War, peace and commerce and the Treaty of London (1604)

Abstract

The Treaty of London (1604) brought an end to the long Anglo-Spanish War. Scholars have assumed that peace was broadly welcomed, especially among the English mercantile community. Yet many merchants had made vast fortunes from the war, through privateering or opening trade routes with Spain’s imperial territories. This article demonstrates that the lobbying of merchants significantly shaped the negotiations for the Treaty of London. Simultaneously, multiple manuscript treatises arguing pro or contra peace were widely circulated: these foregrounded commercial concerns in their analysis of foreign policy.