OVERSEAS TRADE IN THE REIGN OF HENRY VII: THE EVIDENCE OF CUSTOMS ACCOUNTS

Abstract

S INCE I88i, when Schanz published his classic work,' the study of England's trade throughout the sixteenth century has been based mainly on the statistics which he compiled from the Enrolled Customs Accounts for the reign of Henry VIII alone. The purpose of this article is to introduce a table representing the total overseas trade of England during the preceding reign,2 which will in part bridge the gap at present existing between the work of Schanz and that of the contributors to Studies in English Trade in the Fifteenth Century.3 Since the evidence afforded by the few surviving Particulars of Accounts for this period is very fragmentary, this must necessarily form the basis of any statistical account of England's overseas trade under Henry VII, but that is not to say that it is a satisfactory basis. Both the reliability of the figures themselves, and the interpretation of them if their reliability be assumed, are subject to grave doubts. Recent research has drawn attention to the smuggling and evasion of customs prevalent in the latter half of the sixteenth century, which, it is suggested, reached such proportions that the customs accounts cannot be trusted to give a true picture of the actual volume of trade.4 The accounts for the earlier period have not so far been seriously called in question, but since some of the arguments used might appear to apply as well to the reign of Henry VII as to that of Elizabeth, it seems necessary to attempt some assessment of the volume of smuggling at the beginning of the sixteenth century, and thus, indirectly, of the reliability of the customs accounts which leave such activities unrecorded. The picture is at first sight an alarming one, since there is plenty of evidence to show that the problem was far from being new and unfamiliar in I558. Statutes of the fifteenth century allege that the King is 'daily defrauded and greatly deceived of his Custom and Subsidy',5 that serious losses of revenue are incurred 'as well for lack of good Search in the Ports and Creeks within the Realm of England, as by other crafty Imaginations of divers Persons',6 and refer darkly to 'Searchers and Surveyors, which take no Fee, but privy Rewards for doing wrong to the King '. Efforts to ensure that customs officials should be