department of government, they all fondly fancied they could prevent the exportation of coin and bullion, which could not be prevented even now by all the systematized apparatus we possess. Laws were frequently banded that were terrible in the Statute Book, and that would have been very sanguinary-if only they had not been impossible of execution. Neither Gresham, any more than those who employed him, ever appear to have thought that the money's worth in good merchandise was as good as the money, or to have felt that what the great Bacon said a few years afterwards of knowledge was strictly applicable to money-for money, like manure, is meant to be spread, and is of no value when kept idle in heaps. But if they were so chary about coined money, and gold and silver, in bars or in lumps, the wasteful and ever greedy ministers of Edward VI. were not at all scrupulous about sending away bell-metal and other materials plundered from the church. Every English church once had its bell or bells, and the chimes of the great churches, cathedrals, and abbeys, had been famed for their strength and sweetness, and had filled the country with music: but now these were thrown to the ground, were broken to pieces and melted, or in fragments were sent over to Antwerp to help to appease the impatience of the king's creditors, or to procure more money to be absorbed or wasted by the ministers or courtiers, who long kept King Edward all but penniless. Gaspar Schetz had the handling of this bell-metal, and no inconsiderable part of Gresham's business lay in driving the best sales or bargains he could in our fine old English church-bells. It appears that at times Gresham was compelled by his employers to offer cloths and fustians, as well as bell-metal, in lieu of money, and to offer them at a less price than that at which they were being sold by the English merchants in Antwerp. To keep the king's foreign creditors in good humour, he was in the habit of giving them rather frequently dinners or banquets. This cost a great deal of money, and put him otherwise to much inconvenience, for the Dutch and Flemings were deep drinkers, and expected him to drink

glass for glass with them. Gresham and his father Sir Richard had been sworn friends or servants to the Duke of Somerset; but when that protector was overthrown and sent to the scaffold by the Duke of Northumberland, Master Thomas transferred his devotion to the new protector, and continued to flourish under him.

After much toil Gresham got Northumberland to agree to a plan of punctual payment, which would keep up the credit of government and save them from the heavy feepenny in future. His plan was that the government should pay him weekly 12007. or 1300l., to be secretly received by one individual, so that it might be kept secret having this money punctually paid, he would take up at Antwerp every day 2007. or 3007. by exchange. "And thus doing," he continues, “it shall not be perceived, nor shall it be an occasion to make the exchange fall, for that the money shall be taken up in my name. And so by these means, in working by deliberation and time, the merchants' turn also shall be served. And also this should bring all merchants out of suspicion, who do nothing to payment of the king's debts, and will not stick to say that ere the payment of the king's debts be made it will bring down the exchange to 13s. 3d.; but I trust never to see that day."* the same letter to the Duke of Northumberland Gresham passionately recommended a measure which must have greatly troubled the English merchants. It was to seize instantly all the lead in the kingdom, to make a staple of it, and prohibit the exportation of any lead for five years to come. This, said Gresham, would make the price of the commodity rise at Antwerp, and the king might feed that market with lead as it was needed from time to time, and at his own price. It was a suggestion worthy of a Turkish pasha; yet it has been applauded by a recent biographer; and Gresham (whose ignorance is more excusable) dwelt upon it with a sort of rapture, telling the Duke of Northumberland that by these combined means, or by all the daily payment of 2007., and

Letter in Strype.

In

the seizure and monopoly of all lead, he would keep the money of England within the realm, and extricate the king from the debts in which his father and the Duke of Somerset had involved him. High-handed as he was, Northumberland shrank from the daring and unpopular step of seizing the lead. As for the weekly payments which he agreed to, they were only continued for eight weeks, or rather for less. Yet, by means which have not (all) been very clearly shown, Gresham succeeded in raising the rate of exchange in favour of England, and in making the pound sterling, which had passed there for 16s., rise on the bourse of Antwerp to 19s, 8d, He congratulated himself on his great success; yet some of the means which he says himself he recommended and got adopted for the obtaining of this desirable end are as objectionable in principle, and almost as tyranical, as the lead project could have been. On one occasion his own uncle, Sir John Gresham, was a great loser by these high-handed proceedings: but with the experience and adroitness of the Gresham family, and with Thomas's great power of control over exchanges and the moneymarket generally, it must have been strange if " my uncle Sir John" did not get good compensation for what he lost or was robbed of by government. In the course of two or three more years the pound sterling was raised at Antwerp to 22s., and at this rate Gresham discharged all or most of King Edward's debts. So high was the opinion now entertained of Gresham that the Duke of Northumberland employed him diplomatically (though without any credentials) to sound the ambassador of Charles V. as to the emperor's views touching a new connection and family alliance with England. He was also employed on other state business, some portions of which were not of a very honourable nature. He acted as a spy and intercepter or purloiner of letters. He is said to have gratified his government by intercepting some correspondence between the French court and those who governed at Edinburgh in the name of the young but already unfortunate Mary Queen of Scots. In the year 1552 Gresham presented to Edward VI. “ a pair

