
cause of the exceeding prices of forreine wares ', and he wished what proportion of England's foreign trade passed through
that' the huge hcape of them were somewhat restreined '.3 Cecil I ondon, it is impossible to say. The surviving official statistics
himself viewed the restoration of trade with Antwerp in l 564 dt) not allow of a reliable estimate, partly because they are
with some misgiving as ' the shortnes of the retorn multeplyeth rncomplete and partly because they take no account of smuggling,
manny marchantes, and so consequently also this realme is over which may have been considerable, especially at the outports
burdened with wmecessary forrayn wares'.' It is difficult to where the customs administration was probably laxer5 than in
1 T. Wilson, A discourse upon usury, ed. R. H. Tawney, p. 203. 1 S. P. D. Elli., xi. no. 93.
1 T. Lodge, An a/arum against usurers, ed. E. W. Gosse, pp. 13-14. 1 J. Wheeler, A treatise of commerce (Facsimile Text Society), p. 57.
3 W. Harrison, •Description of England ', in R. Holinshed, C/1ro11icles, ed. ~ Strypc, ii. bk. v. 291. 4 Stow, i. 12.
1807, i. 274. • On this point see N. J. Williams, ' Francis Shaxton and the Efuabethan Port
' R. H. Tawney and E. Power, Tudor eco110111ic doc11111e11ts, ii. 45. llo111ks ', E.H.R. lxvi. 387-95·
The Muscovy Merchants of 1555 The Setting' 5
4
London. Such figures as exist certainly suggest the over found the great merchant princes of the city. Such men pro
whelming preponderance of London. Thus in the year ending vided the initiative for the formation of the chartered trading
Michaelmas 1544 London handled almost 87 per cent of the companies and ruled those companies once they had been formed.
country's most important export, cloth.1 In the y~ar from Among such companies chartered in the sixteenth century
Michaelmas 1559 to Michaelmas 1560 the total ·receipts from the Russia Company has a special interest. Its membership is
the custom and subsidy on cloth and the new imposition on worth consideration not only because a study of it may throw
wines amounted to £50,705 of which London accounted some light on the merchant class as a whole, but also because
for £44,557 or 88 per cent.2 Finally in the year ending at the company itself had two features which, taken together, dis
Michaelmas 1569 London paid 93 per cent of the customs on tinguished it from its contemporaries. It was a company formed
cloth exports.3 to open up a new trade and it was a joint-stock company.
This canalization of the stream of trade through London gave The middle years of the sixteenth century saw the development
a special interest and significance to the city's merchant c~ass. of several new branches of foreign trade. To the south syndi
The large volume of trade passing through the port made possible cates of merchants were opening up trade with Barbary and the
a greater specialization among the merch~ts. It was ~erhaps Guinea coast and, in the slaving voyages, extending their opera
not so much a spe~ialization by commodities or c?untr~es as a tions across the Atlantic. Such trade involved an infringement
specialization of the function of the merchant, wluch ~iffe ren of the Portuguese and Spanish spheres of influence for, as Robert
tiated him more clearly than els_ewhere from the retailer and Thorne had pointed out in an address intended for Henry VIIl,
the handicraftsman. It is significant that the attempts of the of the four parts of the world, the south, south-east, and south
chartered companies to confine their membership . to ' mere west were already in theory monopolized.1 There remained
merchants ', who should be neither retailers nor handicraftsmen, only the north to which the English could go freely. No one,
resulted in conflicts, not in London, but in some of the outports. however, wanted the north for its own sake, but merely as a
In the provincial ports with their smaller volume of trade the passage to the gold and spices of the east. Thus the voyage of
functions of the merchant and the retailer appear often to have 1553, which led to the incorporation of the Russia Company,
been combined, and the retailer could make good his claim to was really an attempt to find the north-east passage to the Indies.
belong to a branch of a company whose official policy had aimed The three ships which left England in May 1553 carried letters
at excluding him. Indeed a study of the custom~ record~ suggests ::iddressed to ' all kings, princes, rulers, judges, and govemours
that at the smaller ports there was just not sufficient foreign trade of the earth ', 2 which suggests a certain vagueness of destination.
to enable those who engaged in it to earn a living by that alone. Instead of finding the north-east passage the ships reached the
In London, on the other hand, it was possible for a large class White Sea and established trading connexions with Russia.
of merchants to arise whose main interest-perhaps whose sole Two years later the pioneers of the enterprise were formally
interest-was in foreign trade. Among this class were to be incorporated in what became known conventionally as the
Russia Company. Thus the members of the company were
t G. Schanz, Englische Handelspolitik, ii. 86-7, 102-3. concerned with developing a new trade, along a new and naturally
t S.P.D. Eliz., xxx. no. 8. . I1 azardous route, with a country where their activities depended
a Ibid., lviii. no. 26. Mr. L. Stone wrongly quot~s this do~um~nt as rela~mg
to the year 155!)-60 ('Elizabethan Overseas Trade , Economic History Review, 1 Hakluyt, i. 214; E. G. R. Taylor, Tudor geograpliy, 1485-1583, pp. 46-52, 246.
a Hakluyt, i-. 2.p.
