pletely carried out till many years
afterwards. During this period the merchants were learning the immense
possibilities open to them when this incubus should be removed. Next,
the great rival of London, Antwerp, suffered, like the rest of the
Netherlands, from the religious wars. Thirdly, the wise and farseeing
action of Gresham transferred the commercial centre of the northern
world from that town to London.

Antwerp in the fifteenth century was the richest and most prosperous
city in western Europe. There were 200,000 inhabitants, a great many
more than could be counted in London: 5,000 merchants met every day in
the Bourse for the transaction of business: 2,500 vessels might be
counted in the river: 500 loaded waggons entered every day from the
country. It was the port of the great and rich manufacturing towns of
Bruges and Ghent. In the latter town there were 40,000 weavers, and an
army of 80,000 men fully armed and equipped, could be raised at any
moment. The former town, Bruges, was the Market--the actual commercial
centre--of the world. Hither came the merchants of Venice and Genoa,
bringing the silks, velvets, cloth of gold, spices and precious stones
from the East to exchange for the English wool and the produce of
Germany and the Baltic.

[Illustration: KING EDWARD VI.

(_From a picture belonging to H. Hucks Gibbs, Esq._)]

The Religious Wars of the sixteenth century: the ferocities, cruelties,
and savagery of those wars: depopulated and ruined this rich and
flourishing country: the Inquisition drove thousands of Flemings, an
industrious and orderly folk, to England, where they established silk
manufactures: and the carrying trade which had been wholly in the hands
of the Antwerp shipowners was diverted and went across the narrow seas
to London, where it has ever since remained.

Before the ruin of Antwerp, Bruges, and Ghent, it was of these towns
that the Kings of England obtained their loans. They were taken up by
the merchants of the Low Countries at an interest of 14 per cent. This
enormous interest, then thought quite moderate and reasonable, explains
how the merchants of that time grew so wealthy. Part of the loans, also,
often had to be taken in jewels. In order to negotiate these loans and
to pay the interest an agent of the English Sovereign was kept at
Antwerp, called the Royal Agent. Very fortunately for London, the Royal
Agent under Edward VI., Mary, and the early years of Elizabeth, was Sir