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The 'Company of Merchant Adventurers of London' brought together London's leading overseas merchants in a regulated company (in the nature of a guild). Its members' main business was the export of cloth, especially white (undyed) broadcloth. This enabled them to import a large range of foreign goods.
The company received their royal charter from King Henry IV in 1407, but its roots may go back to the 'Fraternity of St Thomas of Canterbury', which claimed to have liberties existing as early as 1216. The Duke of Brabant granted a charter to the English merchants at Antwerp in 1305, but this body may have included the Staplers (who exported raw wool) as well as the Merchant Adventurers. Henry IV's charter was in favour of the English merchants dwelling in Holland, Zeeland, Brabant, and Flanders. However there were also other groups of merchants trading to different parts of northern Europe, including merchants dwelling in Prussia, Sconce, Sound, and the Hanse (whose election of a governor was approved by Richard II of England in 1391), and the English Merchants in Norway, Sweden and Denmark (who recevied a charter in 1408).
Under Henry VII's charter of 1505 the company had a governor and 24 assistants. The members were trading capitalists and were prohibited by the company's ordinances from selling by retail or keeping open shop. The company was largely composed of London mercers, but also had members from York, Norwich, Exeter, Ipswich, Newcastle, Hull, and other places, but the merchant adventurers of these towns were probably separate but affiliate bodies. The Society of Merchant Venturers of Bristol were a separate body, chartered by Edward VI in 1552.
Under Henry VII, the non-London merchants complained that they had once traded freely with Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, and the Netherlands, but now the London company was imposing on them a fine of £20, and so drove them out of their markets. Henry VII caused this to be reduced to 10 marks (£6.13.4d). There was also conflict with the Merchants of the Staple, who sought to expand from their traditional (but declining) trade of exporting wool through Calais to exporting cloth to Flanders without becoming free of the Merchant Adventurers, an issue ultimately resolved in favour of the latter. There was also conflict with the foreign merchants of the Hanseatic League, who had considerable privileges in England trade until these were revoked in the mid 16th century.
The Merchant Adventurers had a commercial monopoly, its members being the only persons entitled to export cloth from England. Their main market (or staple port) was Antwerp, but they began to have difficulties when the King of Spain as sovereign of the Low Countries increased customs duty in 1460 in contravention of a treaty with Brabant of 1496. Three years later, he prohibited English ships from coming to the Low Countries. The Merchant Adventurers then decided to use other ports, Emden in East Friesland and Hamburg competed to entertain the Merchant Adventurers of England, the choice falling on Embden, but it was soon found that it failed to attract merchants to buy the English merchants' wares. They left abruptly, returning to Antwerp, but there was a further rupture with Antwerp, due to Elizabeth I of England seizing Spanish treasure ships conveying money to the Duke of Alva as governor of the Netherlands. Some trade was resumed at Antwerp from 1573 to 1582, but ceased with the declining fortunes of that city.

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Conflict

Further reading

Conflict

The conflict with the Hanseatic League continued. The Hanse had the same rights in England as native merchants and better privileges abroad, thus enabling them to undersell English merchants. Hamburg was a member of the League, but when the English merchants left Emden, they tried to settle there, but the League forced Hamburg to expel them. Emden was tried again in 1579. The Emperor ordered the Count of East Friesland to expel the merchants, but he declined, and the merchants remained there until 1587 . In 1586, the Senate of Hamburg invited the Merchant Adventurers to return there, but negotiations over this broke down. The merchants (who had frequented Middelburg since 1582 were also invited to return in 1587 to the (now independent) United Provinces, but this was unpopular due with the company's members who were weary of impositions by Holland and Zeeland. Ultimately the company's staple was permanently fixed at Hamburg in 1611. A Dutch staple moved during the early 17th century from Middelburg to Delft in 1621, then to Rotterdam in 1635, then to Dordrecht in 1655.
Under the charter of 1564, the company's court consisted of a governor (elected annually was by members beyond the seas), his deputies, and 24 Assistants. Admission was by patrimony (being the son of a merchant, free of the company at the son's birth), service (apprenticeship to a member), redemption (purchase) or 'free gift'. By the time of James I, there were at least 200 members. Fines for admission were then gradually increased. However they were reduced to £2 when the company finally lost its exclusive privileges following the Glorious Revolution of 1689.
The period between 1615 and 1689 was marked by a series of alternating periods, starting with the ill-fated Cockayne Project, when the company lost and then regained its monopolistic privileges. It also suffered from trouble with interlopers, traders not free of the company who traded within its privileged area. After Parliament finally threw the trade open in 1689, the company continued to exist as a fellowship of merchants trading to Hamburg, driving a considerable trade there, and it was thus sometimes called the 'Hamburg Company'. It still existed at the beginning of the 19th century.

Further reading

E. Lipson, ''The Economic History of England'' I (12th edition, 1959), 570-84; II (6th edition 1956), 196-269.