2nd series, ii. 39.)
The Muscovy Merchants of 1555 The Setting
6 7
on the whims of a despotic ruler. It may well be asked who were some ca.se~ to any limitation or stint imposed by the company.
the men who pioneered such an enterprise and whether they In the JOmt-stock company the members did not trade indi
were the same men who were taking similar risks on the coast vidually, or at least were not supposed to do so. The company
of Africa. traded as a body, using paid employees who acted as agents and
From the very first this enterprise had been financed on a factors. Such employees were employed and paid by the com
£6ooo
joint-stock basis. The initial capital of is said t~ have pany, not by its individual members. The members were merely
been raised by 240 men subscribing £25 each. It seems m:pos shareholders who exercised control through the general assembly
sible to confirm the statement, for which Clement Adams is the and through the court of assistants, which seems to have acted
sole authority,1 that the original members numbered 24~, but as a sort of board of directors. Thus most members of the
the initial subscription does seem to have been £25.2 This was Russia Con:pany had probably little say in the day-to-day con
raised before the company received its charter, for the grant of a duct of. business. The.y were investors, investing in a form of
charter was delayed by the lasf illness and death o.f Edwar~ VI. enterprise new to this country, and therefore of interest not
The subsequent financial history of the company is exceedmgly onJy as pioneers in the opening up of a new trade but also as
obscure, but two things are clear. Firstly the company w~ a pioneers in the development of a new financial d:vice for the
joint-stock company in which, for two decades at .lea~t, the ca?1tal conduct of that trade.
was permanent in the sense that it was not redistributed either It is of course true that the Guinea and slaving voyages were
after the annual voyages or after a series of such voyages, as conducted on a joint-stock principle, but the groups of merchants
was the case in the early years of the East India Company. wh? financed th~se voyages were not incorporated and the
Secondly, additional capital was raised by making calls on capital they subscribed appears to have been redistributed at the
existing sharel1olders. Thus by 1564 calls of £175 per sha~e end of each voyage. That was not the case with the Russia
had been made.3 Further calls of £50 in 1570 and £200 m Company, at least during the early years of its existence. There
1572 • raised the par value of the shares to £450, of which £425 the capital was more permanent, though it is not clear what
represented calls and £25 represented the orig.inal subscription. happened to shareholders who could not or would not meet the
By 1572, therefore, a member who had met all his calls, had calls made by the company on their shares. Nor is it clear
invested a considerable sum in the company. whet.her such shares were freely transferable, though they could
This method of financing the trade, and indeed the very fact certainly be bequeathed by will. Indeed the evidence of wills
that the Russia Company was a joint-stock company, raise some suggests that investment in the company was sometimes regarded
interesting points in connexion with its membership. Members as being almost in the nature of a trustee stock. Thus William
did not participate in the trade so directly or so actively as they Lewkner, in his will dated 20 November 1558,1 left his stock in
would have done if the company had been a regulated one. In the coi:npany to. his two sons, stipulating that it should remain
the regulated company the members traded with their own for their use until they attained their majorities. Similarly John
capital employing, where necessary, their ov:n facto~s ~d Kemp~, in his will dated 13 September 1569,2 stated that he held
themselves controlling the scale of their operations, subject m stock m the company on behalf of his nephew. This stock was
not to be sold, but was to be retained until the nephew was
1 Hakluyt, i. 267. 24 years old. In the meantime the ' yearly increase ' was to
a Cecil, for example, recorded the payment of his £25 (Lans. MSS. n8, f. 52).
1
a S.P.D. Eliz., xx.xv. no. 20. ' Ibid., cviii. no. 63. P.C.C. 21 Welles. 2 P.C.C. 23 Sheffeld.
The MttsCO'vy Merchants of 1555 . .
