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ALIEN IMMIGRANTS TO ENGLAND
JY
7620
.C97
Social England Series.
Edited by KENELM D. COTES, M.A. (Oxon).
The Troubadours and Courts of Love.
J. F. ROWBOTHAM, M.A.
The King's Peace: A Historical Sketch of the English
Law Courts.
F. A. INDERWICK, Q.C.
Alien Immigrants.
W. CUNNINGHAM, D.D.
In Preparation.
Social and Imperial Life of Britain.
Chivalry.
THE EDITOR.
PROFESSOR G. BALDWIN BROWN.
F. W. CORNISH, Vice-Provost of Eton.
History of the Fine Arts.
The English Manor.
PROFESSOR VINOGRADOFF.
The Evolution of the English House.
SIDNEY O. ADDY.
The Evolution of English Household Implements.
HENRY BAlfour.
Mysteries and Miracle Plays.
LUCY TOULMIN SMITH.
Life in an Old English Town.
The Social Position of Women.
The Navy.
M. DORMER HARRIS.
C. FELL SMITH.
W. LAIRD CLOWES.
LONDON: SWAN SONNENSCHIEIN & CO., LIMD.
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN CO., LIMD.
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ཅ་བདད ་རི་ཚ བད
JOHN KEMP'S PATENT.
Social England Series
EDITED BY KENELM D. COTES, M.A. (OXON)
ALIEN IMMIGRANTS
TO ENGLAND
BY
W CUNNINGHAM, D.D.
Hon. LL.D. Edin., Hon. Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, and Fellow
and Lecturer of Trinity College, Cambridge; Author of "The Growth
of English Industry and Commerce," etc.
79784
WITH 3 MAPS AND 7 ILLUSTRATIONS

“ARDVA QVÆ·PVLCRA
London
SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO. LIMD
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN CO. LIMD
1897
JV
7620
.c97
046 411 008
BUTLER & TANNER,
THE SELWOOD PRINTING WORKS,
FROME, AND LONDON.
0274019 &, S.
reclase.
о
10-9-31 AIA
TO THOSE OF MY PUPILS
WHO HAVE HELPED ME TO LEARN
I DEDICATE MY PART IN THIS BOOK
IN introducing an old subject with some
variety of form, it is easy to be brief and at
the same time clear, because the reader supplies from
previous knowledge so much that is left unsaid; but in
stepping quite out of the beaten track nothing perhaps.
but actually treading the new path can make the goal
that it is intended to reach plainly visible. It is not
desirable that the whole object of a new series of books
written on a new plan should be capable of being con-
densed into a few pages; this can be done only for
subjects whose scope is already well defined, where there
are and have been many previous books written on the
same lines, though perhaps from slightly different points
of view, and in which the only novelty to be looked for
is in the style of writing and in the arrangement and
amount of matter.
A New
Subject.
EDITORIAL PREFACE
Undoubted as is the influence of personality
upon history, the attention directed to it has
hitherto been rather one-sided; the entire course of
national life cannot be summed up in a few great names,
and the attempt to do so is to confuse biography with
history. This narrow view, besides ignoring other causes,
leads to the overrating of details, and since a cause must
be found somewhere, personal character becomes every-
Vii
Personality.
viii
Editorial Preface
thing. The stability of law that is seen in a large number
of instances cannot be discovered by watching single
lives, however exalted; and history with no intention of
discovering the condition of events becomes the sport
of accident, resting in great measure for its interest on
anecdote and rhetoric.
The case is not much bettered by long
Politics. accounts of acts of parliament, with sum-
maries of debates, and numbering of divisions, and more
lives of statesmen, eminent and mediocre. The details
of parliament no more than the details of biographies
afford sufficient data for scientific observation, if the
forces of the society that surround them are omitted.
Neither does the addition of military detail help much in
the comprehension of the course of events; one battle ist
much like another except when treated by the profes-
sional soldier or sailor, or at all events in the light of
professional books; and victories cr defeats depend upon
something else besides the position of the ground or the
plans of the moment. It has been reserved for a naval
expert of another power to point this out to the multi-
tudinous writers of the history of the great naval power
of the world.
Social
Social questions are to-day taking the fore-
Questions. most place in public interest; the power
behind the statesman is seen to be greater in controlling
contemporary history than the eloquence or experience
of any single man. We see this to be so now, and our
knowledge of the present suggests the question whether it
has not always been so; and whether the life of society,
Editorial Preface
ix
though it has not had the same comparative weight, has
not always been a more important factor than the life of
the individual.
The "Social
Series.
The "Social England" series rests upon the
England" conviction that it is possible to make a suc-
cessful attempt to give an account, not
merely of politics and wars, but also of religion, com-
merce, art, literature, law, science, agriculture, and all
that follows from their inclusion, and that without a due
knowledge of the last we have no real explanation of
any of the number.
Not as an
But the causes that direct the course of
Appendix. events will become no clearer if to one third
politics and one third wars we add another third consisting
of small portions of other subjects, side by side, but yet
apart from one another.
-
The central idea is that the greatness or
The Central
Idea. weakness of a nation does not depend on the
greatness or weakness of any one man or body of men,
and that the odd millions have always had their part to
play. To understand how great that was and is, we must
understand the way in which they spent their lives, what
they really cared for, what they fought for, and in a
word what they lived for. To leave out nine-tenths of
the national life, and to call the rest a history of the
nation, is misleading; it is so misleading that, treated in
this mutilated manner, history has no pretension to be a
science: it becomes a ponderous chronicle, full of details
which, in the absence of any other guiding principle, are
held together by chronology. Writers of great name and
b
X
Editorial Preface
power escape from this limitation, which, however, holds
sway for the most part in the books that reach the great
majority of readers, that is those who have not time to
read an epoch in several volumes.
The Carrying
It is not necessary in seeing a famous town
Out of the Idea to visit every public building and private
house, and so for the carrying out of this plan it has been
determined that adequate treatment can be secured of
certain subjects in a series of books that should be
popular, not only in style, but also in the demands they
make upon the reader's time.
Specialists.
It would be useless for any one writer to
pretend to accomplish this task, though when
the way is cleared a social history connecting more closely
and summarising the work of all the contributors will
be possible; but at present it is intended to ask each of
them to bring his special knowledge to bear upon the ex-
planation of social life and in treating his portion of the
work to look at original authorities to see not merely
what light they throw on his own branch separately, but
how they affect its conception considered in relation to
the whole, that is to the development of the life of the
English people.
The Possible
Series.
To bring the series to its completion will
Limits of the need the services of many writers. A few of
the number of books which might be sug-
gested may be mentioned. The influence upon thought of
geographical discovery, of commerce, and of science would
form three volumes. The part inventions have played,
the main changes in political theories and, perhaps less
Editorial Preface
xi
commonplace, the main changes in English thought upon
great topics, such as the social position of women, of
children, and of the church, the treatment of the indigent
poor and of the criminal, need all to be studied. The
soldier, the sailor, the lawyer, the physician, have still to
be written of; the conception of the duties of the noble or
the statesman, not in the story of one man s life, but in a
general theory illustrated from the lives of many men,
has still to be formulated; the wide range of subjects con-
nected with law-the story of crime, laws made in class
interest, laws for the protection of trade and for the
regulation of industry-are all to be found in the statutes
at large. A more comprehensive sketch of the scope of
the series should be found in an introductory volume.
But, apart from the probable extension of
Arranged for. the series, sufficient works have already been
arranged for to describe some leading features of English
social life, and to point out some of the numerous highways
which lead to a great centre, passing through different
provinces, which all have their local colour, but the lives
of whose inhabitants need also to be known if we are to
understand the country as a whole, and not merely the
court and parliament of the capital.
Works already
The king is the centre of this life when
The King's
Place. war and justice form the chief reason for the
loose federation of communities; not merely does he give
protection on the frontiers, but among his own subjects.
it is more and more his duty to enforce peace, and we
have to see how step by step the local court or franchise
is merged in the strengthening of sovereign justice.
xii
Editorial Preface
What exactly was the ideal of knighthood?
How far did it imply an acquaintance with
the learning of the day and with foreign countries? Did
it strengthen the feeling of pity for the weak, or purify
the love for women? In what are wrongly called the
dark ages, was there a vast society of men
dours. of culture, who spread over large parts of
Northern Europe, to whom we owe the first-fruits of
modern literature, the troubadours, who first came from
Provence ?
The Trouba-
Chivalry.
In the manor is to be found the story of
The Working-
The Manor. early village life, of domestic manufactures,
of the system of agriculture and of the simplest adminis
tration of justice, a system the remains of which last
till to-day; while a sketch of the history of
man. the working-classes helps to complete the
picture, and at the same time to place a wider one beside
it, to show especially how wages have been regulated,
the condition under which the poor have lived, and to see
what on the whole is the part they have played in
aistory.
The Rise of the
Turning from the working-man, we natur-
Merchants. ally ask when arose the great class of mer-
chants, how their gradual rise affected the condition of
the population, whether their appearance synchronised
with any other political and social events, and in fact we
prepare for the question as to the influence of commerce
on politics and society.
The Univer-
Those who know the part that commerce
sities. plays in civilization are aware that the
Editorial Preface
xiii
growth of intercourse will naturally bring larger culture,
and the learning of the old world and of the Saracens
will be taught in the schools of the West. It
Englishman will be impossible to rigidly confine the cur-
Traveller in rents of thought to the four seas, or even only
The Travelled
and the
England.
to break the barrier here and there by such
stories as that of the Roman missionaries. England must be
looked on as belonging to the circle of a great civilization.
How far Englishmen went abroad, and how far the men
of other nations came to England, requires to be set forth.
Again, to those who believe in the organic
connection of all branches of the national life
it will be of interest to learn in what way the character
of art partook of the nature of life around it, how far its
methods or motives can be borrowed, why the fifteenth
century gave pause to our art, why at a certain period
cathedrals ceased to be built, and when it was we added
great names in our turn to the list of painters.
The music of Anglo-Saxon and of Dane will
to some make clearer the influence of skald and
gleeman; the effect of poetry will be noted, the growth
of instruments, and the increasing complexity of music.
Possibly the change in the landscape might
be described: the alteration in the face of the
country with the draining of fens, the making of roads,
and the clearing of forests; the introduction of fresh trees
and plants.
The Fine Arts.
Music.
Scenery.
We must recognise that the position of Great
The Influence
of Geography Britain, as the known world grew wider,
on Social Life.
altered for the better; the effect of rivers,
xiv
Editorial Preface
mountains, and seas in fixing the boundaries of kingdoms
and sub-kingdoms, in altering or preserving languages, in
determining politics and the opinions of districts, and,
the chief point of all, in deciding the character of what
bids fair to be the language of commerce, and probably of
all international communication.
As it is important to know where men lived
The Homes
and Household in relation to the world at large in order to
Implements.
understand how they lived, so we should be
acquainted with their dwelling-places, whether in town or
country, at any period; we should observe the changing
styles of building, distinguish the international influence,
the part that the facility of obtaining material played,
and notice the gradual evolution of the rooms, the way
that they were adorned and furnished, to see how far in
beds and baths, in the provision for study and privacy,
civilization was advancing.
Social England
From their literature we can gather most,
Classics. for here, with not much thought of history,
contemporary spoke to contemporary of what each knew
well. In the pre-Elizabethan drama we can
see the
natural touches that show it was not elaborated as an ex-
ercise, but with the intention of possessing a living in-
terest, and in what interested them we discover their atti-
tude, not merely to religion, but to much else besides. By
recognizing this fact we learn that masterpieces of litera-
ture lose their full meaning unless we find in them, besides
creative power and command of the technique of art,
"the very age and body of the time." Shakespeare's
England and Chaucer's England are what Shakespeare
Editorial Preface
XV
and Chaucer knew of life; the outer gallery of pictures
the unknown artists drew, from which we pass into the
inner rooms whose walls are covered by the groups and
figures that the masters painted.
Biography and
In this widening of history, biography is
History. no longer cramped by being cut off from
social life; the great men are not isolated, but take their
proper places among their fellow-countrymen, their lives
forming fit landmarks, because they are akin to the peo-
ple among whom they live, their characters not adapted
to the century of the commentator, but bearing the impress
of the forces round them, whose constant pressure is
part of their life. They and those who are lesser than
themselves, and the changing conditions that create them
and are modified by them, form the great and continuous
whole, which constantly alters, as all life alters, coming
from the past and linked to the future. It no longer be-
comes necessary to make all times alike, except for con-
stitutional changes, or improvement in weapons, and the
crowning or death of a king, pleading the half-truth that
human nature is the same in every age.
PREFACE
THIS volume contains, as I believe, the first attempt to give
a connected view of the whole of the subject with which
it deals. Various portions have been fully treated by
previous writers; but they have hardly attempted to
gather up the scattered threads, and to show the influence
which aliens have exercised in all districts of the country
and on every side of English life.
