As England stood on the eve of the second phase of the Wars of the Roses, a bitter trade dispute threatened to further undermine stability. Friction between the Hanseatic League and the English had been intensifying throughout the century. By the late 1450s the prospect of conflict loomed. The Hansards (as the League members were known) were a dominant economic power in northeastern Europe. Confrontation with the League was therefore no minor matter.
Relations with the Hansards had a significant impact on the Wars of the Roses. It provoked arguments between the Lancastrian court and Warwick that contributed to the resumption of civil war in 1459. And it continued to be a significant thorn in the side of Edward IV’s regime throughout the 1460s and 70s.
So, what were the origins of these disputes? And why did they prove so damaging for both Lancastrian and Yorkist England?
The Hanseatic League
The Hanseatic League grew from loose trading arrangements between a few German towns in the C12th to become a sprawling economic power bloc. The centre of its power lay with several large north German cities. These included Lubeck, Cologne, Hamburg and Prussian Danzig. By the end of the C14th, the Hansards dominated sea trade along the north European coast. Everywhere from London in the west to Novgorod in the east.
Unlike other medieval leagues, the Hansards were first and foremost an economic bloc rather than a military alliance. Essentially a large mercantile cartel composed of different trading centres with different political leaderships. However, although far from politically unified, the League was united in its desire to dominate trade. And, when the need arose, the Hansards were willing to flex their economic and military muscle to get their way.
The Hansards maintained near monopolies in trade with the Baltic region. And they also enjoyed special tax and customs concessions in England, negotiated as early as 1303.
Friction
By the early C15th, rival merchants were keen to gain access to Hansard dominated markets. In addition, these rivals increasingly resented the Hansards’ historic privileges and concessions. These, they felt, gave the League an unfair advantage. Foremost amongst these were the merchants of Holland and England.
But the Hansards were not willing to lightly surrender their grip on trade. When threatened they were quick to retaliate with embargoes and boycotts. The League blockaded Novgorod in 1268 and again in 1277/78. Boycotts against Norway in 1284 and Flanders in 1358 reduced both countries to the brink of famine.
When economic bullying failed to work, the Hansards were not above resorting to military force. They allied with Sweden to make war on Denmark between 1426 and 1435 to protect their commercial interests. Disputes between Holland and the League resulted in another war between 1438 and 1441.
No one in Europe was in any doubt. Antagonising the Hansards risked serious repercussions, both economic and military.
The Easterlings
English merchants, especially in London, objected to Hansard privileges and concessions.
The League maintained a large trading concession (kontor) in London known as the Steelyard. By the C15th the Steelyard sprawled over 1.3 acres, centred around its guildhall. Within its walls there were around 90 separate warehouses and residences. Here people answered to a German alderman, not an English king, and Hansard laws and customs took precedence. Resentful London merchants contemptuously referred to the Steelyard as ‘Easterling Hall’. For them, these Easterlings represented a foreign enemy within.
A second major cause of friction related to access to markets overseas such as Prussia and the Baltic coast. English merchants found it very hard to break into these markets which remained heavily rigged in the Hansards’ favour.
Past confrontations (in the 1370s and 80s) failed to do much to change the situation. By the mid-C15th the Hansards still had privileged access to English markets. By contrast, English merchants still suffered from highly restricted access to Hansard dominated northeastern Europe.
Tensions
By the mid-1430s it was clear that England was losing the Hundred Years’ War. The Burgundians had swapped sides, and the English were running out of money. The fleet assembled by Henry V to control the channel had been sold off to finance growing war debts. To retain some control over the sea lanes, the English contracted out much of their navy to private captains. But these private captains were in it for the money; money they could only make from raiding and piracy.
As time went by, these privateers became increasingly out of control, and soon friendly shipping felt almost as unsafe as enemy ships. And, since many of these ships were owned by English merchants, it was only a matter of time before Hansard shipping was targeted. It was hardly surprising given the poisonous rivalry that already existed between many of England’s merchants and their Hanseatic competitors. In one of the worst depredations of this period, the Hansard ship, La Isabelle, was boarded by pirates whilst still at anchor in the port of Plymouth! Any efforts by the Lancastrian regime to curb piracy was half-hearted at best. The truth was they were too dependent on the privateers.
Confrontation
English merchants became increasingly vociferous in their demands to revoke Hansard privileges. However, the privileges remained and English access to Hansard markets was no less problematic. In 1447 a dispute between Colchester merchants and the League escalated into a series of mass Hansard arrests. This was one final affront that the Hanse was not prepared to stomach. Lubeck’s Hansetag advocated responding in kind by arresting English merchants in league-controlled cities. However, many other League cities preferred restraint, adopting a ‘wait and see’ policy.
