for that will either banish the superfluity or gain the manufacture." But where would be the harm of having the superfluity, even without the manufacture? The superfluity could not be brought from abroad without the money to purchase it being acquired by some species of industry or other exercised within the realm. For the encouragement of the national industry, therefore, the acquisition of the superfluity by purchase comes to the same thing with its acquisition by the introduction of the manufacture. From the title of this act, "For Silkwomen," it may be inferred that the trifling branches of the silk manufacture, consisting merely of knitting, that had as yet been introduced into England were exclusively in the hands of females.
In January, 1506, the Archduke Philip, sailing from Flanders to Spain with his wife, now, by the death of her mother, become Queen of Castile, was driven by stress of weather into Weymouth, and found himself at once the guest and the prisoner of the English king. On this occasion a treaty was wrung by Henry from the captive sovereign of the Netherlands which was called by the Flemings the Intercursus Malus, or evil treaty, by way of contrast with "the great treaty" of 1496. The terms of the new arrangement, however, are now of no interest; it is sufficient to state that they were somewhat more favourable to the English merchant than those of the former treaty.
A sort of charter of indemnity granted to certain Venetian merchants by Henry in 1507, with the view of screening them, it is conjectured, from prosecutions to which they had exposed themselves by the advantage they had taken of previous illegal grants made to them by the king, is preserved in Rymer, and may be noticed as containing an enumeration of the principal foreign nations then carrying on trade with and in this country. The Venetians are authorised to buy and sell, for ten years to come, at London and elsewhere, in England, Ireland, and Calais, woollen cloth, lead, tin, leather, &c., with the English, Genoese, Venetians, Florentines, Luccans, Spaniards, Portuguese, Flemings, Hollanders, Brabanters,