The available evidence for different parts of the subject
is not of uniform value. For the incursion of the religious
refugees in the later periods there is a mass of important
material which has been brought together through the
researches promoted by the Huguenot Society as well as
in the writings of Burn, Baird, Smiles, Agnew and Poole,
and in the excellent papers contributed to the Ulster
Journal of Archaeology. A mine of information in regard
to the immigrants who came as adventurers in the wake
of the Conqueror will be found in Domesday Book, and
collections of charters. But for the history of the large
numbers, in all periods of our national life, who were mainly
actuated by economic motives in settling in this country,
we are forced to rely on occasional and incidental reference
in charters and histories, and even on unsupported local
tradition. These traditions have often found a place in
local histories, and I have not felt called upon to reject.
evidence which satisfied enquiries on the spot. In some
cases, too, local tradition may have been confirmed by the
evidence of dialect or of surviving habits.
xvii
xviii
Preface
Partly with the view of coming across unrecorded
information, and partly in the hope of obtaining help to
test local tradition by local knowledge, I invited some of
my former pupils to assist me in collecting materials for
this book. I take this opportunity of thanking all those
who have responded to my appeal; but I desire specially
to acknowledge the debt I owe to papers left in my posses-
sion by the late Miss Lamond, as well as the assistance
I have received from Miss Ruth Anderson, Miss Leonard,
Miss Turner, and Miss Younger, all of Girton College. To
Miss Anderson I am particularly indebted for constant
help in arranging the materials and verifying the refer-
ences; and she has kindly contributed the chapter on
the Émigrés, as well as the maps and illustrations to
the text. I also desire to express my thanks to the
authorities of the French Hospital, and other owners
of the copyright in the various pictures, for permission
to use them.
I venture to add, that I shall be most grateful to any
readers who may be willing to call my attention to evidence
as to the settlement of other aliens, so as to enable me to
render this account of the influence the immigrants exer-
cised less imperfect than it is.
TRIN. COLL., CAMB.,
November 8th, 1897.
W. C.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
1. THE STARTING-POINT .
2. THE SCOPE OF THE SUBJECT
3. THE GROUPING OF FACTS .
4. THE TRAVELLED NATIVE .
•
CHAPTER II
THE NORMAN INVASION
·
5. ITS IMPORTANCE
6. UNDER THE CONFESSOR
7. THE CONQUEROR'S ARMY
8. FLEMISH MERCENARIES
9. THE LOWLANDS OF SCOTLAND
10. VARIOUS METHODS OF CONFERRING CIVIL AND
•
MUNICIPAL STATUS
11. INFLUENCE ON SOCIAL ORGANIZATION
12. INFLUENCE ON THE ARTS OF LIFE
CHAPTER III
THE LATER MIDDLE AGES
•
13. CHARACTERISTICS OF THIS PERIOD
xix
PAGE
3
7
10
11
•
. 17
2
19
21
24
29
34
42
56
65
XX
Contents
i. Finance.
14. JEWS, TEMPLARS AND LOMBARDS
15. ENGLISH FACTORS AND STAPLERS
16. ENGLISH FINANCIERS
•
ii. Commerce.
17. THE GASCONY MERCHANTS
18. HOSTMEN
19. RESTRICTIONS AND GRIEVANCES IN CONNECTION
WITH TRADE
20. THE ALIEN SUBSIDIES
•
29. THE CONTRAST WITH PREVIOUS IMMIGRATIONS
30. COMBINED MOTIVES FOR THE IMMIGRATION UNDER
HENRY VIII. .
PAGE
69
78
82
iii. Industry.
. 100
21. THE INDUSTRIAL POLICY OF EDWARD III.
22. FLEMISH WEAVERS DIFFUSION AND INTERCOURSE 102
23. ORGANIZATION OF THE CLOTHING TRADE-CAPITAL 111
24. OTHER TRADES IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY € 115
25. ITALIAN ARTISANS
•
. 117
•
26. MINING.
. 121
27. JEALOUSY OF ALIENS .
124
•
•
86
92
94
97
iv. Corresponding Period in Scottish History.
28. ECONOMIC CONDITIONS AND POLITICAL CONNECTIONS 129
CHAPTER IV
THE REFORMATION AND RELIGIOUS REFUGEES
137
140
Contents
xxi
31. LOCALITIES OF TEMPORARY SETTLEMENT BEFORE
THE MARIAN REACTION
144
32. DISTRIBUTION OF THE WALLOONS AND FLEMINGS 149
33. CIVIL STATUS OF THE REFUGEES
157
34. INDUSTRIAL DIFFICULTIES
164
35. INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATION
170
171
36. RELIGIOUS PRIVILEGES
37. THE TRADES PURSUED
173
38. SCOTLAND AND IRELAND
182
39. GENERAL RESULTS
186
•
•
•
•
•
•
CHAPTER VI
LATER IMMIGRATIONS
i. The Huguenots
46. THE REVOCATION OF THE EDICT OF NANTES.
47. DISTRIBUTION IN ENGLAND. THE BRIEFS
48. THE SILK TRADE
49. SAILCLOTH AND OTHER INDUSTRIES
50. POLITICAL AND SOCIAL INFLUENCE.
•
•
•
CHAPTER V
INTERCOURSE WITH THE DUTCH
40. THE NORMAN CONQUEST AND THE DUTCH IN-
•
VASION
193
41. TRADING COMPANIES AND HOSTILITY TO ALIENS. 196
42. THE GOLDSMITHS AND FINANCE
205
43. INDUSTRIAL UNDERTAKINGS. THE FENS
208
44. IMPROVED ARTS.
212
45. SCOTLAND AND IRELAND
218
•
PAGE
•
223
228
234
239
243
xxii
Contents.
ii. The Palatines
51. THE DESTITUTE ALIEN
•
iii. The Émigrés
52. THE CAUSES OF EMIGRATION
53. ATTITUDE OF THE ENGLISH GOVERNMENT AND
THE ENGLISH PEOPLE
54. THE EMIGRÉS. THEIR COLONIES, NUMBERS, AND
OCCUPATIONS
•
•
CHAPTER VII
CONCLUSION
55. ALIEN IMMIGRATION, PAST AND PRESENT
56. WHAT ALIENS HAVE NOT DONE FOR US.
PAGE
249
254
256
258
263
267
MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS
FRONTISPIECE.
FACSIMILE OF THE PATENT TO JOHN
KEMP. From the Original Roll in the Record
Office.
MAP OF THE BRITISH ISLES
THE SEAL OF THE HOSTMEN'S COMPANY, Newcastle-
UPON-TYNE. (By the kind permission of the Com-
pany)
•
•
THE ALIENS' DISH, GLASTONBURY.
(From a Photo-
graph by Mr. W. Tully, Glastonbury)
. 145
EDWARD VI. GRANTING THE PATENT FOR AUSTIN
FRIARS' CHURCH TO JOHN A'LASCO. (From the
original Picture in the possession of W. Jerdone
Braikenridge, Esq.)
MAP OF THE NETHERLANDS
•
•
xxiii
•
PAGE
PORTRAIT OF RUVIGNY.
(From the Picture in the
possession of the French Hospital).
42
BOURNE POND MILL, COLCHESTER. (From a Photo-
graph by Mr. William Gill, F.R.P.S., Colchester). 171
THE BLACK ABBEY GATE, COLCHESTER. (From a
Photograph by Mr. William Gill, F.R.P.S., Col-
- chester).
•
65
147
155
MAP OF THE GREAT FENS. (After the Map in Sir C.
Vermuÿden's "Discourse touching the drayning of
the Great Fennes")
. 213
189
245
INTRODUCTION
B
I
INTRODUCTION
1. So many diverse tribes and stocks have contributed to
the formation of the English nation that it is not easy to
draw a line between the native and the foreign elements.
After all, the Jutes and Saxons and Angles were them-
selves immigrants, who came to this island in historic
times; the main stock was transplanted, and is no more
native to the soil than the branches which have been
grafted into it from time to time. It seems a little arbi-
trary to fix on any definite date and designate the immi-
grants of the earlier times, component parts of the English
race, while we speak of the later arrivals as aliens.
There can, however, be little doubt that we must at
least go back to the time preceding the Norman Conquest.
Though the English nation was but imperfectly consoli-
dated before that event, there was so much custom common
to all the branches of the Teutonic stock, then settled in
the southern part of the island, that there was already a
dim sense of nationality among the people; and immedi-
ately after the Conquest, the English and the Norman
elements of the population, living respectively by English
and Norman law, could be readily distinguished. In the
time of the Confessor the English people had ceased to be a
congeries of kindred, but hostile tribes; and the foreigners,
3
4
Alien Immigrants
who came among them from Normandy, were looked upon
as intruders: The laws of Edward the Confessor served
at least as a traditional expression for the English custom,
which had been preserved in part, and set aside in part,
by the Norman king and the Norman immigrants. New
settlers at that date and under these conditions cannot be
regarded as an original element in the English stock.
But were they the first of the alien immigrants? What
shall we say of the Roman missionaries who planted
Christianity in this country? They certainly came from
abroad; they certainly exercised an extraordinary influence
upon the development of English civilization. Still, just
because the tribes were so little advanced at the time
when S. Augustine and his companions came to our shores,
the work these men did was very different from that of
the later arrivals. When we speak of aliens and foreigners,
our language implies the existence of political institutions
and settled life. The Roman missionaries identified them-
selves with the English, and helped to build up our in-
stitutions and our laws; we cannot properly speak of the
"far-coming man" as an alien, till the work which these
pioneers helped to do had been accomplished, and national
life was to some extent organized. We need not under-
rate the importance of the work they did, because we
treat it as different in character from that of the later
immigrants.
There is more difficulty, perhaps, in justifying an
arrangement by which the Danes are treated as original,
and not as intruded, elements in the English stock. The
kings of Wessex had so far established their authority over
Introduction
5
the other tribes, that there was at least the beginning of a
national administration before the Danish incursions com-
menced, and the line of later English kings can be traced
back to the house of Cedric. The people against whom
Alfred waged war, who were recognised as under a sepa-
rate rule in the region where Danish law was enforced,
against whom a treacherous plot was organized on S.
Brice's Day, may surely be treated as a distinct and alien
element in the English population. Of Canute it may be
said that he was king by mere right of conquest more
truly than William himself; and the complaint of the
Chronicler of Peterborough is at least as bitter when he
tells of the deeds of the Danes as when he discusses the
characters of Norman kings.
Yet, when we take a wide survey of the history of
Western Europe, we may feel that there is some justifica-
tion for treating the Danes as original elements in the
English stock. It is not merely that they were closely
connected in kinship with the Jutes and Angles; so, too,
for that matter, were the Normans. But, in the arts of
peace and war alike, the Danes were on the same plane as
the English, whom they plundered and among whom they
settled; they could not diffuse a culture they had not.
themselves received. The incursions of the Danes must be
regarded as a wave of barbarian invasion, rather than as
the immigration of members of an organized state. They
brought with them an energy and enterprise which have
doubtless had lasting results on English industry and
commerce; not a few of their customs appear to have been
incorporated in our municipal and national institutions.
-
6
Alien Immigrants
Still, the influence they exercised was dissimilar from
that of later aliens, through whom England came to share
more and more in that heritage of civilization which had
been developed in classical times and preserved in the
Mediterranean lands. We may do well to adopt the lan-
guage which became current in Norman times, and to
treat the Danes as merely that English tribe which
effected the latest settlement in Britain.
The last-comers were widely diffused throughout the
length and breadth of the country; not only were they
supreme in the Danelagh, but they had their settlements.
in the heart of Wessex itself. The dedication of churches
to Danish saints, and other indications of their presence,
show what a large part they played in the growth of town
life in England. But the most striking proof of their
influence is in the new energy which seemed to be called
forth by mere contact with them. They were bold
voyagers, who could colonize Iceland and Greenland and
plant settlements in North America; 1 they were enter-
prising merchants, who fared by sea and land to the Black
Sea and Levant; and it seems as if they introduced a
new strain into English blood. Still, we must remem-
ber that their English contemporaries accounted them
barbarians; they had barbarian virtues and barbarian
vices; they had much to do in making England what it
is, but they were not the representatives of a higher civili-
zation. It is at least convenient to take the reign of
<
¹ Beamish, The Discovery of America (1841); J. Toulmin Smith,
The Northmen in New England (1842),
Introduction
7
K
Edward the Confessor as our starting-point, and to treat
the Norman as the first of the great waves of alien immi-
gration into England.
2. The line which is here laid down in regard to the
date corresponds with the limitations which it seems well
to impose in attempting to treat this large subject in
small compass. There are many directions in which the
influence of aliens may operate on a community, and it is
quite possible that the most important effects are those
which are least obvious, just because they lie deepest.
There are natural aptitudes and dispositions,-like the love
of the sea, or formed habits of frugality and industry,
which may, perhaps, be transmitted as the races mingle.
An alteration in the people themselves would be far more
important in the long run than any external change. The
readiness with which Englishmen adapt themselves to
the conditions of life in all parts of the world, may pos
sibly be connected with the curious admixture in the stock
from which they have sprung. But these effects are not
easy to trace definitely; it is hard to establish any con-
clusive proof which shall enable us to derive this or that
national quality from any special strain of alien blood.
Such speculations may interest the anthropologist, but
they hardly fall within the purview of the historian. We
shall do well to confine ourselves to sides of life where the
steps in the connection can be noted; we want to have
evidence which can be examined and tested, and hence
we have to look at external circumstances, rather than at
inner characteristics. Social forces and institutions, in-
dustrial arts and commercial practice may be the mere
8
Alien Immigrants
adjuncts of progress, rather than the sources from which
it springs; but they are at least the straws which enable
us to trace the course of a current. We may confine our-
selves to examining the evidence of direct influence of
this sort, without attempting to dwell on the indirect.
effects which may have been brought about; these we
pass over, not because they are unimportant, but because
we have no definite data by which to follow them out or
to estimate their actual importance.
