The great mart for English wool was the Netherlands, whose manufacturing business required the raw product: the Netherlanders were more dependent on England than the English were on them. Hence this trade was used by Henry throughout his reign as a political lever--a means to political ends rather than an end in itself. If his own subjects suffered from a customs war, Philip's suffered more. So long as Burgundy made trouble on behalf of Perkin Warbeck the battle went on. In 1496 Philip gave up the contest, and the _Intercursus Magnus_ followed. Soon after the beginning of the new century the fight was renewed, to be terminated by what the Flemings called the _Intercursus Malus_, an arrangement so one-sided and pressing so hard on them that its terms were practically impossible of fulfilment; and Henry assented to their modification before his death, partly with a view to overcoming the reluctance of Margaret of Savoy to accept his matrimonial overtures.
When Henry came to the throne, he found the export trade mainly in the hands of two foreign groups--the Hansa, who had acquired privileges in England which they did not reciprocate, and the Venetians, who held their own without privileges by superior commercial acuteness--and of two English groups, the Merchants of the Staple, who controlled the wool markets, and the Merchant Adventurers, who were mainly interested in the manufactured goods. The King therefore followed a consistent policy of straining, in a restrictive sense, the interpretation of the concessions made to the Hansa, of emphasising grievances against them and of pressing for counter- privileges; and he successfully negotiated with Denmark in 1489 a commercial treaty, which interfered with the Hansa monopoly of the Scandinavian trade, by placing English merchants on a competitive footing with them. In a similar manner, he brought pressure to bear on the Venetians by opening direct relations with the Florentines at their port of Pisa. It is curious to note incidentally that the export dues on raw wool were enormously heavier than those on the manufactured goods; the difference being made in order to encourage the home sale of the wool and to stimulate the home manufacture by this means, as well as by encouraging the foreign sale of the manufactured goods. It is also observable that when an attempt was made by the London merchants to capture the worsted trade, Henry nipped it in the bud. It was no part of his policy to allow corporations--any more than individuals--to become powerful enough to demand terms for their political support.