In 1505 a rival interest was created, by a charter granted to the Company of Merchant Adventurers for trailing iu woollen cloth to the Netherlands. The merchants of the Steelyard were bound in heavy penalties not to interfere with the trade of this new incorporation, which soon became a powerful rival, not only to the German merchants, but to the merchants of the staple. In 1551, various allegations of the Merchant Adventurers, with the counter-statements of the merchants of the Steelyard, were put into the hands of the solicitor-general and the recorder of London, upon whose report the council came to a reso lution that the Steelyard merchants had forfeited their privileges, their charters being contrary to the laws of the realm. Tho council reported that no particular persons or towns being mentioned in these charters, the corporation had extended their privileges to whomsoever they pleased ; that English subjects had not enjoyed reciprocity of privileges in the Hanseatic towns; that their English trade was no longer confined to the Hanse towns ; that they had engrossed almost the entire trade carried on by foreigners in the kingdom ; lastly, that they had reduced the price of wool, and also of corn by their importations of foreign grain. The articles which they imported, besides grain, are stated to
have been cordage and other naval stores, flax and hemp, linen, cloth, and steel. The English Merchant Adventurers flourished on the ruin of the older incorporation, which however continued to linger until 1507, when the Emperor Rudolph having ordered the factories of the English Merchant Adventurers in Germany to be shut up, Queen Elizabeth directed the Lord Mayor of London to close the house occupied by the merchants of the Steelyard. The buildings and site of the Steelyard, however, remained in possession of the towns of Hamburg, Bremen, and Liibeck, as representatives of the old Hanse corporation, till 1853, when, having no use for them, they sold the property, for which it is said they obtained 72,000/.
(Strype's Eccles. Ofem., iii. 77 ; Anderson's Commerce ; Maephereon's Commerce ; Dr. Reinhold Pauli's Bader ails alt England, which con tains an essay on the Steelyard.) •