Still, it would be a grave error to treat the phenomena
we can observe, such as the transplanting of forms of
social organization, or the transfusion of knowledge of
industrial arts, as trivialities. There is some reason to
believe that the whole civilization of the globe is one; the
marked steps in invention and discovery have been taken
once for all, and then have been followed in one region
after another. It is almost certain that this occurred in
regard to the invention of money; it is at least probable
in regard to the alphabet. There may be arts which have
been simultaneously developed in different lands, or arts
which have been lost and re-discovered; but, on the whole,
there has been an ever-increasing tradition of culture,
which has been passed on from distant ages by one
generation after another. The principal method by which
the culture, thus gradually attained, has been diffused
over the globe has been by migration. Even in the
present day, when the opportunities of intercommunica-
tion and the means of transmitting knowledge are so easy,
ideas and opinions do not travel rapidly from advanced to
backward countries, unless through the personal medium
Introduction
9
of those who are imbued with the advanced ways of
thinking. So far as the practice of manual arts is con-
cerned, it may be said that it can hardly be communi-
cated from one country to another, unless those who
possess the necessary skill shall migrate; and this is also
true of forms of social organization. If this holds good
in the present day, it was far more completely true in the
past; and it may be said that so far as England has come.
to share in the civilization of the ancient world and in the
more rapidly revived culture of Continental Europe, it has
been because of the aliens who transplanted knowledge
and habits with which they were personally imbued.
Whatever view we take of the question as to the precise
extent to which the arts of life, as practised in Roman
Britain, survived through the period of the English Con-
quest, we cannot but feel that much was so wholly lost,
or so deeply buried, that it was only restored to light
under the influence of immigrants from abroad. We may
trace from the time of the Norman Conquest onwards how
the successive waves of alien immigration brought back
first one and then another portion of ancient civilization
to Britain. We may have occasionally to notice how
aliens contributed elements of more recent development,
which were not derived from the classical world at all; or
even to show how, in their exceptional circumstances
here,¹ they called some new, or newly adapted, types of
organization into being. Their influence has been so
varied and so wide that we shall do well to confine our-
1 See below, XVI. Century, p. 186.
IO
Alien Immigrants
selves to features that can be examined and traced, rather
than dwell on the subtle effects that are due to the admix-
ture of races or the diffusion of a different morality.
3. In each century since the Norman Conquest a con-
siderable number of immigrants have flocked to our
country; the stream has never, so far as we can see,
entirely ceased to flow; but there have been periods when
the ingress has been more frequent and rapid than at
other times. It will be most convenient to study these
successive waves in turn, and especially to try to see
in each instance what were the special attractions which
drew them to England, or what were the disadvantages
which rendered them anxious to leave their old homes.
In some cases there was an economic attraction, and the
prospect of a more prosperous career led them to try their
fortunes in England; at other times political or religious
disabilities forced them to forsake a lucrative calling and
to come here as the objects of charity.
Again, we shall find that the lot of the immigrant on
his arrival here was different in different ages; at times
he was able to secure a high social status, and at other
periods he might be exposed to much annoyance and
more or less open hostility from his neighbours. The
precise status accorded to the alien at any time and place,
and the precise nature of the disabilities to which he had
to submit, is another interesting subject of enquiry; while
it is also important that we should notice how widely
the influence of the immigrant was diffused in this
country, and consider those cases where it was concentrated
at particular points.
Introduction
I I
Lastly, we shall have to examine in regard to each
wave of immigration what results may be properly
ascribed to it,—whether the planting of some institution,
or the introduction of some commercial habit or industrial
art, can be definitely connected with one special migration
or another. The information on the subject is, for the
most part, scattered and fragmentary, but this scheme
may at least serve to bring together into a connected form
the facts which have come under my notice.
4. Though the migration of aliens to Britain has served
as the main channel by which continental civilization has
penetrated to this country, there has also been contact
from another side. Natives of this island have travelled
abroad and returned to their own land with new ideas
which have borne good fruit. So far as Scotland is con-
cerned, this seems to have been a very important factor;
comparatively few foreigners migrated directly to North
Britain in the Middle Ages, but large numbers of Scots
took service in France, or were educated in Paris. Such
scholars, on their return, advanced the cause of learning,
and one of them, Bishop Elphinstone, founded the Univer-
sity of Aberdeen. This, in its constitution and termin-
ology, closely resembled the medieval University of Paris,
upon which it was modelled. In the department of law
Scottish practice was derived from France, and, through
that medium, from the Roman civil code.¹ Many of the
buildings of Scotland exhibit signs of French influence.
¹ J. Hill Burton, The Scot Abroad (1864), vol. i. p. 48, vol. ii.
P. 240.
12
Alien Immigrants
3
The churches of the sixteenth century often show traces
of the Flamboyant style, then prevalent in France.
Fyvie, a typical Scotch castle, was built by the Earl of
Dunfermline, who had lived in France; and others like it,
such as Glammis, recall the French chateau.¹ The mace
at St. Andrews and the monument to John Murray at
Melrose 2 testify to the influence of French models on
Scotch architects at the time when the severance between
England and Scotland was most complete. At a later
date the Scot pursued his travels as a pedlar, and there
seem to have been many dealers wandering about in
Poland in the early part of the seventeenth century.
Englishmen do not seem to have gone abroad so habitu-
ally, and the influence exercised in this fashion on English
development is less striking. At the same time there is
some reason to believe that the architect of Westminster
Abbey was an Englishman, who had visited foreign
countries, and adopted a French plan for the church,
while preferring the native style for all the details.¹
During the seventeenth century the English politicians
who took refuge in Holland came back full of the desir-
ability of imitating, and thus rivalling, the Dutch; and
a considerable saving was effected in the iron trade dur-
ing the eighteenth century by the English fiddler who
travelled to Sweden to acquaint himself with the nature
4
1 J. Hill Burton, The Scot Abroad (1864), vol. ii. p. 270.
2 P. M. Chalmers, A Scots Mediaval Architect (1895), pp. 11, 35.
3 Masson, Privy Council Records, Scotland, vol. viii. pp. 160, 181.
Chambers, Domestic Annals (1858), vol. i. p. 543.
4 G. Scott, Gleanings from Westminster Abbey (1863), p. 20. ·
Introduction
13
of the slitting machinery which was in use there.¹
Still, it appears, on the whole, that the Englishman, who
observed that things were better managed in France or
Holland, usually set himself, not to copy the example
directly, but to introduce French or Dutch men to do the
work themselves. This was, at all events, the case in
regard to the draining of the fens, and the construction of
harbours on the south coast; and, so far as England is
concerned, the principal industrial and social influences
will be adequately indicated if we concentrate attention
on the aliens who have immigrated to this country, and
in the main, on those who came to stay.
1 Scrivenor, Iron Trade, 120 n.
THE NORMAN INVASION
II
THE NORMAN INVASION
5. THE Norman invasion may be regarded as not only
the first, but as by far the most important invasion of alien
immigrants into England. We have no accurate statistics,
and cannot make a definite comparison of the numbers
that came at this period and at later times; but the
impression, which an examination of the evidence leaves
on the mind, is that no subsequent wave attained any-
thing like the same proportions, or affected such a large
area of the country. If we estimate its influence in
another fashion, its importance is equally striking: the
immigrants of the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries
introduced some new arts, and were an interesting factor
in our industrial prosperity; but their coming had very
little bearing on our political development; on the other
hand, the men who accompanied and followed William
the Conqueror left their mark on every side of our
national life. At the later date the constitution was
fixed and the national habits and character were formed;
it was not easy to mould them; but at the earlier time
the social and political life of England was so prim-
itive that it was comparatively easy to affect and direct
its development.
17
с
18
Alien Immigrants
England, in the eleventh century, offered attractive
openings of every sort to enterprising men; it was a
country which was rich in natural products of many
kinds, but it was very little developed. Just as in the
present day there are many men who go out from Euro-
pean countries in the hopes of making their way in South
Africa, so too the energetic Fleming1 or Norman was.
inclined to make his way to England in the eleventh
century, in the hopes of carving out a career for himself
there. He might find an opening as a merchant, or as a
farmer, or artisan; or in connection with the government,
either as a mercenary soldier or an administrator. There
were plenty of men who forced their way to the front in
one or other of these capacities, and we shall have to
consider each in turn below. In the meantime it may
suffice to insist on the fact, which is recorded by Henry of
Knighton,2 that William of Normandy led with him a
great number of people of different nations, such as
Normans, Picards, and Burgundians, of whom a large
proportion remained scattered throughout England. Some
obtained lands, given them by William himself or by
other lords, and some purchased them, or remained in
official positions in the hope of securing them. But
though there were so many who followed in the train of
1 The readiness of the Flemings to migrate was partly due to
the frequent inundations of which we read at this time; much
of their own country was rendered uninhabitable. Meyer,
Annales Rerum Fland., 1086, 1100. Kervyn de Lettenhove, His-
toire de Flandre (1874), i. 71, 110.
2 Knighton (R. S.), vol. i.
P. 58.
The Norman Invasion
19
the Conqueror, the Norman invasion really commenced.
before his time, and lasted long after his death.
6. Proximity to Scandinavia, Denmark, and the Low
Countries had rendered Britain a natural place of settle-
ment for the Danes, Jutes, Angles, Saxons, and Flemings.¹
From its position in regard to Normandy, England became
a resort of the Normans, and the intercourse, which was
promoted by geographical situation, was furthered by
political alliance. The marriage of Ethelred and Emma
formed a tie between the two countries, and both by blood
and education Edward the Confessor was warmly attached
to Normandy. During his reign there was a frequent
succession of foreigners who took a prominent part in the
administration of the realm, both civil and ecclesiastical,
and English sentiment and patriotism rallied round the
house of Godwin. But the Norman influence was not
merely a court fashion; it appears to have penetrated
deeply into the life of the towns. There is a curious
ordinance in one of William the Conqueror's laws, which
may be regarded as at least embodying the tradition cur-
rent in the reign of Henry I. From it we gather that
a certain number of Francigenæ had settled in English
towns in the time of the Confessor, had adopted English
customs, and had begun to pay "scot and lot." It was
ordained that in William's reign such men should be
treated as English, and not as French; and we gather
that the towns, as well as the court, were to some extent
1 On the influence of immigrants in the time of Edgar see
Richard of Cirencester, De gestis Regum (R. S.) ii. 118.
C
20
Alien Immigrants
leavened with Norman influence before the time of the
Conquest.¹
It is also true that, despite the comparative isolation
of the English Church in these early days, some of the
monastic houses on the Continent had a certain amount
of connection with England. The Abbey of S. Peter's at
Ghent was endowed with an estate at Lewisham;² and
S. Denys enjoyed possession of a harbour and of salt-
works on the English coast.3 These instances may be
merely isolated; but at least they serve to show that the
interconnection, which gave rise to such serious mischief
when Edward III. struck a blow at the alien priories of
the foreign orders, already existed between some of the
great Benedictine abbeys on the Continent and the Eng-
lish soil.
It was thus that during the reign of Edward the Con-
fessor "the seeds of the Norman Conquest were sowing."
As Professor Freeman has summarised it, his reign is
66
a period of struggle between natives and foreigners for
dominion in England. The foreigners gradually win the
upper hand, and for a time they are actually dominant.
Then a national reaction overthrows their influence, and
the greatest of living Englishmen becomes the virtual
ruler. But this happy change did not take place till
the strangers had become accustomed to look on English
estates and honours as their right, a right which they
1 Laws of William the Conqueror, III. iv., in Thorpe, Ancient
Laws.
2 Varenbergh, Relations diplomatiques (1874), 40.
3 Doublet, S. Denys, 187, 719.
The Norman Invasion
21
soon learned to think they might one day assert by force
of arms." 1
7. At the actual time of the invasion William had to
provide himself, not only with an army, but with a fleet
of transports; and though he could obtain a certain
amount of support from his feudal dependents, he really
relied on the assistance of a motley crowd of many nations,
who followed him as mercenaries, and who had to be paid
in some form or another. The terms Francus or Franci-
gena, as they occur in eleventh-century documents, cannot
be restricted closely; they seem to be used of all those,
whether Bretons, or Normans, or Picards, or Flemings, who
came over in the train of the Conqueror. It is obvious, too,
that the easiest means of satisfying the claims made upon
him was to pay, not in ready money, but in lands. In all
ages it has been convenient to generals to reward their
troops in this fashion, and Cromwell's army was even-
tually paid off with debentures on real estate in Ireland.2
William, in all probability, was but badly provided with
money, but the fall of Harold and his supporters at
Hastings, together with the punishment meted out to
those who broke into rebellion subsequently, placed a very
large area of land at his disposal. With this he could not
only reward those who had fought by his side, but pay
for a portion at least of the fleet of 3,000 ships which is
said to have been engaged in the work of transport.3 In
1 Freeman, Norman Conquest, ii. 30.
2 Prendergast, Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland (1865), p. 78 seq.
3 Guillelmus Gemmeticensis, in Duchesne, Hist. Norm. Script.
Antiq., estimates it thus, lib. vii. c. 34.
22
Alien Immigrants
one case, at any rate, we read in Domesday Book that a
carucate of land was granted in payment for a ship.1
The leaders in the expedition were settled as tenants in
chief in all parts of the country; a glance at the names in
the index to any county in Domesday Book suggests that
many of them were of foreign extraction; while there are
not a few entries which specify that the land had be-
longed to an Englishman under the Confessor. The fact
that there was a sweeping change among the proprietary
is clear enough, and has never been questioned; but there
is at least some reason for believing that the cultivating
tenantry was also recruited from among the immigrants.
2
At first sight there seems to be little in Domesday Book
which lends weight to this opinion; there is occasional
mention of Francigenæ, but only two or three are
specified here and there. The comparatively large colonies
of new-comers, which were settled at Shrewsbury or Nor-
wich, can hardly be taken as giving us any indication in
regard to the proportions in which the two races were
diffused throughout the country generally. Still, even
though there is so little direct evidence from Domesday
Book, we may yet feel, not only that its statements are
perfectly compatible with the presence of a large popula-
tion of cultivating aliens, but that we are almost forced to
assume the existence of such a class in order to render the
condition of affairs, indicated in the Survey, more intelli-
gible.
