the Danish threat. More cities, from the Lower Rhine area in the west to Livonia in the east, joined. Of the major players only Bremen and Hamburg refused to send forces, but contributed financially. Besides Prussia, three more territorial partners, Henry II of Schauenburg and Holstein-Rendsburg, Albert II of Mecklenburg, and the latter's son Albert of Sweden, joined the alliance, attacking via land and sea, forcing Denmark to sign the Treaty of Stralsund in 1370. Several Danish castles and fortresses were then taken by Hansa forces for fifteen years in order to secure the implementation of the peace conditions. English Merchant Adventurers The invasions of the Teutonic Order from Livonia to Pskov in 1367 had caused the Russians to recoup themselves on Hansa merchants in Novgorod, which again made the Order block exports of salt and herring into Russia. While the relations had eased by 1371 so that trade resumed, they soured again until 1388. During the Lithuanian crusade of 1369/1370, ending with the Teutonic victory in the Battle of Rudau, Prussia enjoyed considerable support from English knights. The Order welcomed English Merchant Adventurers, starting to cruise in the Baltic, competing with Dutch, Saxon and Wendish Hanseatic merchants, and allowed them to open outposts in its cities of Danzig and Elbing. This necessarily brought about a conflict with the rest of the Hansa, which was in a heavy argument with Richard II of England, over levies of higher dues. The Merchants struggled to achieve an unsatisfactory compromise. Dissatisfied Richard II's navy suddenly attacked six Prussian ships in May 1385 – and those of more Hanse members – in the Zwin, Grand Master Conrad Zöllner von Rothenstein immediately terminated all trade with England. When in the same year the Hansa evacuated all their Danish castles in fulfillment of the Treaty of Stralsund, Prussia argued in favour of a renewal of the Cologne Federation for the deeply concerned about the ensuing conflict with England, but could not prevail. The cities preferred to negotiate and take retaliatory actions, such as counter-confiscation of English merchandise. So when in 1388 Richard II finally reconfirmed the Hanseatic trade privileges, Prussia once again permitted merchant adventurers, granting permissions to remain; for this action they were renounced once again by the Grand Master Conrad of Jungingen in 1398. In the conflict with the Burgundian Philip the Bold on the Hansa privileges in the Flemish cities the positions of