8
by Kempe's executors to meet the cost ~f bnngm~ up
be use d £ a m return ror a
his nephew and to pay the company 5 P· · th ,s
1 unt of such increase. Thus e company CHAPTER II
truekannuluad baecc~eld on behalf of minors and the increase or
stoc co . THE CHARTER MEMBERS
interest· could be used for their mamte:u:d its trade and the
The way in which the company con uc . hether T HE Russia Company was granted its charter on 26 February
. d . · l gest the question w
form in which it raise its capita ~ug h ts and whether 1555.1 The charter empowered the company to trade with
its members were rentiers or active ~e~~ecf1t h~ same people, any part of the world ' before the sayd late adventure or enterprise
they were the same sort of people, o~ m d. . Only unknowen,2 and by our marchants and subjects not commonly
who traded to other cotmtries un~er different ~on 1t1ons. vide an frequented'. In addition it gave the company a monopoly of
. • t" on of the company s membership can pro . the trade with Russia and with all lands ' lying northwards,
an mvesuga l uestion and give some picture, however un
northeastwards, or northwestwards ', which had not previously
answer to that q f . tant in the commercial life of
perfect, of a group o men impor been known or commonly frequented by English merchants.
London. The company was to have a common seal, perpetual succession,
and the right to hold property value £66 13s. 4d. p.a. It was
to be governed by one or two governors, four consuls, and
twenty-four assistants, who together could make acts and ordi
nances' for the government, good condition, and laudable rule'
of the company and could punish those who offended against
such ordinances. The first governor, consuls, and assistants were
named in the charter. Except for the governor, Sebastian Cabot,
who was appointed for life, they were to hold office for one
year and their successors were to be chosen by the company as
a whole. On Cabot's death the company was to choose 'one
governour or two' annually.
The members of the company, who were all named in the
charter, numbered 201.3 Their names were given, as might be
1 Patent Rolls, I & 2 Philip and Mary, pt. 3. The charter is printed, but
without the full list of members, in Hakluyt, i. 318-29, where it is wrongly
dated 6 Feb. It is calendared with the full list of members in C.P.R. 1554-5,
PP· 55-9·
1 I.e. the first voyage of 1553.
8 The only other list of members which has survived is one dated May 1555
which gives 205 names (S.P.D. Ad4enda, Mary, vii. no. 39). It is printed
with many inaccuracies in A. J. Gerson, ' The organis.1tion and early history
of the Muscovy Company ', in Studies in the history of English commerce in the.
Tudor period, pp. 116-20.
B 9
10 The Muscovy Merchants of 1555 The Charter Members II
expected, roughly in order of prec:dence.1 The list was hea~ed two or three peers and office holders do not constitute the sort
.
by seven peers, William, marquis of Wmchester, lord high of gal~ that adorned the Russia Company. Whether these
treasurer Henry earl of Arundel, lord steward of the house men did much more than adorn the company it is difficult to
hold, John, eari of Bedford, lord keeper of the privy seal, say, but they may well have proved useful friends at court.
William, earl of Pembroke, William, lord Howard of Effingham, On 22 January 15~5. the Privy ~ouncil sent to the attorney
lord high admiral, William, lord Paget of Beaudesert, ~nd general and t!1e solicitor general certayn articles ' upon which
Thomas, lord Darcy. Then followed six knights and two esquires the company s charter was to be based, requiring them ' to
who all held important offices, Sir John Gage, lord chamber c::llls~ a boo~e to be conceyved and drawen to that effecte '.
lain of the household, Sir Robert Rochester, comptroller of the The booke was to be prepared and sent as quickly as possible
household, Sir Henry Jerningham, vice chamberlain, S_ir William so that the Privy Council could ' procure their majesties sig
Petre and Sir John Bourne, principal secretaries, Sir Edward nature therunto '. Of the seven privy collJlcillors who signed
Waldegrave, master of the wardrobe, Edw~rd G~~m, esquire, the letter, five were to be charter members of the company,
attorney general, and William Corde~, esqmre, soliotor general. as were the attorney general and solicitor general.1 There is
The list continued with fourteen kmghts, of whom four were no evidence however that these peers and office holders took
also aldermen, Nicholas Wotton, clerk and doctor in civil l.aw, any active part in the company's affairs after the charter had been
seven aldermen who were not knights, eleven esquires, and eight obtained. One or two of them were interested in other branches
gentlemen. Of the remaining 145 members, _144 were arrange.d of fo~ei~n trade. Pe~broke was one of the promoters of
in the contemporary fashion in the alphabetical order of their Haw~s s second slavmg voyage of 1564.2 Darcy, before his
Christian names and were all described as merchants of London. elevation_ to the peera~e, had been owner of the James, a ship
They included two women, inevitably widowed. .T he list ended engaged m Iceland fishmg.3 The rest seem to have had no direct
with Edward Pryme, citizen and merchant of Br:stol, who was connexion with trade.