1 Domesday, i. 336, a. 2.
2 Flemingtuna (Flempton), in Suffolk (D. B. II. 3576), is sug-
gestive of a rural settlement.
The Norman Invasion
23
A large part of England, especially in Yorkshire and
the north, was so completely devastated by William, after
the rebellion of 1069, that it ceased to have any value at
all; it is described in one entry after another as waste.
There were also many estates in different parts of the
country which had suffered seriously; the stock, either
of cattle or of labour had, in all probability diminished
owing to the war, and the value of the property had de-
clined. On the other hand, there were also many estates
which had risen in value between the time of the Con-
fessor and the taking of the Survey. On almost any page,
taken casually, entries will be found which show an in-
creased value since the tenant received the estate; as well
as cases of estates which had improved to a higher figure
than they had been worth before the Conquest. As labour
was the chief factor in turning an estate to good account,
there must have been an increased supply of labour; and
it is difficult to see whence this was drawn, unless the
common soldiers in the Norman army were willing to
settle down as tenants and cultivate the land they had
helped to conquer.
That this was actually the case we can gather from the
Inquisitio Cantabrigiensis-the one specimen which sur-
vives of the actual information collected by the com-
missioners as they visited each hundred in turn. From
the transcript of it made at Ely, we learn that the com-
missioners were to collect sworn evidence from the sheriff of
each shire, and all the barons and their Frenchmen and the
whole hundred, from the priest, the bailiff, and six villains
of each village. The names of the jurors in each hundred
wh
-
24
Alien Immigrants
1
are given in this record. Many of them are Frenchmen;
and of these Frenchmen some were tenants who held quite
small estates, much less than a knight's fee. The exam-
ination of the personnel of the juries, in this one county
where we have the necessary data, ¹ reveals the fact that
there was a considerable number of Frenchmen among the
subordinate tenants; and this in a county where the
direct evidence of Domesday, as to the presence of a French
population, is specially scanty. There are also a few refer-
ences to differences of opinion among the jurors in South-
wark, in Wiltshire, and in Essex; and from these inci-
dental cases we may gather that the composition of the
juries in Cambridge was not exceptional. The cases
where tenants are spoken of as the man, or men, of a Nor-
man tenant in chief, seem to express what was probably
the fact, that a considerable number of the soldiers of
each leader became tenants on his newly acquired estate.
Meagre as is the information which has survived, it yet
serves, when carefully examined, to show that there was
a large invasion of soldiers, who settled as cultivators in
different parts of the country.
8. The immigration of soldiers from abroad did not cease
with the success of the Conqueror; the wars of the next
hundred years were carried on, to a considerable extent,
with the help of mercenaries procured from Flanders. The
most important period in this respect was the disturbed
reign of Stephen; that unhappy monarch spent a vast
¹ Similar information is given for a portion of Hertfordshire
in the Inquisitio Eliensis, Domesday, iv. 498.
The Norman Invasion
25
amount of treasure on William of Ypres and other soldiers
of fortune, who became a perfect curse to the country.
One of the first acts of Henry II. was to expel this disor-
derly element; but he could not rid the country of them
easily. In connection with the rebellion of Hugh Bigod,
a large number of Flemings again found employment. In
1173 a body of three thousand were defeated and massa-
cred at Bury; in the following year, another army was
successful in capturing Norwich. King John had recourse
to the same quarter in order to find support against the
barons; it is said in the Scalacronica¹ that he brought
in so many Flemings that the land had much ado to feed
them. In fact, they were called on to come over and take
a part in all the quarrels of these troubled times. When
William the Lion of Scotland invaded England and took
the Castle of Appleby, he had many Flemings with him; 2
and they formed an important part of the Scottish army
which was defeated at the Battle of the Standard in 1138.
It is abundantly clear that at intervals, during a period of
more than a century after the Conquest, numbers of foreign
mercenaries poured, on one occasion or another, into this
island.
We know too that they did not all return; some, of
course, did not escape the fortune of war, but others were
permanently retained and planted out at special points in
what we may call military colonies. This policy had been
begun by William the Conqueror, when he established
1 Maitland Club (1836), p. 94.
2 Chalmers, Caledonia, i. 601, note c.; William of Newbury, i.
210; Leland, Collectanea, i. 532.
26
Alien Immigrants
Gherbord at Chester and Walcher of Lorraine at Durham.
The former had a brief and troubled career; 1 and the latter
fell a victim to the indignation roused by the excesses of
his turbulent followers. 2 There seems to have been a
military settlement under Rufus at Carlisle;³ and Henry
I.'s colonies at Haverfordwest, Tenby, Gower, and Ross 4
may have been partly intended to keep the Welsh in check.5
There was a similar colony on the Scottish side of the bor-
der; for the Flemings held the Redhall at Berwick by the
tenure of defending it against the English; they stuck
bravely to the post when it was attacked in 1296, till the
besiegers succeeded in setting it on fire, and the garrison
perished in the flames. It is worth notice, also, that the
shores of the Clyde became thickly studded with Flemish
settlers, at the time when they were exiled by Henry II. of
England; their descendants doubtless played a part in
repelling the last Viking invasion, when the foreign
attack was foiled at the Battle of Largs.
Some of those who came as soldiers would doubtless find
occupation in carrying out the fortifications, which were
erected so extensively in England during the Norman and
Angevin periods. At the time when the Conqueror
1 Ordericus Vitalis, iv. c. 12. (Migne, vol. 188, p. 331).
2 Symeon Dunelm (R. S.), i. 113 seq. English Chron., a.d. 1080.
³ Camden, Britannia (1637), 779; but their influence was not
so temporary as Camden supposes. Creighton, Carlisle, p. 26.
Northumbria. Florence of
4 They were transferred from
Worcester, Chron., 1111.
5 See especially William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum Angl.,
v. 401. They had constant fighting with the Welsh, Annales
Cambriæ (R. S.), under 1111, 1116, 1140, 1167, 1193.
6 Chalmers, Caledonia, i. 601, note d.
The Norman Invasion
27
1
landed, there were many earthworks, in well-selected
situations, and crowned with wooden walls and castles;
but there were few stone castles, ¹ if indeed there were any
at all. William devoted himself vigorously to the build-
ing of castles, both in England and Normandy; he founded
the White Tower in London, and looked specially to his
base of operations and connections with the continent;
Dover, Lewes, Chichester, and Arundel overhung the
coast, while Rochester and Canterbury protected the great
road. The western approaches to London were defended
by Farnham and Wallingford; while York, and later,
Norham and Durham, were outposts in the unruly north.
The old sites were covered with a shell keep, as at Aln-
wick or Clare; while heavy rectangular keeps were erected
on new sites, and where the old earthworks were capable of
sustaining the weight. Only a few of these works were
executed in stone in the Conqueror's time; but William
Rufus, who had realized in his struggle with Robert what
advantage accrued from the possession of castles, pressed
forward with the work. Carlisle and Newcastle rose on
the north; while on the extreme south-west a line of
castles, such as Chepstow, Caermarthen, and Tenby, kept
open the communication with Pembroke. 2 Along the
Welsh marshes they were more thickly studded; as early
as the time of Domesday there were four castles, besides
that of Shrewsbury, in the county controlled by Earl
Roger; and Hugh of Avranches was busy in fortifying
¹ Clark, Mediaval Military Architecture (1884), i. 36.
2 Clark, op. cit., i. 49, 50.
28
Alien Immigrants
the palatinate of Chester. The reign of Henry I. was
fruitful in new castles; and the facility with which they
were erected, during the time of Stephen, was perhaps the
greatest evil of his reign. Henry II. was not only forced
to expel the foreign mercenaries, but to raze the strong-
holds where they had established themselves. No fewer
than 375, or, as some say, over 1000, castles were destroyed
in consequence of his commands. At the same time the
royal castles were carefully repaired and strengthened. ¹
At the close of his reign there were in England 657
castles; of these 55 had rectangular and 96 shell keeps,
while of 506 little is known. In Wales there were 21 rec-
tangular and 20 shell keeps, and 250 other castles; though
some of these were doubtless mere earthworks, or at most
wooden fortresses. The mere enumeration of these facts
shows that a vast amount of labour was required for such
great works of military engineering. The rectangular
keeps differ obviously from pre-Norman castles in their
character, while they resemble, both in style and work-
manship, the fortresses erected at the same date in Nor-
mandy. 2 Some, at least, of those who came here to fight,
would find long-continued employment in the construction
of military works.
There was another avocation, less directly connected
with the operations of war, to which some of them may
have been able to devote themselves. Ralph de Diceto,
in describing the effects of Henry II.'s action in ex-
1 Clark, op. cit., i. 60.
2 Id. ibid., i. 42. Compare Caen and Falaise; the type was
probably introduced from Maine.
The Norman Invasion
29
pelling them the realm, speaks of the Flemings as driven
from the castle to the plough, and from camps to
workshops.¹ It is quite likely that some of the merce-
naries had been drawn, not from the agricultural, but
from the artisan population, and reverted to the textile
trades in which Flanders had already attained a high
degree of excellence. Some of them may have returned.
to the continent, some appear to have been permitted
to remain in England, and some found their way into
the more northerly parts of Britain.2
9. Reasons have already been given for the opinion
expressed above that there was a very considerable
infusion of foreign elements among the cultivating
tenantry throughout England generally at the time of
the Norman Conquest. That argument was based on
the figures and facts included in the great survey
which William took of his kingdom. We have no
similar record for the lowlands of Scotland; the evidence
as to the distribution of alien settlers in that part
of the country is scattered in incidental references,
though much of it has been collected by the inde-
fatigable George Chalmers in his Caledonia. He has
noted two distinct periods, when the tide of foreign
1 Ralph de Diceto (R. S.), i. 297.
2 Such immigrants also settled in the Scotch towns. During
the reign of William the Lion there were French, English, and
Flemings among the inhabitants of St. Andrews: two Flemings
settled at Perth, one being a goldsmith; and at Edinburgh a
Fleming became a burgess of the town: St. Andrews boasted a
Flemish provost in the reign of David; and Perth a Flemish
saddler. Chalmers, op. cit., p. 601, note d.
30
Alien Immigrants
invasion, which was setting towards England, flowed
on into the country north of the Tweed.
The marriage of Emma and Ethelred had been a link
which brought Norman influence to bear on England;
and it was through the marriage of Margaret to Malcolm
Canmore that the way was prepared for the southern
invasion of the Scottish lowlands. The territory over
which Malcolm ruled, was a ready refuge for the English
who were displaced by the Conqueror, like Earl Gospat-
rick of Northumbria, and for his discontented and re-
bellious followers. "While Malcolm and Margaret
reigned, Scotland, the land which had sheltered Margaret
and her house in the days of their banishment, stood
open to receive, and its king's court stood open to
welcome, every comer from the south.¹ Native English-
men flying from Norman oppression and Norman plunder
-Normans who thought that their share in the plunder
of England was too small-men of both races, of both
tongues, of every class and rank among the two races
-all found a settlement across the Scottish border.
Scotland and the coast of Scotland were crowded
with English and Norman knights, with English and
Norman clerks. They got benefices, temporal and
1 According to Turgot, traders from various countries who
"}
came "by land and sea were encouraged to visit Scotland by
Queen Margaret. They brought with them valuable goods,
which had been unknown in the country until that period.
Vita S. Margareta, in Symeon Dunelm (Surtees Society, vol. li.),
p. 241.
2 Vast numbers of slaves were brought away in Malcolm's
raid of Northumberland. Symeon Dunelm (R. S.), ii. 192,
The Norman Invasion
31
spiritual, in the Scottish land. They may have con-
verted, they may have civilized, but conversion and
civilization are processes which are not always specially
delighted in by those who are to be converted and
civilized. Anyhow, they were strangers, brought into
the land by kingly favour, to flourish, as men would
naturally deem, at the cost of the sons of the soil.
The national spirit of the Scottish people rose, the
jealousy of the strangers established in the land waxed
stronger and stronger. It might be in some measure
kept down as long as novelty was embodied in the
persons of the warrior king and the holy queen; as
soon as they were gone the pent-up torrent burst forth
in its full strength."1 Under Donald Bane Celtic feeling
reasserted itself, and in 1093 he "drove out all the
English who were before with King Malcolm." 2
Under David, the son of Margaret and Malcolm, the
southern influence was felt once more. He had lived,
during the time of his banishment, at the English court
as Earl of Huntingdon; and when, in 1124, he returned
to Scotland as king, a number of companions followed
him, and had lands assigned them in the Scottish low-
lands. The relations between the northern kings and
the southern territory were close, if not friendly. David
endeavoured to extend the boundaries of his realm to
the south, and was defeated at the Battle of the Standard,
and he supported the cause of his sister Maud in her
1 Freeman, William Rufus (1882), ii. 25.
2 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 1093 (R. S.), ii. 196.
32
Alien Immigrants
struggle with Stephen; William the Lion was surprised
and captured while he was tilting at Alnwick Castle.
But through all these varying incidents the tide of
invasion continued; and William, on his return from
Winchester in 1174, was accompanied by a body of
followers like that which David had attracted to him
when he entered on the realm. The origin of one after
another of the families, which came to be specially
distinguished in the later history of Scotland, may be
traced to the incursions in the time of David and his
grandson, William the Lion.
