Note 173 — Chapter VI

Privy Council Register, Vol. XIV. p. 93, 6 May, 1586. The difficulty in the cloth trade was connected with the concessions granted to the Merchant Adventurers. Their privileges forced the English manufacturer to sell cloth to them only. When there was a slackness in trade these concessions were always questioned or annulled. In December, 1586, the Company say they will raise a stock and buy more cloths than they can at present sell so that the workfolk of Somerset and Wilts can be employed. If this fails they consent that the trade shall be thrown open. This was apparently afterwards done, but difficulties were still thrown in the way of the "Merchant strangers." Privy Council Register, p. 237, Sept. 1587. The Earl of Leicester wrote both to Walsingham and Burleigh on the subject. In his letter to Walsingham he says the towns of the West, Bristol and Hampton, are falling into decay, and there is an "exstraeme cry and compleynt of ye poore for lack of work such as have bin sett on work heretofore by clothiers." The cause, the clothiers say, is because they "can not have reasonable price nor utterance for their cloth in London." He says that "sondry of the most hablest ... are worthie great favor and thanks for they to ther great loss kepe more now on than ever they did for the poor's sake." Dom. State Papers, Queen Eliz., Vol. 200, Nos. 5 and 10.