Lancastrian England may have been all set to revoke Hansard privileges but then fate intervened. The sudden resumption of the Hundred Years’ War and the disastrous course it took, left the English in a weak position. The last thing they could afford at this time was conflict with the League. However, just as English negotiators were despatched to Germany, fate intervened once more.
An English privateer by the name of Robert Wennington intercepted and plundered the combined Flemish-Dutch-Hanseatic salt fleet in May 1449 (the salt fleet was so named because the fleet frequently visited the salt manufacturing lands in the Bay of Bourgneuf). The English even auctioned off the captured Hansard ships. Wennington and his backers had intended for their actions to force the Hansards to make concessions. However, it only served to antagonise them. English traders present on the continent faced arrests and reprisals and the League demanded compensation. English piracy only escalated in response.
An Uneasy Peace
Lubeck had been keen to take a hard line with the English. But not all members of the League wanted confrontation. Cologne, which had much stronger commercial links with England, was very resistant to the idea of further conflict. By 1452 the two sides were largely willing to accept an uneasy stand-off. Lubeck and England remained in a state of semi-hostile confrontation. A peace, of sorts, was only finally thrashed out in 1456.
However, the underlying problems remained. Not least was that fact that the king’s navy now consisted of many privateers owned by mercantile interests hostile to the Hansards. As a result, sporadic acts of English piracy continued to cause friction throughout the 1450s. Nevertheless, the peace treaty of 1456 largely held, at least for a time.
Warwick and the Hansards
Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, became Constable of Calais as part of the political re-alignment that followed the first battle of Saint Albans. The Calais garrison had long been starved of funding, a situation that Warwick was happy to remedy by resorting to piracy. Initially, his efforts were directed against England’s enemies but in 1458 Warwick’s privateers chose to attack the Hanseatic salt fleet, seizing 18 of Lubeck’s ships.
It was a highly provocative act, prompting many on the continent to label Warwick a pirate. It was also a flagrant violation of the terms of the 1456 peace agreement and a clear act in defiance of Henry VI’s authority. Warwick was summoned back to London to answer for his actions. The ensuing confrontation played a major role in provoking a resumption of civil war in 1459.
Why did Warwick do it? Was it an act deliberately calculated to undermine the court faction? Was it simply a desperate attempt to finance a Calais garrison starved of resources? Or was it, in fact, driven by a genuine anti-Hansard agenda that Warwick himself embraced?
Warwick’s Motives
There is a strong case to suppose that Warwick’s primary motive for attacking the Hansards was rooted in his own anti-Hansard agenda.
Warwick’s fleet was partly funded by English mercantile interests that regarded the Hansards as bitter rivals. This powerful faction commanded support in the Commons and many English ports. So Warwick’s decision to target the Hansards could well have been designed to pander to these interests. It would certainly have bolstered Warwick’s power base in advance of any future confrontation with the court.
Perhaps Warwick even earnestly believed that opposition to the Hansards was in England’s best interests. He would not have been alone in this view. Certainly, after Edward IV’s coronation, Warwick emerged as the primary political opponent of Hanseatic power in the Yorkist regime.
In the initial instance Warwick’s actions contributed significantly to inciting a resumption of the Wars of the Roses. But in the longer term his stance created serious problems for Edward IV’s fledgeling government.
The Hansards and Edward IV
In 1459 the League was unable to agree on a unified response to Warwick’s piracy. This bought some time. When Edward IV came to power in 1461, he adopted a generally placatory approach. In the middle of a civil war, a confrontation with the Hansards was the last thing Edward wanted. One of his first actions on taking the throne was to confirm and extend existing Hansard privileges.
However, by 1465 Edward felt obliged to finally send representatives to Hamburg to negotiate with the League. Representatives of the Lubeck Hansards were keen to press for suitable compensation for their lost ships. Fortunately for Edward, the Hanse was not united. Representatives from Cologne, took a more anglophile line and resisted any further escalation. Edward, for his part, was also keen to avoid confrontation. Whilst he dodged the issue of compensation, he placated the League as far as he could in other ways. He remained more than willing to reconfirm and respect Hansard privileges for much of the 1460s.
Edward had to tread a delicate balancing act. English privateers in the channel remained a law unto themselves, occasionally targeting Hansard shipping. Furthermore, he faced resistance from a growing anti-Hansard faction in his own council, led by Warwick.
Privateers and Mercenaries
English privateers had been a force for lawlessness in the northern seas ever since the mid-1430s. They demonstrated time and again that they were willing to defy the court (both Lancastrian and Yorkist) to plunder from England’s friends as well as her foes as and when the opportunity presented.
An Anglo-Danish treaty of 1465 barred English traders from the Baltic except by special license. Typically, several English merchants ignored it. This created friction with Denmark that led to English ships from Bristol and King’s Lynn taking the law into their own hands. In the autumn of 1467, they raided Danish held Iceland, robbing and burning local residences and murdering the Danish governor.