The most notable of these was that family of Stuart
which eventually rose to royal rank in Scotland, and
under which the union of the crowns was at length
accomplished.¹ Walter, the steward under David I.
and his successor, and the progenitor of this illustrious
family, was the son of Alan, who held the manor of
Oswestry; Roger, Earl of Shrewsbury, had founded the
monastery of Wenlock as a cell of the Cluniac house of
De Claritate; and Walter transplanted a colony from.
the Shropshire minster when he founded the Abbey of
Paisley in 1169.2
The facts in regard to the earlier aspirants to the
Scottish crown are more familiar.³ The Balliol, who
took a prominent part on the English side in the Battle
of the Standard, was a Norman of Barnard Castle in
Durham. He must have risked forfeiting the lands he
¹ Chalmers, Caledonia, i. 572, 573.
2 Tanner, Notitia, Wenlock.
3 Chalmers, op. cit., i. 567.
The Norman Invasion
33
had already received in Berwickshire by opposing David
at that juncture; but the king appears to have felt
genuine regard for him, despite the part he played at
that time. At any rate, the family continued to prosper
and to strengthen its position both in Forfarshire and
in Galloway.¹ The Cumyns were
The Cumyns were a Northumberland
family who came to Scotland under David I., and were
established in Roxburghshire by his son, Earl Henry;
and Richard Cumyn, the Chancellor of William the Lion,
who accompanied him in his captivity, married a grand-
daughter of King Donald Bane, and thus brought the
crown within the reach of his descendant John Cumyn.2
His murderer, Robert Bruce, also came of a Norman
stock; Robert de Bruis had an enormous fee granted
him in Yorkshire; 3 his son was a contemporary of King
David at the court of Henry I., and obtained a grant
of lands in Annandale. Nor was the patriot Wallace
of native origin; the Walense family had followed the
fortunes of the founder of the Stuarts from England,
and settled in Ayrshire and Renfrewshire. It would
be tedious to trace the sources from which the stocks
of other Scottish families were derived; it may be
sufficient to mention Warnebald, who settled in Cun-
ningham, in Ayrshire, and adopted the surname which
was the patronymic of the Earls of Glencairn; the
head of the Lindsays migrated from Essex to Clydesdale
1 Chalmers, Caledonia, i. 567.
2 Chalmers, op. cit., i. p. 556, note k.
3 Domesday Book, i. 332, b.
5 Chalmers, i. 577.
4 Chalmers, i. 569.
• Chalmers, i. 505, n., 536.
D
34
Alien Immigrants
3
7
8
9
and the Lothians;¹ the Maxwells were also introduced
by David I., and found their home in Roxburghshire;2
the Seton family, the Oliphants, the Menzies,5 the
Giffards, the Montgomeries, the Maules, the Bar-
clays, the Lundies, 10 the Rollos, 11 the Sinclairs of
Rosslyn 12 and the Colvilles, 13 all bear names which
suffice at all events to suggest that southern extraction,
which can be proved for many of them by documentary
evidence. Even families that are associated with the
highlands have been affected by the alien influence.
Just as the Geraldines and other Norman settlers under
Strongbow were said to become more Irish than the
Irish themselves, so the Gordons 14 and Frasers 15 came
to take their places, not as the heralds of a new civili-
zation, but as the heads of Scottish clans. It thus
appears that the effects of the Norman invasion were
ultimately extended over a far larger area than that
which was originally affected by it.
10. There was considerable difference in the social and
¹ Chalmers, i. 507.
3 Chalmers, i. 517.
Scotland (1887), i. 126.
4 Chalmers, i. 515–16.
6 Chalmers, i. 516–17.
8 Chalmers, i. 525.
9 Chalmers, i. 528.
11 Chalmers, i. 541.
2 Chalmers, i. 511.
Taylor (J.), Great Historic Families of
5 Chalmers, i. 584.
7 Chalmers, i. 573, note y.
Taylor, Great Historic Families, i. 320-1.
10 Chalmers, i. 533.
12 Chalmers, i. 548.
pp. 4, 32.
14 Chalmers, i. 544. Taylor, Great Historic Families of Scotland
(1887), ii. 293.
15 Id., ibid., ii. 269.
Hay, Genealogy of the Sainteclairs (1835),
13 Chalmers, i. 543.
The Norman Invasion
35
civil status of the multitude of aliens who were thus
widely distributed throughout the country.
(i.) By far the larger number of those who followed
William to England and David to Scotland were re-
warded with grants of land and settled down as feudal
tenants. Many of them held by distinctly military
tenures; and formed, with their retainers, a feudal army
settled on the soil. In those parts of the country, which
were most exposed to attack, the military character of
the alien settlement becomes most striking; but on this
point it is unnecessary to dwell.
dwell. Those who were
invited, or encouraged, by the king obtained the status
of feudal proprietors.
(ii.) There were, as we have already seen, many aliens
who flocked to this country from private enterprise;
and these probably came more readily, to pursue their
callings as merchants or artisans, because they could
count on royal protection.¹ At some places they appear
to have been established as an independent community
•
"On
raconte
1 The social conditions which rendered England attractive
are apparently more fully described in Flemish sources:
que nombre de gildes flamandes, frappées coup
sur coup par la comtesse Richilde de lourdes amendes et d'impôts
de guerre non consentis, résolurent d'emigrer. Elles envoyérent
à la reine Mathilde des fondés de pouvoirs, qui lui exposerent la
commune détresse et réclamèrent sa protection. La reine fut
touchée de leurs malheurs et n'eut point de repos avant que son
époux accordât à ces pauvres gens un refuge et sa protection.
À peine débarqués, au nombre de quinze mille environ,
nos tisserands de toile, nos drapiers, et nos mégissiers furent
conduits comme des malfaiteurs vers les frontières du nord de
l'Angleterre." Rahlenbeck, Du principe d'association, in Messager
des Sciences historiques (1863), p. 19.
36
Alien Immigrants
adjoining an English town; thus we have the French
town at Norwich, as well as the English one, described
in Domesday; and at Nottingham, the French town,
which adjoined the castle, preserved its separate exist-
ence and special customs for centuries. The French
burgesses at Shrewsbury do not appear to have been
separately organized, though they were not at scot and
lot with the rest of the inhabitants. These double
towns, consisting of two districts inhabited by men with
distinct privileges and obligations, had had their ana-
logies on French soil long before; and probably the Castle
of Maidens and the burgh of Canongate represent the
French quarters of Edwin's burgh. If so, we may say
that the formal absorption of these quarters into Edin-
burgh¹ was not completed till 1856; though in the
cases of Norwich and Nottingham the union of their
component parts occurred at such an early date that
little information about the exact position of the French
townsmen has survived.
(iii.) In other cases we find the aliens inhabiting a
special quarter, and organized, not as a separate town,
but as a community within a town. The most obvious
instances of this kind of status is offered by the Jews. It
is improbable that any of them were found in this country
before the Conquest; but some of them were brought by
William from Rouen. We hear of them occasionally in
the time of Rufus; and before the close of the reign of
¹ See below, p. 130.
2 Jacobs, London Jewry, p. 39, in Anglo-Jewish Exhibition
Papers (1887).
The Norman Invasion
37
Henry I. a large number appear to have immigrated
here. They would, as capitalists, be of great use to the
king in facilitating the collection of revenue in money
rather than kind,—a fiscal change which had not been
completely effected in that reign. They were the objects
of direct royal protection; they lived according to their
own customs, and were liable to special fiscal demands,
while they were free from those imposed on their neigh-
bours. The increasing hostility of the townspeople, and
the constant danger of mob violence, rendered it necessary
for them to live in houses which might serve as for-
tresses, and they were generally massed together in a
particular quarter. The expulsion under Edward I.
deprived these districts of their inhabitants, and only the
names survived to designate the parts of the town where
Jews had resided.
It appears, however, that they were not the only aliens
who were organized in this fashion, as independent com-
munities within the city of London. The London gild
of weavers maintained their independence of the city
authorities till the fourteenth century; they contributed
their ferm independently till the time of Henry VIII.,¹
and there is reason to believe that special houses were
assigned to the men who followed this trade. These facts,
as to the special position of this class of artisans, become
intelligible when we see that there is at least a high
probability that they were alien inhabitants. Weaving,
1
C
-
1 Cunningham, Growth of English Industry and Commerce
(1896), i. 620.
38
Alien Immigrants
though known as a domestic art, does not appear to have
been practised as a trade for the market in the time
before the Conquest; but there were groups of weavers
and fullers in various towns before the end of the twelfth
century.¹ At Winchester both trades were organized in
gilds as early as 1131, and each trade paid an annual
contribution of a mark of gold to the crown. The names
of a weaver and of dyers in that town, at an earlier period
in the same reign, suggest that they were of alien origin ;
and in 1131 the fullers paid a special fine in order that
they should not be outlawed. In 1165 the weavers of
Winchester paid a fine of one mark of gold for the right
of preserving their own customs and choosing their own
alderman. The whole of the evidence becomes intelligible
on the supposition that the members of these gilds, both
in London and Winchester,2 were alien weavers, who were
organized as a separate community under the protection of
the crown. The evidence as to the gilds of weavers in
other towns-such as Marlborough, Beverley, and Lincoln,
and the special disabilities of the weavers or dyers-is at
least perfectly congruent with this view of the nature of
the institution.
3
1 Cunningham, Growth of English Industry and Commerce
(1896), i. 646 and references.
2 Compare the mention in 1280 of shops in the streets of Douay
and Ypres on S. Giles's Hill, without the city. Hist. MSS. Com-
mission Report, viii. 264.
8 Drogo of Bruere, a Fleming, obtained a large tract of land
here from the Conqueror (Oliver, Beverley, 77); there was soon a
settlement of Flemish weavers (Ibid., 104), which seems to be
commemorated in the name Flemingate (Ibid., 273 n.).
The Norman Invasion
39
The position of the men of the Emperor, who held the
steelyard in London, and who were under the obligation
of repairing the Bishopsgate, may be noticed as a parallel
case; but it is distinct. These men of the Emperor, or
Hansards, as they were called at a later date, were
merchants who visited this country, and who were
engaged in exporting wool, cattle, lead, and tin, and in
importing wine, silver, and, at intervals, corn. They
received protection from successive Plantagenet kings. A
special residence was granted to them, and they were
allowed to warehouse their goods, which they were free to
sell throughout the country; while they were exempted
from the payment of toll on their merchandise in London.
But the Easterlings did not come here to make England
their home; they had settlements, but they did not settle.
The weavers and the Jews were permanent residents, in
an allotted part or allotted houses in London, but they
enjoyed their position through direct royal favour, and
were on a different platform-whether more or less favour-
able may be a matter of dispute-but still different from
that occupied by the citizens properly so called.
So far as Scotland is concerned, these remarks hardly
seem to apply; no settlement of Jews seems to have been
sanctioned in the northern kingdom; the weavers and
dyers of Aberdeen may possibly have some analogy with
those of London and Winchester; and the Flemings, who
held the Redhall at Berwick,¹ may have been merchants,
1 At Berwick a separate gild of Fleming merchants appears
to have been organized (E. W. Robertson, Early Kings, i. 309);
40
Alien Immigrants
rather than mere mercenaries.¹ But the whole of the in-
formation is so meagre, that no additional light is thrown
on the details which remain in regard to English institu-
tions.
(iv.) There are other cases where the aliens did not settle
under direct royal authority, but where the towns were
empowered to admit foreigners to the whole or a part of
the privileges conferred on them by royal charter. The
foreigners who were thus introduced would, of course, in
many instances be Englishmen, who were foreign to the
town and obtained its freedom so as to be able to carry on
trade within its limits at all times; but the power could
also be used in the case of aliens, who were foreign, not
only to the town, but to the realm. At the time of the
Conquest itself, the towns were so imperfectly organized
that there was little opportunity for aliens to obtain civil
status in this fashion, but we see signs of their doing so
soon after. Early in the twelfth century the townsmen of
Coventry obtained a charter empowering them to admit
2
in any case the Flemish element in the early Scottish towns was
very large, so that a writ is addressed "Francis et Anglis et
Flamingis et Scotis" (Burnett, in Scottish Review (1888), xi. 11).
When Bishop Robert of St. Andrews was desirous of erecting a
burgh at his episcopal see, the king granted him a site, and
transferred to the new burgh the services of Mainerd, as its
provost, a Fleming and a burgess of Berwick, where he had
learned the burgh usages and the duties of the office. Scott,
Berwick, p. 6.
1 Scott, Berwick, 61. For mercenaries in Scotland, see E. W.
Robertson, Early Kings, i. 196.
2 William was careful to provide for the security of traders
on his first entry into London. Gulielmus Pictavensis, in
Duchesne, Hist. Norm. Script., 39.
The Norman Invasion
41
comburgenses; and it would seem that any one of the
numerous towns, which obtained a gild merchant, had the
power, if it had the will, to adopt aliens to its trading
privileges. How far this power was used in any place, is
a question that could only be discussed satisfactorily in a
case where the records had been carefully and successfully
preserved; and at present the data seem to be sadly in-
sufficient. Most of the names of forinseci in the early
gild rolls of Shrewsbury¹ are at least suggestive of alien
intrusion, though in the case of that particular town there
may well have been persons born in the neighbourhood,
who bore the names of their Norman ancestors.
That the privileges would be highly prized by the
trading class, who came to this country to carry on the
calling of merchants, is clear enough. Whether they dealt
wholesale, as grocers, or by retail, as mercers, it would
be an advantage to them to have ready access to the chief
centres of population; while they would have a satisfac-
tory status in doing business at the fairs, which were
beginning to spring up in every part of the country. We
have no means of judging how far this method of obtain-
ing status was utilized; but it is at least important to
see that during the period when there was such a rapid
immigration of aliens, there was a means by which they
might quickly obtain a certain amount of civil status in
particular localities in England. The families of those
who prospered in trade in any English town, would
naturally grow up in the position of English townsmen.
