Chronology and commerce: Edmund Howes’s Annales

Abstract

The chronicler, Edmund Howes, the subject of chapter three, was interested in trade and, like his more illustrious contemporaries Francis Bacon (ch. 1) and William Camden (ch. 2), provided an analysis of the state's management of commercial affairs. Howes, however, had much closer connections with the workshops, warehouses and offices of the City than the other writers discussed in this book. And it was through describing the activities of individuals attached to these locales, the chapter argues, that he was able to develop a highly innovative account of English commercial history. In dealing with Howes' writing, the chapter begins by looking briefly at his life, before exploring the account of Jacobean immigration, manufacture and trading companies developed in the Annales (1615, 1632). The chapter's final section shows how Howes' work shaped the approach to Jacobean commerce of one of the most popular historical works of the seventeenth century: Richard Baker's Chronicle (1643).