the world of private banking

PROtEStANt bANKING 233
than 170,000 of a total of 200,000 écus he was able to get from Switzerland
through his ambassador.
Just before the outbreak of the eighth religious war in 1586, Antoine of Vienne,
Henry of Navarre’s main agent in Switzerland, secured a loan of 70,000 écus from
the Duke of Württemberg. This affair was arranged at Basel by banker Niklaus
Wasserhuhn and notary Peter Rippel. Queen Elizabeth of England (1558–1603)
sent 100,000 écus in 1587 to the Count Palatine John Casimir to finance new
troops in support of Henry of Navarre. And after the alliance of the two Henrys in
France against the Catholic Guise Party in January 1589, Swiss Protestants added
a further 250,000 écus. Finally in 1596 King Henry IV (1594–1610), the former
King of Navarre, obtained an additional 20,000 écus from England.
After the end of the religious wars in France and the promulgation of the
Edict of Nantes in 1598, King Henry IV found himself with the total of all the
debts contracted by the French Kings. The total burden of debt against Catholic
and Protestant Switzerland amounted to more than 11,000,000 écus or about
36,000,000 livres tournois. When he started to reimburse part of it after 1602,
the payments of interests and amortizations passed either through direct money
transports to the French Embassy at Solothurn or via the payment network of some
Protestant merchant bankers and the Public Bank of Basel.
How do we know about this Protestant network for financial transfers at the
end of the sixteenth century? It is known because of the Protestant solidarity with
the Republic of Geneva all over Calvinist Europe and Anglican England. The
young Republic of Geneva had always been in great difficulties with its public
finances since the Reformation and its independence from Savoy and the exile of
the former Bishop of Geneva to Annecy in 1535. The accounts ended with a deficit
almost every year until the end of the sixteenth century, particularly during the
war against Savoy in 1589–93. Geneva got used to receiving large loans – a total
of about 211,000 écus – from all the major Swiss Protestant Cantons and from
Strasbourg. This money was partially transferred by merchants through letters of
change and cédules obligatoires from Basel to Geneva during the second half of
the sixteenth century. But in 1583–93 Geneva also got some financial help from
the French, Dutch, German and Eastern European brethren as well as from the
English and Scottish church communities. In these countries an amount of more
than 46,000 écus was put together into specially arranged collects for Geneva.
How was this money transferred to Geneva? This question has something to
do with the Genevan proto-industrial and commercial activities, especially those
of the French and Italian Protestant immigrants after the Reformation. This first
immigrant group brought new activities to Geneva, Zurich and Basel and also
stimulated traditional branches in these towns. The growth of the production and
export of Swiss silk and woollen materials during the sixteenth century was mainly
the result of the innovative power of these Italian and French entrepreneurs, who
became citizens of Geneva, sometimes also associated with old Swiss entrepreneurs
For more details, see Körner, Solidarités, p. 391.