1 Royal Ilist. Soc. Trans., N. S., ix. 105 seq.
42
Alien Immigrants
It is at least interesting to notice that the trading inter-
course which these travelling merchants developed, and
the markets they frequented, are spoken of by Orderic as
one of the chief influences which brought about the fusion
of the two races on English soil. "Civiliter Angli cum
Normannis cohabitabant in burgis, castris et urbibus,
connubiis alterii alteros mutuo sibi conjungentes. Vicos
aliquot aut fora urbana Gallicis mercibus et mangonibus
referta conspiceres, et ubique Anglos, qui pridem amictu
patrio compti videbantur Francis turpes, nunc peregrino
cultu alteratos videres. Nemo praedari audebat, sed unus-
quisque sua rura tuto colebat, suoque compari, sed non
per longum tempus, hilariter applaudebat." 1
11. The very deep influence which must have been
exercised by these various settlers, thus widely distri-
buted, can only be appreciated when we consider different
types of social organization, and see the part the immi-
grants played in connection with each.
(i.) It is at least clear that a vast number of Norman
leaders settled down in this country, and that households
organised on the continental models were instituted in our
island. The full significance of this fact is not at first
sight apparent, because we have lost sight of the immense
importance which the household had in these early days
as a social organism. The institutions, with which we
are familiar, did not exist; the army, navy, and the
universities had not come into being; the whole educa-
tional system of the country was undeveloped; and the
1 Ordericus Vitalis, bk. iv. cap. xi. (Migue, vol. 188, p. 329).
The Norman Invasion
43
household served as a school of manners and a sphere for
training in the arts of war or of peace. There was but
little trade in the country; each estate was, so far as possi-
ble, organised as a self-sufficing community, in which all the
various comforts and conveniences of life were provided in
due proportion; and it was a triumph of good manage-
ment if the owner found it unnecessary to make purchases
from the outside, but could live on the products of his
own estate. Such a state of society implies that each
estate was in a way an economic whole, and that all the
different departments of industrial life received attention.
Household management included attention to all sorts of
arts that are now carried on as trades, and to which the
most careful housekeeper gives no direct supervision. In
quite recent times, the arts of baking and brewing and
laundry work have been more and more transferred from
the domestic sphere; but at the time of the Conquest these
were probably entirely domestic arts, and weaving also
had hardly begun to be practised in England as a trade for
the market. If we include estate management along with
domestic management, we may say that the trades of the
carpenter, the smith, the saddler, and the shoemaker were
also included within the sphere of the household, and
were supervised and rewarded as contributing parts to
the economic life of this one organism. The household,
while natural economy held its own, was the one import-
ant industrial institution in the country; the functions,
which it originally discharged, have been taken over and
gradually developed by specialised organs, as our civilisa-
tion has become more complicated; but at the time of the
44
Alien Immigrants
Conquest, the household was almost the only, as it con-
tinued for centuries to be the most important, educational
and industrial institution in the country.
It is more especially when we consider the large house-
holds, that we see what an extraordinary effect might be
silently and gradually introduced through this agency.
The households of the king, or of the bishops and barons,
were very large; they could not be conveniently main-
tained at one given place. The difficulty of catering for
such large numbers was most easily met by conveying the
household itself from one estate to another; the first duty
of the head of the household, when the yield of the harvest
at his various manors became known, was to plan out his
year, and to decide what portion of the time he might
spend on this or on that estate. Hence it may be said that
the Norman bishop or baron had no home; he was con-
tinually on the move, leading a migratory existence, and
only settling down for comparatively brief periods: till we
grasp this simple fact, which is amply illustrated by
evidence of every kind, we cannot at all adequately realise
the extraordinary discomfort of life in early medieval
times. In so far as a hall was not a fortress, it was a mere
shelter intended for occasional and temporary use, and
devoid of all the comforts of a home. Whatever dis-
advantages there might be in such a life, it yet afforded a
means by which improved habits of life or methods of in-
dustry could be very rapidly diffused through a wide area.
C
The principal large households-in the economic sense
of the term-which were permanently settled in one
The Norman Invasion
45
position on their possessions, were the monasteries. They
served an excellent purpose as centres of education, but
they were also well-organised industrial communities, in
which arts of different kinds were practised assiduously.
The Benedictines were great employers of manual labour,
and the buildings which remain testify to the care which
was bestowed on constructing them; but the Cistercians
were accustomed to have all the necessary labour of every
kind carried out by the brethren themselves.
The plant-
ing of a Benedictine cell was the establishment of a centre,
from which skilled superintendence might be expected;
the foundation of a Cistercian monastery was the organis-
ing of an industrial community. In one form or another
they contributed immensely to the diffusion of new forms
of practical activity.
So far as England is concerned the nature and extent of
the beneficial influence exercised by these households is a
matter of inference. In regard to Scotland, on the other
hand, we have definite historical testimony; just because
the country was less civilised, the effect of the immigra-
tion was more easily seen. We see it pictured in the life
of Queen Margaret; her biographer dwells on the care she
took to see that the royal progresses should be stately and
magnificent; while she also was at pains that good order
should be preserved, and that the poor should not be
oppressed by the violence or greed of royal purveyors.
Herself a student of books, and a noble example of a saintly
domestic life, she promoted the cultivation of learning and
piety in the most obvious form, by the fostering of
monastic foundations; even the distant Iona was the
45
Alien Immigrants
1
recipient of her bounty ¹; the foundation of Dunfermline
Abbey is usually ascribed to her, and the indirect influence
of her example, which seems to have left such a marked
impression on her sons, may be traced in the lavish
liberality of her grandson David. In reading her life we
can see how the character of the royal household, in its
progresses through the realm, must have been either a
wonderful power for good or for evil; while the
monasteries which she established remained as permanent
centres of that higher civilisation which was in danger of
being wholly swept away at her death.
A similar influence was exercised by some at least of
the immigrants who followed David to the north. As
Chalmers writes in describing this process of colonisation:
“A baron obtained, from the king, a grant of lands, which
he settled with his followers; built a castle, and a church,
a mill, and a brewhouse; and thereby formed a hamlet,
which, in the parlance of the age, was called the ton of the
baron."2
Such names as Livingstone in Linlithgow,
and Stewarton in Ayrshire, may be instanced as cases in
point. These hamlets, when at their best, were centres.
from which civilising and humanising influences might
spread; even when the higher sides of life were ignored,
they yet served for the practice of industrial arts; and if
they were mere military fortresses, they probably gave an
1 Ordericus Vitalis, bk. viii. cap. xx. (Migne, vol. 188, p. 620).
2 Chalmers, Caledonia, i. 501.
3 Cosmo Innes, Sketches of Early Scottish History (1860), p. 89,
quotes Ormiston, Dodingston, and Edmundston, as other cases.
The Norman Invasion
47
immunity from devastation which was, so far as it went,
favourable to progress. We cannot attempt to estimate
the influence that was actually exerted as a matter of fact;
it may suffice if we realise the immense possibilities opened
up by this form of colonisation.
(ii.) While the alien settlers thus utilised the household
in the work of colonisation, they seem to have actually
introduced the first germs of industrial organisation of
another type. As has been noticed above, we find gilds
of weavers, bakers, and fullers in the time of Henry I.,
and these are the earliest instances of any craft association
on English soil. Frith gilds there had been, and
probably gilds merchant; but there is no indication of
associations composed of men who carried on the same
industry. Indeed the conditions, in which such associa-
tions could come into being, hardly existed; they pre-
suppose a certain number of individuals working at a
trade for the market. So long as household organisation
covered the ground completely, and natural economy was.
practically universal, there could not be craft gilds. But
after the Conquest, money economy had so far come into
vogue in the towns, that two at least of the household
arts were beginning to rank as separate trades in London
and some other towns; the weavers and the bakers were
formed into craft gilds.¹
1
1 The development of craft-gilds, during the period when
household-management and estate-management were domi-
nant, has led to the opinion that these gilds were originally
departments of household organisation, which were transmuted
48
Alien Immigrants
In a preceding section an attempt was made to show
that the weavers' gilds had a political character, and that
they were composed of aliens, who lived directly under
royal protection. Under these circumstances, we cannot
say that these gilds were primarily economic in character;
but though apparently instituted for fiscal and political
objects, they nevertheless possessed immense economic
significance. In after ages, the craft gilds came to take a
very prominent place in the life of medieval towns; they
were formed to serve a useful purpose, and were called
into being under municipal authority; at a still later date,
in the reigns of Elizabeth and James, there was a great
development of local industrial associations, reconstituted
or instituted with royal or parliamentary sanction; and
even though modern trades unions have no direct
historical connection with the medieval gilds, they may
still be regarded as the analogous creations of a different
period. When we consider how complicated English
industrial organisation has become, there is a good reason
for noting its earliest phases.
Even at the time when the first craft-gilds were thus
B
into municipal institutions. It is quite possible that this was
the original character of the gilds or collegia in the ancient
world, but there is no reason to trace their development in
England in this fashion. The migratory royal household would
hardly throw off a baking department in London, or weaving
departments in other towns. It seems more probable that the
aliens introduced a type of association with which they had long
been familiar, and utilised it originally in order to obtain
political status.
The Norman Invasion
49
formed in England, the institution was already venerable;
how far its germs can be traced backwards in antiquity
we need not discuss. It will suffice if we notice that
under the Roman empire the collegia emerged from the
position of secret societies, and attained a considerable
measure of public recognition. It is quite possible that
some of them survived in the southern towns of France,
even if their alleged claim to a continuous existence in
Paris and Rouen be disallowed. It seems, however, that
as the imperial and episcopal towns of Flanders and
Germany were planted, these institutions took root with-
in them; they appear to have attained such high
developinent and to have been so much specialised at the
close of the twelfth century in some continental towns, as
to make it highly probable that the Norman and Flemish
artisans, who flocked to this country, were already
habituated to this type of industrial organisation. These
immigrant weavers appear to have been the agency by
which an institution, that had developed under the Roman
empire, was transplanted to England; when thus intro-
duced it found itself on congenial soil and flourished
greatly. It certainly seems as if these early associations
had contributed their quota to the earliest pieces of
industrial legislation. The assize of bread, and the assize
of cloth are among the earliest instances of the regulation
of industry by national authority; and these may well be
the rules which were laid down by these earliest craft-gilds
for the guidance of their members. In later days, the
experience of gilds was apparently drawn on, in the
framing of industrial laws; and there is at least an
E
50
Alien Immigrants
interest in observing that the earliest ordinances for the
regulation of a craft occur in connection with trades where
organisation had begun to appear.
On our municipal constitution the aliens have left trace
of their influence by the institution of the mayoralty. The
towns of the Anglo-Saxon period were in character
thickly populated hundreds, or villages, rather than towns
in our acceptation of the word; but during the hundred
years that followed the Norman Conquest there was a great
increase in the importance of the towns, and throughout
the twelfth century the inhabitants were, in many cases,
struggling to obtain municipal independence. Advances
in the direction of civic liberty had been made, where the
townspeople had gained the right of dealing direct with
the crown in fiscal matters, and of assessing and collect-
ing their payments without interference from outside
authority; or where they had control over the trade of their
town, and the privilege of having a gild merchant had been
conferred. The burgesses sought to complete their inde-
pendence by securing the right to elect their own officers,
to exclude the sheriff from their courts, and to direct their
own government. Possibly the English boroughs were
stimulated to rebel against outside interference by know-
ledge of a struggle, which was taking place contempo-
raneously upon the continent, where the inhabitants of the
towns fought for and won freedom from the tyranny of
their over-lords.
The name mayor is suggestive of foreign influence. The
towns of Normandy vested their affairs in the hands of
"un maire, douze échevins, douze conseillers, et soixante
The Norman Invasion
51
quinze pairs," and immigrants from Normandy must
have made this type of municipal organisation familiar to
the townspeople among whom they settled. It is there-
fore not surprising to find that when the English bur-
gesses sought to express their corporate existence, they
borrowed the form of the commune, and gave to their
new and elected chief officer the title, derived from
France, of mayor.
(iii.) When we pass from the sphere of the household
and the municipality to the government of the realm,
we cannot but note the indications of foreign influence on
various departments of administrative life. Even under
the Confessor many of the offices of state had been filled
by foreigners, and it was only to be expected that the line,
which had been adopted at that period, should be followed
more steadily in the time of the Conqueror.2
(a) It may be traced first of all in the organisation
of the Exchequer; this was, according to the author of
the Dialogus de Scaccario, derived from Normandy;
and this view is confirmed by an examination of the
earlier Pipe Rolls. The Norman mode of reckoning,
by shillings of twelve pence and pounds, is everywhere in
use; though the amounts to be reckoned are in many
cases traditional payments in marks and ounces, the
foreign mode of reckoning was superimposed upon the
ancient obligations. There was perhaps no more im-
portant point than this in regard to which the laws of
¹ Thierry, Tableau de l'ancienne France municipale, in Essai sur
l'histoire du Tiers état (1876), p. 241.
2 Stubbs, Constit. Hist., i. 292.
52
Alien Immigrants
the Normans superseded those of Wessex, of Mercia, and
of the Danelagh, at the time of the Conquest.¹
1
(b) The great fiscal work of the Conqueror's reign-
the making of Domesday Book-was an undertaking
which may be ascribed with high probability to foreign
influence. It is true that the attempt was not wholly
novel; the constant comparison between the hidation
under Edward and that at the time of the Conqueror,
shows quite clearly that there was no definite change in
the method of rating adopted throughout the greater part
of England between these dates. The number of hides or
carucates, at which the land had been assessed under
Edward, could be compared with those at which it was
rated under William. But when we remember how
deeply Norman influence had permeated the court in the
time of the Confessor, this need not surprise us. The
survey was a serious attempt to put on record the avail-
able resources for purposes of taxation, to give definite
information as to the various quota which different
tenants could contribute, and thus to put the burdens to
be borne on a definite basis. When this was done, the
king knew what he might hope to obtain, and the tenant
was to some extent protected from arbitrary taxation; it
was an advantage to both parties, and William was wise
in putting it into effect.
