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century. It is also refuted by the outstanding growth of capitalist economy in free, localized Antwerp and Holland in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Thus the Dutch came to outstrip the rest of Europe while retaining medieval local autonomy and eschewing state-building, mercantilism, government participation in enterprise—and aggressive war. *
    Despite the rise of rival Dutch shipping, the continued importance of the Hanseatic League in the economic life of England was indicated by the Treaty of Utrecht (1474), which confirmed the trading privileges of the Hansards in England, including the payment of lower duties than the English merchants paid. But the accession of the Tudor dynasty to the English throne in 1485 marked the beginning of a steady growth of the power of the English government. Medieval forms were transformed by the Tudors into a more efficient and complete machinery for repression, especially in regulating those economic activities that had achieved prosperity by freely evading the government’s regulations, controls, and taxation. Monopoly rights were granted in 1486 to the Fellowship of the Merchant Adventurers of England in all trade to the Netherlands except in wool; especially important was the export of cloth to the finishing and dyeing centers of the Netherlands. Furthermore, navigation acts restricted to English ships the importations of wines, in the vain expectation of thus increasing the number of English sailors and ships sufficiently to develop a strong governmental naval force. In 1496 the English government negotiated with the government of the Netherlands the Great Commercial Treaty (Intercursus Magnus), which provided favorable commercial conditions for English merchants at Antwerp. The important contribution of the Intercursus Magnus to international law was to recognize the freedom of English and Dutch fishermen on the high seas, especially on the North Sea, which had become the major European fishing area. The fishermen were to be free to fish anywhere and to use the ports of either country in an emergency. For a century and a half, the Intercursus Magnus remained the foundation of Anglo-Dutch commercial and maritime relations. However, by an act of 1497 the English government implemented its treaty power to monopolize and control trade to other countries; specifically, the act excluded English competitors of the Merchant Adventurers from the Netherlands trade by granting that company a monopoly in the trade with Antwerp. The cloth trade to the Netherlands now became the privileged monopoly of a limited number ofLondon merchants, who came more and more to have the closest fiscal relationships with the state through loans at favorable terms to the government.
    For more effective enforcement of government power under the Tudors, executive power was exercised by a specially selected group of government advisers that, because it met in secret, was called the Privy Council. The Privy Council acted by means of fiat proclamations rather than by legislation of Parliament. Judicial power was granted to the Court of Star Chamber, a prerogative court that tried the violations of the proclamations by the mere force and whim of government rather than by the traditional common law, which guaranteed the rights of the people. Defending the government from the criticisms of the people (called libels), from conspiracy and riots (that is, any gathering protesting the oppressions of the government), and from infractions of its coinage, the Star Chamber was notorious for the imposition of ruinous fines, cruel imprisonment, whippings, brandings, and mutilations of those who came under its aegis. To aid its work, the Tudor Government had set aside the common-law prohibition of the use of torture.
    The Tudors also introduced the first permanent state military force in England, as they had established the foundation for a governmental navy. Military force was most generally used to subject the Irish to