the sole mercantile representative from the provinces. It is tempting to see in these men the real rentier element
It calUlot be said that this was a typical list of members of among the company's members, but that may be to look at
a sixteenth-century trading company. It was, so to speak, too tl~e matter to? much through modem eyes. It is, however,
heavy at the top. The presence of so many peers and ~elders difficult to believe that their presence was unconnected with the
of high office was quite unprecedented. Such men did no~ fact th~t the co~pan~ was ~joint-stock company in which they
figure among the membership of the Merchan~ Adventurers ~ould mvest their capltal without having to play any active part
or the Staplers' Company. It is true that later m the century m the management. of the trade. The joint-stock form may thus
Leicester, Walsingham, and Sir James Croft we_re charter mem have attracted capital from men who were not interested in
bers of the Spanish Company of 1577 2 and Leicester and War inve~t~g .in branches of trade which required a direct and active
wick were members of the Barbary Company of 1585,3 but participat10n.
The members of the Russia Company who were neither
i The spelling of the names of members_p resents. some difficulties, as ~sual in
this period. To adhere rigidly to the spelling used m the chancr would mvo~ve peers ~or ~elders of high office present a difficult problem of
referring to Cecil as Cicille, Gresham as Grcssham, etc. It seems better to g1~e mdentification. Knights and aldermen, esquires and gentlemen,
the names in their more modern forms \'{o uhg for Yong• . Mallo~y f~r Mallone,
etc.). but complete consistency in these matters seems 1m~oss1ble. . 1 H.M.C. 1Ai11g, i. 13.
s Patent Rolls, 19 Eliz., pt. 8. Hakluyt, iv. 268. 1 J. A. Williamson, Sir ]0'111 Hmvki11s, p. 92. 3 Marsden, ii. 6-'J.
12 The M11sco1Jy Merchants of 1555 The Charter Members 13
can usually be identified fairly easily, but the sa~e cannot be Po~ some members of the Russia Company, who began their
said of the large group described as merchants of London. In a Ii vcs m the provinces, the migration to London did not involve
few cases the charter described members of this group more .1 v~ry long journey even by sixteenth-century standards. The
specifically. Thus John Harrison was described as 'goldsmith', c .ipttal naturally attracted migrants from nearby counties. Thus
John Lewes as ' notary public', Thomas Starke as ' draper', and Sir Andrew Judde was born at Barden near Tonbridge, Kent,
Thomas Nicholes the elder as 'mercer'. Unfortunately such .and went to London as a boy to be apprenticed to John Buknell,
descriptions were rare and 130 of the members were recorded 'ktnncr and merchant of the staple. John Rivers also came from
in the charter by name alone, apart from the general statement I( mt. Sir Thomas White was born at Reading and was appren-
that they were London merchants. Robert Brown and Thomas 1K cd at the age of 12 to a London merchant tailor, Hugh Acton.
Smith are not very communicative names in the sixteenth or I :rom Suffo~ came Roger Martin, Nicholas Bacon, and perhaps
any other century. Most members, fortunately, had more dis 1'.clmund Stile, who declared in his will that he had been brought
tinctive names than these and it is possible to identify some of up at Hadleigh in that county. Further afield, Norfolk supplied
them from their names alone, though there is admittedly always I he Grcshams, the W oodhouscs, Ralph Grencway, and Robert
an element of risk in doing so. Other contemporary evidence, I >Jwbcney. From the west midlands came Clement Throck
including wills and the ' lapidary scrawl ', has brought some of morton of Hascley, Warwickshire, Humphrey Baskerfeld, who
the dead names to life. In all it is possible to identify about half was born at Wolverley near Kidderminster, and Thomas Offley,
of the members of the company and to make a reasonable guess \~ho was born _at S~fford and who reached London by way of
at the identity of another quarter. It is also possible to discover Chester to which his father had migrated. Within this area
sufficient about these men to give some picture of their origins Shropshire contributed two important names, Thomas Lodge
and interconnexions, their economic activities and their worldly who was born at Cound and Rowland Heyward who was born
success. .and educated at Bridgnorth. Further west were the native
Though most members of the company were described as t0untics of Philip Gunter, who was born in Monmouthshire
merchants of London, a good many of them were not Londoners .111d Stephen Borough, who, as befitted a courageous seaman:
by birth. That movement of the people which the Tudors (a me from Devon, the home also ofD avid W oodroff. Wiltshire
deplored and tried to check was nevertheless a reality. Lon~on \upplied William Merick, a distinguished servant as well as a
acted as a magnet for the ambitious and the ad venturous as, m a rnernber of the company.
