employed in expeditions of war, vessels and men being at times seized or
impressed for the purpose by order of the Crown. On one of these
occasions the port of Dartmouth, whence Chaucer at a venture ("for aught I
wot") makes his "Shipman" hail, is found contributing a larger total of
ships and men than any other port in England. For the rest, Flanders was
certainly still far ahead of her future rival in wealth, and in mercantile
and industrial activity; as a manufacturing country she had no equal, and
in trade the rival she chiefly feared was still the German Hansa.
Chaucer's "Merchant" characteristically wears a "Flandrish beaver hat;"
and it is no accident that the scene of the "Pardoner's Tale," which
begins with a description of "superfluity abominable," is laid in
Flanders. In England, indeed the towns never came to domineer as they did
in the Netherlands. Yet, since no trading country will long submit to be
ruled by the landed interest only, so in proportion as the English towns,
and London especially, grew richer, their voices were listened to in the
settlement of the affairs of the nation. It might be very well for
Chaucer to close the description of his "Merchant" with what looks very
much like a fashionable writer's half sneer:--

Forsooth, he was a worthy man withal;
But, truly, I wot not how men him call.

Yet not only was high political and social rank reached by individual
"merchant princes," such as the wealthy William de la Pole, a descendant
of whom is said (though on unsatisfactory evidence) to have been Chaucer's
grand-daughter, but the government of the country came to be very
perceptibly influenced by the class from which they sprang. On the
accession of Richard II, two London citizens were appointed controllers of
the war-subsidies granted to the Crown; and in the Parliament of 1382 a
committee of fourteen merchants refused to entertain the question of a