Lessons for our time from the first Brexit

As we depart from the EU, there are things we can learn from the merchants who transformed London’s fortunes

They also had to find new ways to talk about money. The old laws against usury (lending money at interest) were beginning to loosen. London’s preachers still berated moneylenders and profiteers. Critics of unscrupulous financiers heard them using weasel words to cover up the shame of usury, of which the most pernicious was “interest”. But merchants were pragmatists who treated money just like any other commodity, to be lent out for a fair price. In the end they won the debate.

Like us, Elizabethans experienced how powerfully politics and money could work together. But Tudor merchants also saw through the posturings of monarchs. Wars, blockades, dynastic squabbles and politics all got in the way of trade. True, Tudor merchants were protectionists. Yet in trying to get the edge over their rivals they saw the huge benefits of treaties and reciprocal deals across Europe and beyond. They knew that common prosperity — and their wealth — was grounded upon patient negotiations, not the vagaries of politicians with an eye on the short game.

Cities rise and fall. Early in the 16th century Antwerp overtook Bruges as the financial capital of Western Europe, and then in turn Antwerp was overtaken by London. Amsterdam in the 17th century was a powerhouse of global capitalism. In Elizabethan London it was at Sir Thomas Gresham’s grand Royal Exchange that merchants of many nations met to do their deals.

We are about to leave behind institutions that were built to protect Europeans from self-inflicted horrors. For two generations these have allowed us to work, travel and trade in a way that would have seemed miraculous to Elizabethans. No one, however clever they think they are, can predict how the future will look. The past gives no easy lessons. There are just a few buildings that survive from Tudor London.

Perhaps those in charge now should take themselves off quietly to one of their ancient churches. There are the tombs of some of the men and women who, able to see a little beyond their own city, changed the world as much they changed London.

Stephen Alford is Professor of early modern British history at the University of Leeds. His London’s Triumph: Merchant Adventurers and the Tudor City is published by Allen Lane (at £20)