BONDS AND BILLS OF EXCHANGE IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY ENGLISH ROYAL BORROWING
English royal borrowing from foreign merchants on the Antwerp bourse from 1544 to 1574 is a well-know phenomenon. It is not clear yet how exactly the royal loans were formalized. This article seeks to reconstruct the use of certain financial instruments, such as bonds and bills of exchange, in contracting loans for the English crown. Multiple evidence is scattered in literature, some authors stating the English royal loans to be exchange lending transactions. The reconstruction of borrowing practices of the crown shows that this understanding is false. The historiographical account of the article investigates what nourished such an opinion. The research is based on the official correspondence of Thomas Gresham (nearly 1518-1579), the English royal financial agent in the Netherlands in 1550-1560s.