different way, did the sea. It was not only the court that These first-generation Londoners often rose to positions of
attracted men to London, but also the whole commercial life weal~ and e~e~ce. It .w~s a case of the local boy making
of the city, which offered greater opportunities for rapid and good m the big city, but It IS doubtful whether it was often a
spectacular advancement than were to be found in the pro t .1se of the really poor boy making his fortune. The exact
vinces.1 No doubt many failed to profit from these oppor ~ocial class from which these boys came is difficult to determine.
tunities, failed even to make a tolerable living, and sank down Pew of them seem to have been sons of gentry, though Andrew
anonymously into the London underworld, but enough Judde came of a family of Kentish gentry. The evidence seems
succeeded to make some mark on the city of their adoption. lo? slight for generalization but it rather suggests that it was
1111ddle-class provincial families who sent their sons to London:
1 It is interesting to note how many deponents in High Court of Admiralty
cases had been born in the provinces and had come up to London in their teens. Thus the father ofJ ohn Rivers was the steward of Edward, duke
14 The Miiscovy Merchants of 1555 The Charter Members 15
of Buckingham. Sir Thomas White's father was a clothier. Thon:as Bannister .was ~elated to the Gamages through his wife,
After migrating from Stafford the Offieys bec:ame a prosperous but his exact relationship to Anthony Gamage is uncertain.1
Chester family and were benefactors to the city. Others, su~h Apart from th~ relationship based on blood and marriage,
as Christopher Draper, Lionel Duckett, John Marshe, and Wil there were o~her ties which may have bound together members
liam Hawtrey, appear to have had a more landed backgrow1d, of the Russia Company. Some were associated together in
but it is difficult to be very certain about this. civic duties. At least 28 of the members were or became
Whatever their origin these first-generation Londoners were aldermen of ~ondon and 16 of them reached the position oflord
assimilated into the life of their adopted city, and they and other mayor. This was perhaps less a sign of cohesion within the
members of the company seem often to have been bow1d group than .a sign. of the wealth and standing of individual
together by ties other than the rather shad~wy bond implied by members of it. It is some evidence both of individual initiative
a common membership of the company itself. The stro~gest and of an environment favourable to the exercise of that initiative
and most direct ties were probably those of blood and marnage. that 15 aldermat~c and 10 mayoral members of the company
Such ties are not always easy to discover even though the age ':ere first-generation Londoners. The Dick Whittington tradi
had something of a passion for genealogy. It seems clear ~ow­ tion was by no means dead. Besides playing a part in local
ever that many of the important merchants were rclat~d, either government members were concerned in national government
closely or distantly, just as were many of the great Elizabet~an as well, for at least 32 of them were at one time or another
seamen. Thus three of the children of Sir George Bame marned mem?ers of the house of commons. This again was a sign of
members or relatives of members of the company. A son standing rather than of common ties. Finally some members
George married Anne, daughter of Sir William Garrard. A held office tmder the crown. The holders of high office may
daughter Elizabeth married John Ri~ers and another ~ughte~, have constituted a definite group among the members but, as
Anne, married firstly Alexander Carleill and secondly Sir Francis has been su~gcsted, their pr;senc~ was exceptional and the part
Walsingham, who was himself later a member of the company. ~hey played m the company s affairs of doubtful significance. It
The case of the three daughters of Htrmphrey Packington, who is not clear what significance should be attached to the holding
himself had no connexion with the company, is perhaps more of l~ser offices except as throwing some light on the activities
striking. They contrived to marry four members of the com and mterests of members who were not primarily merchants.
pany and the brother of a member. Letitia married Roger These office-holders fall roughly into three groups. There
Martin, Jane married firstly Humphrey Baskerfeld and secondly were first of all the financial agents of the crown who were
Lionel Duckett and Anne married firstly Edward Jackman and concerned ~ith for~ign borrowing and for whom a knowledge
secondly James' Bacon, brother of Sir Nicholas. A cousin of both of the mtemational money market and of foreign trade was
these women, Anne, daughter of Robert Packington, married i mpo~tant. Half a dozen members of the company were at
Richard Mallory. Members were also related, throug~ .the one time or. another engaged in this work. They were John
marriages of their children. Thus Henry Becher s son ~illiam Oymocke, Sir John Gresham the elder and his nephew Thomas
married Judith, the daughter of J~hn Quar~es, and Chris~opher Gresham, Sir William Dansell under whom Thomas Gresham
Draper's daughter Bridget mamed David Woo~~ff. s son had served as an assistant and who was removed in 1551 'from
Stephen. In some cases members were relat.ed, b~t it is impos his office of agent by reason of his slackness', and Christopher
sible now to discover exactly what the relattonship was. Thus 1 P.C.C. 1 Carew.