The retaliation came in June 1468. Several English ships, putting into the Danish port of Helsinger, were surrounded and boarded by German marines. The English ships were impounded, and their cargo confiscated and sold. According to the Danes, this was done to pay for the English outrages in Iceland. However, the people who’d boarded the English ships were not Danish but German. Most were from the Prussian Hanseatic port of Danzig. Their captains – Henry Sterneburgh, Vincent Stolle, and Michael Ertmann – were all well-known Hansards.
Escalation
The English merchant community held the Hansards responsible for the outrage. However, it is quite likely that the three men were serving as mercenaries in the service of the Danish king rather than acting on behalf of the League. Nevertheless, in the volatile atmosphere of the late 1460s, many English merchants assumed the worst. Danzig denied any responsibility, claiming the men were no longer members of the League. However, the English alleged that other Hansards had also been involved; men from Lubeck and Stralsund.
The anti-Hansard faction found support in the King’s council from Warwick and men such as Thomas Kent (another long-term enemy of the league). At least one of the English ships taken at Helsinger had belonged to Warwick. So he now had personal reasons to seek revenge. Pressure from the likes of Warwick and London’s militant merchant interests finally forced Edward IV’s hand. In July 1468, Edward demanded redress from the Hansard community in England. These demands were followed by arrests and the confiscation of trade goods in lieu of compensation. The Cologne Hansards petitioned Edward on the basis that they were not involved in the Helsinger incident. Since England relied more heavily on their trade than other Hanse cities, Edward yielded and exempted them from his claims.
The Hansard Response
The League’s response, in the initial instance, was to attempt to bring diplomatic pressure to bear on Edward IV. Over the next few months Edward received letters, not only from the League but also from their continental friends: the King of Poland, the Holy Roman Emperor and even the Duke of Burgundy. By March 1469, Edward relented and agreed to release the imprisoned Hansards. Edward also reduced his claims for compensation and gave the League an extended deadline for receipt of payment.
However, the lengthy Hansard incarceration had led to a hardening of attitudes amongst the league members. At a packed Hansetag at Lubeck in the spring of 1469, League members drew up a scathing rebuttal of the English allegations against them. Edward, they implied, was guilty of punishing innocent men without trial. Why should any Hansard be forced to pay compensation based on allegations that had not even been proven in a court of law? Indeed, rather than paying Edward compensation, Edward should compensate them!
Then, in July 1469, the hated Warwick, the League’s principal detractor, seized control of the English government. The possibility of compromise now seemed even more remote. Sure enough, some elements of the League were now willing to resort to military action.
War
As long as Edward IV sat on the throne, England pursued a largely pro-Burgundian agenda. Hence the Duke of Burgundy had every reason to act as moderating influence over the Hansards in his lands. However, with the pro-French Warwick in the driving seat, the Duke was far less inclined to put any effort into restraining the League.
The Hansards of Brugge took full advantage. They fitted out two privateers, captained by Paul Beneke and Martin Bardewick respectively. Whilst the Duke of Burgundy deliberately turned a blind eye, they operated freely out of Flemish ports, targeting English merchants.
Beneke and Bardewick struck on New Year’s Day 1470, taking the large English ship, the Joen of Newcastle. Their success encouraged another Hansard privateer to join them from Danzig. In May, two of the privateers engaged a larger flotilla of English ships. And, although the Hansards were defeated, they managed to significantly damage the English ships. Over the summer of 1470 the Hansards inflicted significant losses on English shipping. By the autumn the Hansetag imposed a formal boycott on the English; a measure for which they won support from Poland and Denmark.
The Hansard privateer fleet would eventually expand to eighteen ships. A force capable of seriously disrupting England’s maritime commerce.
The Readeption of Henry VI
Late in 1471 Edward IV was forced to flee England as Warwick returned Henry VI to the throne. The Warwick-Margaret of Anjou alliance saw England brought firmly into open alliance with the French. For the Duke of Burgundy, the restoration of Edward IV to the throne was now a priority. At his instigation, the Hansards agreed to help Edward regain his crown. In exchange Edward provided some assurance that he would restore Hanseatic privileges once he’d regained power. So, when Edward returned to England in March 1471, he did so under the protection of a large Hansard naval escort.
However, once Warwick and Margaret had been defeated Edward had second thoughts regarding Hansard privileges. He only re-confirmed the privileges of the Cologne Hansards. And, as a result, the other League members renewed their naval campaign against the English.
Beneke had, by this time, established something of a notorious reputation. Not long after hostilities resumed his privateers had taken two more English prizes and even managed to capture the Lord Mayor of London! Meanwhile the League’s economic boycott tightened.
