Merchant Adventurers

During the fifteenth century, opinions about the closeness of merchants to English kings were highly debated. For this reason, under Elizabeth I, The Merchant Adventurers Company had been established with royal support as a corporation in 1564.

Members of the company had to be Englishmen, merchants, and engaged in the foreign trade. Members of the company, Merchant Adventurers, were known as people who 'adventured' their own money in overseas trade by bringing back goods and wealth to England.

The Merchant Adventurers Company that had been chartered had access to all of the business within their trade or region, In exchange for this advantage, chartered companies gave a portion of their profits to the Crown.

We should not forget that the Merchant Adventurers were not a company based in a particular town, but a national institution in an English sovereign national state.

To give examples of these companies were incorparated during Elizabeth's reign: "the company of English merchants who engaged in trade with the Netherlands (and later with northwest Germany) from the early 15th century to 1806 dealt with the export of finished cloth from the burgeoning English woolen industry; the Eastland Company to trade with Scandinavia and the Baltic in 1579; the Levant Company to trade with the Ottoman Empire in 1581; the Africa Company to trade in slaves, in 1588; and the East India Company to trade with India in 1600".

Sources McDowall, David. An Illustrated History of Britain. Longman Group UK Limited, 1989.