The whole of the circumstances in which William was
placed recall the condition of affairs when Augustus was
called to rule the Roman Empire, and set himself to re-
1 Stubbs, Select Charters, p. 176.
The Norman Invasion
53
organise the finances of the provinces. They had been
the subjects of unblushing extortion, and the only means
of guarding against the evil was to take an inventory of
the actual resources of each estate in each province. The
likeness between the circumstances of each case, and the
expedient devised to meet them, makes it difficult to
believe that the Liber Censualis of William and the
census of Augustus were wholly independent.
The first census was taken in the year of our Lord's
birth; there is no record of its exact nature, but it un-
doubtedly consisted of an enumeration of the provincial
populations and an estimate of the provincial estates, and
was made to ensure due returns from the taxes on the
land and people.1 This inquiry was repeated by the
successors of Augustus, and a census of the provinces was
taken at fixed intervals; though opinion is divided as to
the length of period which elapsed between each. In the
Justinian code we have the articles of enquiry as they
were set forth in the third, and codified in the sixth cen-
tury of our era.³ The traditional arrangement of the
census would linger on in all imperial provinces where
the Roman administration was not entirely subverted.4
1 Rodbertus, in Jahrbuch für Nationalökonomie (Jena, 1865),
p. 145 seq.
2 Unger, Inscription on Census in Leipsiger Studien (Georg
Curtius, Leipsig, 1887), vol. x. pp. 64–69.
3 Rodbertus, in Jahrbuch für Nationalökonomie, 1865, p. 258.
Digest, lib. 1. tit. xv. 4: Forma Censualis.
4 “C'étaient les débris de l'impôt romain, dont la routine
s'était perpétuée, à travers tous les changements de pouvoir.”
Bordier et Charton, Histoire de France, i. 205. See also pp. 139,
151.
54
Alien Immigrants
The capitularies have some indications which seem to
show that these elaborate surveys were not wholly for-
gotten. The enquiries into dilapidations in 807,¹ the
inventories of ecelesiastical goods in 797,2 also the inquest
into imperial and ecclesiastical possessions in 819 and
829,3 may be referred to; while the Capitulare Aquis-
granense 4 seems to show that such surveys were made
of all estates. We may again compare the formulæ of
an inventory and extent 5 of Charles with those which
were in vogue in the time of Augustus and the Conqueror,
and there will be still higher probability that William
and his administrators were only following an imperial
example, and giving effect to the imperial tradition, when
they set about compiling the survey.
As Mr. Hyde Clark argues: "Instead of Domesday
Book having been modelled on some anterior English
formula of Edward the Confessor or his predecessors, as
assumed, the appearance is that Domesday may have
been arranged on some Norman model. The Norman
balliages as divisions existed T.R.E., and so did their
administrative system. The English shires were as-
similated to the balliages, but the conditions did not
correspond. The Normans in Normandy took possession
of territories which had been administered by the Romans,
and provided with men competent to write Latin, and
this foreign language was adopted by the Normans as
their administrative language. T.R.E. the population of
1 Pertz, Legum, i. 148.
3 Pertz, Legum, i. 227, 354.
5 Pertz, Legum, i. 176.
2 Pertz, Legum, i. 175, n.
* Pertz, Legum, i. 17!.
The Norman Invasion
55
England, spoke and wrote English. When the Normans
came here, English was foreign to them, and for their
administration they continued to use Latin, working by
means of continental monks and scribes. This state of
affairs favours a foreign origin for Domesday. An
antecedent record would have been written in English."1
The Normans had come in contact with the tradition of
the Roman census, and Norman administrators seem to
have introduced it into the realm of England; just as the
tradition of the Roman collegia had survived, and Flemish
weavers introduced it into English towns.
(c) There is some reason then for arguing that the
taxation of real property was based on a model derived
from pagan Rome, but it is at least clear that the taxation
of moveables under Henry II. was directly copied from the
scheme of papal taxation. The revenue of England had
been entirely derived from the land till Henry II., after
the fall of Jerusalem, was empowered to levy a tithe on
goods, to be devoted to a new Crusade. It was by papal
permission, and by means of papal officials, that this tax
was collected; but a precedent was set which enabled the
crown to have recourse to this form of taxation again and
again. A similar method was adopted for raising the
revenue by Richard I., and all through the thirteenth
century fractional parts of the possessions of the subject
were collected to relieve the necessities of the crown. At
last the demands came to be systematised with the
¹ Hyde Clark, Note on the Order of Domesday Book, in Domesday
Studies, 1891, vol. ii. pp. 388, 389.
2 Stubbs, Constit. Hist., i. 528, 622, 3. Select Charters, p. 160.
56
Alien Immigrants
consent of parliament into a fixed sum, which continued
to be called the tenths and fifteenths, and lasted till the
time of Charles I. The taxation of land was reorganised
by the aliens, and they also originated the taxation of
moveables so far as England was concerned.
12. Some allusion has already been made to the new
industrial arts which were introduced by the immigrants,
as they furnish evidence both in regard to the distribu-
tion and the status of aliens who settled here. It is
worth while to notice what an extraordinary development
occurred, in connection with the trades which were thus
introduced at the Conquest, before the next wave of foreign
immigration set in. We may notice it in regard to build-
ing, weaving, and mercantile pursuits during the thirteenth
century.
(i.) There is a marked difference between the stone
building which survives from the time before the Con-
quest, and that which we find in Norman and Angevin
times. Pre-Norman masonry was rough in execution, and
in design it reproduced the forms of wooden structures; it
contrasts most strikingly with the beautiful masonry of
the Norman churches and castles. When we examine the
relics which remain, we find that these buildings were
very widely distributed throughout the country; the
castles and abbeys, which were erected in the eleventh
and twelfth centuries, may be counted by hundreds; and
the parish churches by thousands. The Abbey of Evesham
was being built at the time the Domesday survey was
taken; and the close parallelism in the improvements and
the changes of fashion in the art of building as prac-
The Norman Invasion
57
tised on each side of the Channel, during the next two
centuries, serves to prove that there was constant inter-
course between England and the continent. Much of the
building stone which was used came from Caen, and some
of the workmen were probably drawn from the same
district. Flemish masons were also in high repute; they
were employed by Bishop Poor at Salisbury; and there is
reason to believe that some of them had a hand in the
erection of Llandaff Cathedral and Caerphilly Castle.¹
When the citizens of London were about to rebuild their
bridges in the beginning of the thirteenth century they
were recommended by King John to secure the services of
Iselbert, who was Master of the Masons' School at Sain-
tonge; 2 he had already executed similar undertakings at
Rochelle and elsewhere. The art had been planted long
before, and it was making rapid progress, but even in the
thirteenth century Englishmen were accustomed to rely on
the advice or example of aliens in their more important
works.
(ii.) The development of the weaving trade was equally
striking; England was well supplied with the necessary
materials, and there is at least one indication that a
development of sheep-farming began immediately after
the Conquest; it is certain that the Cistercians who were
were settled here took up this business vigorously. There
was also a good supply of teasels for dressing the cloth,
and we can trace different stages in the growth of the
1 Harris, in Archæologia, ii. 12.
2 3. John, Rotuli Litterarum Fatentium (Record), 9 b,
58
Alien Immigrants
industry. At the time of the Conquest it was a domestic
occupation, and the cloth which was exposed for sale seems
to have been imported from abroad; as we have seen, in
the time of Henry I. and Henry II., there were gilds of
weavers who were manufacturing for the market; and the
attempts to regulate and organise the trade, as well as the
increase in the specialisation and in the subsidiary arts of
dyeing and fulling, testify to the progress that had been
made. We find that in the thirteenth century the export
of English cloth had begun, as it found its way to Spain;
while there had also been such progress that an attempt
could be made to secure a monopoly of the home market
for the product of English looms. Towards the close of
the century active steps were taken, not only to foster
our own manufactures, but to strike a blow at the old-
established industry of Flanders; the prohibition of the
export of wool in the beginning of Edward I's. reign may
have been chiefly dictated by political motives, but the
prohibition of the export of teasels by Edward II. was
apparently intended to give English manufacturers the
full enjoyment of a special advantage at the expense of
their continental rivals. Incidental references show that
the trade had established itself at many different centres;
and though the London gild at all events still survived,
the chief part in the regulation of the size and quality of
goods produced was committed to a royal official, who
exercised supervision throughout the length and breadth
of the land.
(iii.) There was, however, a far more widely-reaching
change which was gradually working its way into all the
The Norman Invasion
59
relations of life, and which ought to be associated with
the incursion of alien merchants. Buying and selling
were being carried on much more generally throughout
the country, and money was being used to define mutual
obligations even when payments were made in kind. It
is of course obvious that the use of coins was familiar
enough before the Conquest; but it is also clear that the
opportunities for trade became much more frequent with
the rise of fairs; and when money came to be essential for
paying the royal taxation, it was necessary that every
manorial lord should have the means of procuring the coin
of the realm. The thorough introduction of a monetary
system of taxation, at a time when natural economy held
its own in such large departments of agriculture and
industry, was only possible through the intervention of a
class of moneyed men, who acted as financial interme-
diaries. They were prepared to supply money, either on
loan or by purchasing produce, to those who were called.
on for some unexpected payment at a time when their
hoards were exhausted. They were also able to advance
money to the king, or to undertake the business of farming
the revenue. The sheriffs of this period did business
which was similar to that of the publicani under the
Roman republic; the Domesday record had to some
extent minimised their opportunities of extortion, but the
trading centres were eager to be free from their interfer-
ence and the possibility of oppression. The names of these
leading financiers, and some records of their transactions,
are partially preserved in the Pipe Rolls. It is clear that
Henry II., in the earlier years of his reign, had constantly
60
Alien Immigrants
to receive assistance from William Cade; while in the
fourth year he had obtained advances from so many of the
sheriffs that one after another was credited with a balance
in his favour.¹ That many of these financiers were aliens
is clear enough; and indeed it appears that the Jews were
deliberately introduced to help to supply this function in
the social system of the day. The collection of papal
revenue involved similar transactions; it was chiefly in
the hands of the Caorsine and Florentine bankers, and the
payment to Italy was apparently made by means of wool.
There was also frequent occasion for the transmission of
bullion in connection with the military operations of the
time; this opened up a profitable line of business, in
which the Knights Templars among others were actively
engaged.3 Money was generally required, but it was not
circulating in such quantities that it was readily avail-
able; and those who were wealthy had great opportunities
of doing business which was always profitable and not
infrequently extortionate. It appears that practically the
whole of this business was in the hands of foreigners; and
from this the important conséquence follows, that for all
matters of commercial practice and money account we
are indebted to aliens. We owe, too, our instruments of
credit to the merchants who acted as the papal agents in
England. As has been stated, the Florentines exported
wool instead of specie, and raised the money to meet the
1 Habet de superplus, Pipe Roll, 4 Henry II. (Record).
2 Growth of English Industry and Commerce (1896), i. 624.
3 L. Delisle, Operations financières des Templiers, in Acad. des
Inscriptions, t. xxxiii,
The Norman Invasion
61
papal claims by the sale of the wool in Italy. Modern
bills of exchange may be said to have their origin in the
methods which they devised to obviate the exportation of
bullion.
The letter of credit was derived from the same source.
The increased inter-communication between England and
the continent under the Angevin kings made the journeys
of ambassadors and important officials more frequent.
The growth of papal power during the reigns of John
and Henry III. resulted in greater intercourse with
Rome; and the numerous suits touching ecclesiastical
possessions in England, which were heard at the papal
courts, necessitated the presence of English representa-
tives. All who travelled had to face the same problem,—
the difficulty of carrying with them sufficient money to
meet their requirements on their way; the solution of the
difficulty lay in the letter of credit. Examples of its em-
ployment are numerous in the thirteenth century, and are
to be found as early as the twelfth.¹
As noted above, foreign influence is seen to some
extent in the method of computation that came into vogue
and that is uniformly adopted in accounts. The English
agriculturist, who computed acres by perches, roods and
acres, was accustomed to reckon payments by correspond-
ing multiples, of pence, half-nobles (40d.) and marks
(13s. 4d.), and colloquially this terminology was long
maintained; but the mode of reckoning to which the
Norman administrators and financiers were accustomed,
¹ E. A. Bond, in Archæologia, xxviii. pp. 217, 219, 261.
62
Alien Immigrants
seems to have been adopted from the first in written
accounts and gradually superseded the native system.
The influence aliens exercised in commercial transactions
is also exemplified in our ordinary measure of weight.
The Spanish merchants who came to buy wool appear to
have complained that the method of weighing in ordinary
use was unsatisfactory, and begged that the avoir-du-pois
weights should be introduced. This mode of reckoning
may have been introduced into the Spanish peninsula
by the Goths or by the Arabs; at all events we can
specify the period when it was first adopted in Eng-
land; it is interesting to note that the complications
which distinguish our country from those which have
adopted the decimal system, are chiefly due to the fact
that we have adhered to various competing systems which
were originally introduced from abroad.
1 Rot. Parl. i. 47 (27) in 1290; i. 332 (223) in 1314. English
measures were recently in vogue for some branches of com-
merce at Santiago. A. Martini, Metrologia, 718.
