favourite nephew, as King of the Romans, and on many after occasions stood manfully by him. In the meantime, Cologne had joined the great Hanseatic Bund which, following the example of an earlier union between the great towns of Flanders, had established a confederation of cities within the pale of the empire. The Hanse confederation obtained a settlement in London in the year 1250, their establishment being the premises of the Steelyard in Thames Street, where some remains of masonry of the 13th century are observable, and which have probably appertained to the chapel of the guild, built at the time of their taking possession of the premises. Henry the Third, in 1259, at the request of his brother, Richard of Cornwall, the “Kyng of Alemaigne,” of the scandalous old song, granted them many valuable privileges, which were renewed and confirmed by his son, Edward the First, and additional privileges were conferred by the citizens of London, on condition of their maintaining one of the gates of the city, called Bishopsgate, and their sustaining a third of the charges in money and men to defend it “when need were.” King John had previously, at the especial suit of his nephew, Otho the Fourth, issued the first letters patent to the merchants of the city of Bremen, afterwards one of the principal members of the Hanse union, securing them free import and export to and from England.
Among the royal and autograph letters of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries in the archives of the Tower of London, is a curious letter addressed by the advocate, consuls, and commonalty of the City of Hamburgh to Henry the Third, wherein those worthy magistrates, in a somewhat pugnacious vein, claim redress for the injuries sustained by a citizen of theirs—Master Willikin Kranec—from the inhabitants of Dunwich, one of the most flourishing ports in the eastern counties.
.png)
The Steelyard, Thames Street.
The extended monopoly of the English trade by the cities of northern Germany, had, in the beginning, excited considerable jealousy and opposition on the part of the Cologne merchants, who, on account of their ancient factory in Dowgate ward, claimed the exclusive right to English commerce; but, supported by Richard of Cornwall, the Hanse merchants stood upon their privileges, and the rights and properties of the Cologne merchants soon merged in those of their rivals, with whom they became united under the charter of Henry the Third, dated 1260, the united bodies being designated the merchants of Almaigne, who possess the house in London called the Dutch Guildhall—Aula Teutonicorum. In a volume preserved in the City, being a list of the mayors and sheriffs of London, called Liber de Antiquis Legibus, the following is narrated:
Soon after the martyrdom of Thomas-à-Becket, there came to his shrine, at Canterbury, a native of Cologne—Arnold of Grevinge, with his wife Odè, who, since their marriage, had continued childless. This couple fervently invoked the saint to fulfil their earnest and possessing desire, and to bless them with children, and promised if they were favoured with a son that he should de dedicated to the Church of Canterbury. Arnold settled afterwards in London, where Odè bore him a son,