The Grosse Kraweel
In August 1471, the Grosse Kraweel set sail from Danzig to join the fray. As ships of the period went, she was a monster. She was armed with 17 cannons, 15 wind crossbows and boasted a compliment of 300 marines. She was more than a match for any English ship. However, she was somewhat unwieldy and very expensive to maintain, pushing (as she did) the naval technology of her day to its limits. Under its first commander, Bernt Pawest, she achieved very little. On one occasion lightening destroyed her mainmast. She nearly ran aground on more than one occasion and her crew grew mutinous.
Then, in the summer of 1472, Pawest was removed, and the more experienced Paul Beneke assumed command. At around the same time the Hansard privateers received reinforcements in the form of additional ships from Lubeck. However, Edward IV, now free from the threat of Lancastrians and the maverick Warwick, was quick to build up England’s naval defences.
In July 1472 an English flotilla of 18 ships commanded by John Howard clashed with the Hansards. The English won the day and many of the Lubeck privateers were burnt in the process.
Beneke’s Greatest Prize
By this time, with Edward back on England’s throne, the Duke of Burgundy was no long willing to allow Hansard privateers to operate freely from his ports. This, coupled with the Lubecker defeat, prompted both sides to put out feelers for a negotiated peace. However, on the Hansard side, some, including Danzig and Hamburg, were in no mood for compromise. Beneke was encouraged to take the Grosse Kraweel to sea and do his worst. As it turned out he needed no encouragement.
In the spring of 1473 Hamburg raiders took a cargo from merchants off the coast of the Isle of Wight. Not long after this, Beneke intercepted a ship called the Saint Matthew sailing between London and Italy with a rich cargo of wools, linens, tapestries and artworks. The value of goods seized represented one of the largest pirate hauls of the century. It included two altar pieces, of which the most valuable was Hans Memling’s Last Judgement.
Peace
Beneke’s spectacular act of piracy would prove to be the last major engagement of the war. Both sides were ready for peace. The threat now posed by Beneke encouraged Edward to be more inclined to negotiate. By this time Edward was more secure on his throne and consequently far less reliant on support from the militant merchant faction. Just as importantly, the belligerent Warwick, a major barrier to peace, was gone.
Many Hansards, for their part, were increasingly nervous with the antics of maverick privateers like Beneke. Beneke’s haul may have been impressive but included goods belonging to people such as the powerful Medici family, whom the League didn’t want to upset.
In early 1473 the English agreed a truce with the Danes and by that summer they were negotiating with the League. In February 1474, a treaty was finally agreed by both sides.
Edward IV Defeated
The resulting Treaty of Utrecht saw Edward IV agree to virtually all the League’s demands. Hansard privileges were restored, and the Steelyard resumed its powerful position within London’s merchant community. By contrast, English merchants received no significant concessions in terms of improved access to eastern European markets.
Whilst Edward had proved it was possible to win tactical victories over Hansard privateers, the fact was that Beneke, and others, were still at large. English mercantile shipping was, if anything, at greater risk in 1473/4 than when the conflict first started.
However, in the end it was the Hansard economic boycott rather than its naval actions that forced Edward to capitulate. And, after 1471, the removal of Warwick from the picture made it a lot easier to agree a treaty.
The Anglo-Hanseatic war ended in victory for the League. It would stand as the only war fought by Edward IV that ended in his defeat.
Aftermath
In the short to medium term the League’s powers and privileges remained undiminished. However, the war exposed cracks in League unity. Cologne resisted taking any of the measures against England demanded by other League members. This ultimately led to Cologne’s expulsion from the League. It underlined the fact that the interests of different League members did not always align. Indeed, in some cases they clashed head on.
At the same time, as the early modern age dawned, the opening of maritime trade increasingly diminished the League’s economic significance. Trade with northeastern Europe became less and less important. Lucrative new markets were opening up in the Americas, Africa and the orient. Markets in which the League played no significant role. It would be the merchants of countries like England, Holland, Portugal and Spain, rather than the Hansards, who grew rich on the back of this expanded global trade.
By the C17th, the League was an anachronism. Its end came not because of a war or trade boycotts but from its gradual fading into redundant irrelevance.
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If you are interested in medieval maritime history, you might be interested in some of my related articles…
Life at Sea in the Middle Ages
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References and Further Reading
Aspects of the Anglo-Hanseatic conflict in the fifteenth century, Fudge JD, McGill University, 1983
Hanseatic League, History & Civilisation, Kouzelis A, Kulturlandskapet, 2020
Images
Cover picture from the section on sea law ‘Van schiprechte’ (‘Of shipping laws’) of the Hamburg town law from 1497
Hansard Cities and Trade Routes, Doc Brown, 2008 (via wiki commons)
Hanseatic Seal, Photograph by Ulf Lunde, 2006 (via wiki commons)
Grosse Kraweel, photo of a model reproduction by Maciej Szczepańczyk, 2006 (via wiki commons)