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of long Spanish silk stockings," and got great favour and fame thereby; for, continueth that honest chronicler and quondam tailor John Stow, you shall understand that King Henry the Eighth did wear only cloth hose, or hose cut out of ell-broad taffety; or that by great chance there came a pair of Spanish silk stockings from Spain.' For his services of all kinds, Gresham certainly received no stinted reward. He came in for some of the spoils of the church, or monastic bodies, which had not yet been swallowed up. These lands were all in Norfolk. Three weeks before his death, Edward conferred upon him other church lands; and by an instrument bearing date only six days before that young king's death, Gresham got a good slice out of the lands of the abbey of Our Lady of Walsingham, also in Norfolk, and out of some other church domains in the same county. It was a sad day for Master Thomas that on which the young King Edward died. His patron, the Duke of Northumberland, after the failure of his insane attempt to place his daughter-in-law the Lady Jane Grey upon the throne, was sent to the same scaffold on Tower Hill to which he had sent Protector Somerset. Queen Mary ascended the throne, completely remodelled the government, and commenced a fierce persecution against the despoilers of the Roman Church and the Protestant party generally. On the 4th of September, 1553, about a month after Mary's accession, Gresham, being at Antwerp, was desired" to make his immediate repair to the court;" but the letter of recall (if such it was meant to be) was again stayed," and was not sent till the 9th, when the tone of it should appear to have been altered.* In the end, and that too very shortly, the storm blew over Gresham's head, leaving him unscathed, and even in the enjoyment of his now very profitable employment. From the evidence before us, we suspect that our knowing and cunning merchant made great haste to comply with the times, and that afterwards, when Elizabeth came to the

*Minutes of the Council Office, as quoted by J. W. Burgon,

throne to re-establish Protestantism and proscribe Popery, he not only exaggerated the amount of his risk and danger at the accession of Mary, but was also guilty of falsehood or equivocation, hinting that his danger was owing to his steadfastness in religion. Notwithstanding his usefulness and the hereditary and acquired reputation of Gresham, it may most reasonably be doubted whether he would have been left in office and even taken into favour by Mary and her government if he had not given some assurance of that conformity which was exacted from all men holding places. His family, like so many others, had invariably steered with the shifting winds. Almost as soon as the bigoted Queen Mary was firmly seated he wrote a letter, declaring his allegiance and explaining of what use he had been in getting the king her brother out of debt. As Mary very soon wanted to borrow money herself, Gresham very soon became, to all appearance, as great a favourite at court as he had been during the Protestant rule of the Duke of Northumberland or of the Duke of Somerset. He corresponded directly with Secretary Petre, with the Privy Council, and occasionally with the queen herself.

The court stood in urgent need of specie; but the rulers of Flanders, as well as the governments of all Europe, dreaded, equally with the English government, the exportation of specie or bullion, and thought that gold and silver might be kept at home by severe legislative enactments. And, although money could no more be kept in by such means than water can be prevented from seeking its level and diffusing itself, it was not to be got out without smuggling and an infraction of the laws. Hence we have seen that Gresham in his instructions is ordered to proceed" in the most secret manner. The mistake in principle led to unfairness and treachery in action; and the government which threatened their own subjects with condign punishment for exporting out of their own realms specie and bullion, were ever ready in case of need to tamper with the subjects of other governments, and engage them to infringe these very laws. It is amusing to see the shifts and tricks which our royal