TRADE AND MARKETS. 151 



When war broke out between Philip of Spain and the Low 

 Countries, and especially when the struggle became desperate, 

 numerous weavers from Flanders crossed over to England, 

 and settling in various parts, brought with them the art of 

 manufacturing their finer fabrics, in which hitherto England 

 had been imperfectly skilled, especially such woollen stuffs as 

 were formed from a tightly twisted yarn, but with a more or 

 less close fabric. Hitherto, the cloth of this country was made 

 with a loosely twisted yarn, but with a dense fabric, which 

 required shrinking and shearing (aqttatiO) tonsio), before it was 

 fit for wear, the shrinkage apparently being close upon ten per 

 cent, of the length \ 



Debarred at first from attempting trade with the New World, 

 and also by the Cape passage, in consequence of the Papal 

 grants to Portugal and Spain, and subsequently checked from 

 adventure by the opulence, as it appeared, of the House of 

 Austria, the English strove to find an outlet for their energies 

 in new directions. In 1551, the British merchants attempted 

 to effect a trade with Marocco, as the year before a similar 

 attempt had been made to carry English merchant ships into 

 the Levant. But a more successful attempt was made in the 

 North-east. 



In 1553, a company of merchants was formed, with Sebas- 

 tian Cabot at their head, to attempt discoveries. The capital 

 of these adventurers was slender, but they fitted out three 

 vessels, under the command of Sir Hugh Willoughby. Unluckily 

 they seem to have set out too late in the year, were caught by 

 the winter, scattered, and the commander was driven into a 

 desert harbour of Lapland, where he and the crews of two of 

 his ships were frozen to death. It is said that certain fisher- 

 men found him in the next summer sitting in his cabin, with 

 his diary and papers before him. The third vessel however 

 got into the bay of Archangel, and obtained an interview with 

 the Czar, Iwan Vasilejwitch (Ivan the Terrible), who had just 



1 See 1 8 Hen. VI, cap. 18. Some foreign artisans had settled in England during 

 Edward the Sixth's reign. 



