England’s Overseas Trade in the Reign of James I

Abstract

despite the extension and diversification of routes and markets from the 1550s England’s position in the general framework of European trade in 1603 was relatively simple and circumscribed. Geographical expansion had not been accompanied, as far as can be judged, by any sustained or marked growth in the volume and value of trade; and if anything it had confirmed the dominance of London, where about eight-tenths of the country’s trade were, as the outports would have it, ‘engrossed’. Perhaps the east coast ports had increased their share through the Eastland trade, but elsewhere the balance between London and the provinces had almost certainly shifted in the capital’s favour. Even privateering, a vital substitute for normal trade in the south and west during the long Spanish war, had passed increasingly under the control of a dozen or so metropolitan merchant-princes. Nor had the rerouting of trade reduced its dependence on a single commodity for export. The ‘balance of trade’, a concept that was soon to become familiar, hinged on the sale of woollen cloths. New types had been introduced with the ‘new draperies’, a wide range of ‘stuffs’ or mixed fabrics distinguished by their lightness, variety of pattern and cheapness. But at the end of the Tudor period the cloth trade was still dominated by the traditional woollens of the old drapery, some dyed but most undressed.