After this the queen commanded another proclamation to be divulged that
the easterlings or Hanseatic merchants should be allowed to trade in
England upon the same conditions and payment of duties as her own
subjects, provided that the English merchants might have interchangeable
privilege to reside and trade peaceably in Stade or Hamburg or anywhere
else within the precincts of Hans. This incensed them more, thereupon
they resolved to cut off Stade and Hamburg from being members of the
Hans or of the empire; but they suspended this decision till they saw
what success the great Spanish fleet should have, which was then
preparing in the year eighty-eight, for they had not long before had
recourse to the King of Spain and made him their own, and he had done
them some material good offices; wherefore to this day the Spanish
Consul is taxed of improvidence and imprudence, that there was no use
made of the Hans towns in that expedition.
The queen finding that they of the Hans would not be contented with that
equality she had offered betwixt them and her own subjects, put out a
proclamation that they should carry neither corn, victuals, arms,
timber, masts, cables, minerals, nor any other materials, or men to
Spain or Portugal. And after, the queen growing more redoubtable and
famous, by the overthrow of the fleet of eighty-eight, the easterlings
fell to despair of doing any good.
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