THE LATER MIDDLE AGES
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13. THE immigrations of aliens, which took place dur-
ing the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, were very
varied in character; strangers flocked here from distant
parts of Europe, as well as from the neighbouring lands,
and there were many distinct reasons which attracted
them to our island. But for all that, it is convenient to
treat the period as a whole; it is distinguished by well-
marked features from the age that preceded, and from the
period that followed. After the Reformation, the existence
of religious differences was one of the main elements
which determined the direction taken by the stream of
65
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66
Alien Immigrants
immigration; but in the later Middle Ages there was
little practical distinction between the religious conditions
of the various parts of Western Christendom, and this
reason for immigration had not yet come into operation.
On the other hand, the political and military ambitions,
which had been the main motive in the immigrations of
Norman and Angevin times, no longer drew men to
England. Our land had too long been a prey to Norse
adventurers and Flemish mercenaries; but the time.
for their incursions and ravages, and subsequent settle-
ment, was over; France and Germany were to be in turn
the scene of civil war, and to be pillaged by foreign
soldiers; even in the Wars of the Roses, there were few
military adventurers who found their way across the
Channel. In the earlier period, and also in the Post-
Reformation time, we have to trace out the indirect
economic effects of the immigrations that were mainly due
to political or religious causes; but in the later Middle
Ages, industrial or commercial motives were the principal
incentives to the settlement of aliens on our shores. In
all the diversity of the story of this long period, stretching
over more than two centuries of the history of immigra-
tion, there is this common feature, that we have to do
primarily with economic and not with political or religious
history.
The political history cannot, however, be wholly ignored;
for it was only where there were favourable political
conditions, that the economic causes were free to operate.
The close political relations, which existed between Eng-
land and Flanders and England and Gascony during a
The Later Middle Ages
67
|
considerable part of this period, rendered commercial and
industrial intercourse-and immigration-much more easy
than it would otherwise have been. On the other hand,
the bitter hostility between England and Scotland had a
marked effect on the industrial development of the northern
part of Britain. In the Norman and Angevin times, the
wave of alien immigration had spread northwards, and
Scotland had been affected, in a degree and at a later
time, by the same causes as were operating in England.
After the Scottish War of Independence, this was no
longer the case; the severance between the two parts
of the country was so complete, that the progressive
elements, which were introduced into England at this
time, hardly penetrated into Scotland at all. After the
Reformation and the Union of the Kingdoms, the course
of immigration into both parts of the island comes to be
similar once more. But during the later Middle Ages,
they were entirely distinct; the political condition and
political connections of Scotland were different from those
of England; and the story of such alien immigration as
occurred in the north must be told separately, and can be
told shortly.
These reasons may suffice for the chronological division
which has been adopted; but it is worth while to add a
few words to point the contrast between the Norman im-
migration, as we have considered it, and that in the period
on which we are now entering. The Norman immigration
was a flood which swept over the whole country, and
which, as it settled down, left its marks in every district
and on every side of life. The immigration in the four-
68
Alien Immigrants
teenth and fifteenth centuries consisted of a series of little
streamlets which trickled to one district or another, but
left other districts quite unaffected. As each movement
was thus restricted in area, so was the influence exercised
during this period definite, but limited; at the time of the
Conquest, England was a backward country, which had
much to learn from foreigners; and though it was still
backward economically at the opening of the fourteenth
century, it was not behind-hand so far as political and
administrative life were concerned. The problem of good
government had been better solved in England than in
any other European country of the day; there were
national institutions and laws, which were effective and
powerful; while there was ample scope for municipal
institutions and local self-government, so far as it was
convenient. The constitution had already taken shape,
the administration of law and of finance was being effec-
tively organised; much of this had been introduced by
aliens from abroad, but we had already incorporated and
made it our own; they might come and help to work our
system, but it was so completely established that it was
not easy to modify it. The influence of the immigrants
of this period was merely economic, but as an economic
influence it was of first-rate importance. The foundations
of our fiscal and administrative system had been already
laid by aliens; and during the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries, they did not a little to prepare for our coming
industrial greatness. The special character and outcome
of the immigrations at this time renders it convenient to
look at the matter mainly from an economic standpoint,
The Later Middle Ages
69
and to consider different sides of commercial and industrial
life in turn.
i. Finance.
14. In the thirteenth century natural economy still
prevailed throughout England for many purposes; but
the superior convenience of money was recognised, and
taxes were no longer paid in kind. A large supply of
coinage was requisite for the barons to enable them to
meet the claims made by the Exchequer, and to defray
the expenses of expeditions undertaken as Crusaders, or in
the service of the Crown. Moneyed men who had silver
to lend found an active demand for the accommodation
they could afford. Beyond the actual lending of money,
there was emolument to be found in the transmission of
the same to the place where it was wanted for political
and military purposes. Such occasions were the oppor-
tunities of the financier. Englishmen lacked both the
wealth and the skill which would have enabled them to
minister to these necessities; and Jews and Lombards,
with a genius for finance, were not slow to avail them-
selves of the chances by which Englishmen failed to
benefit. Hence, aliens had the monopoly, at first, of the
financial dealings of the country. The history of English
finance during the fourteenth century is, to a great ex-
tent, the story of the change by which this class of busi-
ness was diverted from their hands. If we could follow
it in detail, we might see how Englishmen learnt, from
1 See above, page 43.
70
Alien Immigrants
aliens, to conduct monetary transactions for which they
had previously neither the means nor the aptitude.
The Jews were our earliest money-lenders. In the
twelfth century they formed a widely spread agency for
loans through the country; for Jewries were to be found
in most of the principal towns, such as London, York,
Norwich, Colchester, Lincoln, and Leicester, and it is
computed that the number of those who were expelled
from England, in 1290, exceeded fifteen thousand.
Allusion has already been made to the relations existing
between the Jewish settlers and the municipalities in
which they lived. The dislike and suspicion with which
aliens were wont to be regarded in the towns was par-
ticularly bitter in the case of the Jews. Not only were
they non-burgesses, but non-burgesses whose presence
was a pretext for the interference of royal officials, and a
consequent menace to the liberties of the community.¹
Their status marked them out for the animosity of
their neighbours, and served to augment the aversion
evoked by racial peculiarities and extortionate dealings;
while the evils of their position were aggravated by the
zeal of the crusaders, which gave rise to frequent on-
slaughts upon Jewish infidels.
It is true that, though they were attacked by the
people, they were protected by the Crown; but they were
protected only to be plundered. Every step taken to
shield and uphold the Jews, merely strengthened the
1 Abrahams, The Expulsion of the Jews from England in 1290
(1895), pp. 17-20.
The Later Middle Ages
71
power of the Crown over them. As the persecutions
increased, they were met by further precautions for the
safety of the life and property of the Jews; and public
chests were established in the towns where they resided,
in which their bonds were to be kept.1 Security was
thus provided for Jewish possessions against all except
the King himself. The Jews had the royal support in the
exaction of their usurious gains; but the King had as
little compunction in seizing the wealth, which they had
extorted, as he had scruple in upholding these usurers
against his subjects. They were liable to tallages and
fines of various kinds, which were frequent and heavy.
There was no redress; it was better for the Jews to yield
their money than, by resistance, to bring upon themselves
both poverty and imprisonment. The position of the
King, as their guardian, remained unaltered until the
middle of the thirteenth century. Then certain forces
came into operation, which impelled a change of policy,
and eventually brought about the expulsion of 1290.
This anti-Jewish policy first declared itself in the
concession which Henry III. made in favour of the citizen
class. To pacify the opposition of the municipalities,
which had been shown in widely spread struggles for the
exclusion of the Jews, an enactment was made in
1245, which restricted them to residence in places where
2
1 Madox, Exchequer, i. 240.
2 The inhabitants of Leicester induced Simon de Montfort to
expel them from that town. Thompson, Leicester (1849), p. 72.
For other towns, where similar action was taken, see Abrahams,
Expulsion of the Jews from England (1895), p. 20.
72
Alien Immigrants
Jewries already existed.¹ The King was also obliged
to yield to the pressure brought to bear upon him
by the barons for the severer treatment of the Jews.
Individual nobles had grievances against them. In many
cases estates had been given as security for a loan, and
the owners had failed to redeem their lands. But it was
an aim of the baronial party as a whole to end the alliance
between the Crown and these Jewish financiers; by them
the King was furnished with supplies, which, in great
measure, left his action unfettered by the control of the
national council. The surest means to the attainment of
their end was the impoverishment of the Jews. Their
wealth had been diminished by heavy demands made
upon them.2 Shut out from many towns, their opportu-
nities of enrichment were further restricted, in 1269-70,
by two measures, which virtually precluded them from
having any transactions with landowners.3 In future,
no estate was to be pledged to a Jew, nor was he to
take the rental of any land as security; these were the
very securities which had been generally given for loans.
Despite these restrictions, the Jews remained too ser-
viceable to be cast off, and Henry III. would not yield to
the demands which were made for their suppression by
¹ Madox, Exchequer, i. 249, note i.
2 An example of the absolute manner in which the King con-
trolled the Jews is furnished by the fact that he sometimes
pledged the Jews and their chattels as security for loans. Thus,
a certain Jew was pledged in return for a loan of 5000 marks to
Richard of Cornwall by Henry III. Madox, Exchequer, i. 230.
³ Abrahams, The Expulsion of the Jews from England (1895),
pp. 28, 29, quoting Tovey, Anglia Judaica, 175-7.
GR
The Later Middle Ages
73
yet another body.¹ The Church had always protested
against usury; and in the thirteenth century 2 active
measures were taken against the Jews who practised it.
It was left to Edward to pursue the course of action
enjoined by the clergy. Circumstances made him more
willing to acquiesce in this policy than his predecessor
had been. The Jews had themselves pointed out to the
magnates that there was another source from which the
King could obtain the loans with which they were no
longer able to supply him. They had begged that they
might be allowed to leave the country, and that the King
would have recourse to the wealthy Lombards, who had
supplanted them.3 Though the loss of Jewish con-
tributions must have seriously affected the pecuniary
position of the Crown, the King knew that, in the Italian
merchants, he had other usurers upon whom he could
rely. At the beginning of his reign, the Jews were
practically debarred from carrying on their business; and
after his accession 4 it was made illegal for them to
practise usury. But while he laid this disability upon
them, Edward I. avoided unnecessary harshness. He
¹ Henry III. did expel the Caorsine usurers at the instigation
of the Church. Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora (R. S.), iv. 8.
2 On the decrees of Ecclesiastical Councils and the attitude
and action of the Church with regard to the Jews see Corpus
Juris Canonici, D. G., ix. lib. v. tit. vi., also my Growth of Industry
and Commerce (1896), i. 206, 286. Abrahams, Expulsion of the
Jews, pp. 31, 32.
3 Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora (R. S.), v. 441, 487.
4 Statutes of Jewry. Statutes of the Realm (Record), i. 221.
74
Alien Immigrants
adopted the expedient of retaining them, in the hope that
they would follow othor callings. This attempt, as all
other attempts, to absorb the Jews into the population,
proved futile. They persisted in their usury, or gained
a livelihood by clipping the coin and other fraudulent
means. The ill-success of this policy showed that the
Jews were likely to remain what they had hitherto been,
a disturbing element. As such they would have been
inimical to the promotion of uniformity and order. There
was another method of dealing with them, and Edward I.
followed it in banishing them; they had been driven out
of France more than twenty years earlier.¹
The work which had been done by the Jews was con-
tinued by the Templars and the Lombards; within a few
years of their foundation, the Templars had amassed great
riches.2 Their wealth enabled them to carry on a profit-
able banking business; they could pay out of their hoards
in the Temple of Paris a sum of money in consideration
of a payment received in the Temple at London. They
did not long remain to benefit by the misfortune which
had overtaken their Jewish competitors. In 1307 the
great military order was attacked; Edward II. did not
at once fall in with the schemes of the Pope and the King
of France, but he did not give effective protection. The
order of the Templars was broken up; though a portion
•
¹ Abrahams, The Expulsion of the Jews from England (1895),
p. 38. This was in 1253.
2 Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora (R. S.), ii. 144. On the
whole subject, see Delisle, op. cit.
The Later Middle Ages
75
of their wealth eventually came into the hands of the
Hospitallers, their business connection and opportunities
for finance seem to have come to an end.
The Lombards were left to carry on nearly all the
financial operations of the country. In the thirteenth
century there was a great demand for English wool in
Italy, and the merchants of Florence, Lucca, and Sienna
found that they could easily combine a lucrative trade in
this product with the business of receiving and forward-
ing the papal revenue. With the profits which accrued,
they negotiated loans with the religious houses in England
and the King's subjects. On the continent, they found
further scope in financing royal ambassadors and private
individuals, for whom the King was willing to become
surety. Such loans were advanced upon the strength of
obligatory letters drawn upon the English Exchequer.
Their share in royal finance rapidly increased as the
military undertakings of Henry III. and his successors
involved the Crown in greater difficulties. Constant wars
resulted in constant recourse to the Lombards, and under
Edward III., to the Florentine companies of the Bardi and
Peruzzi in particular.
Throughout the course of their negotiations, the Italian
merchants seem to have obtained good securities for their
loans. Lands and estates were pledged by private in-
dividuals; while the papal agents were able to procure
wool at an advantageous price from monasteries to which
they had made advances of money. The conditions upon
which dealings were carried on with the government
varied. Generally the customs were farmed out to the
76
Alien Immigrants
3
financiers,¹ or certain portions of the revenue 2 were
allotted to them. Sometimes high officials of state
became sureties for the debts of the Crown, or ecclesi-
astical corporations were pledged to repayment.4 In the
exaction of their bonds the Lombards had a strong
position; for as papal agents, they had, in the Pope, a
protector who could enforce their claims. As regards
their dealings, they were hardly more righteous than the
Jews, for they took usury covertly upon various pre-
texts.
In 1345 the royal demands upon the Italian merchants
were so excessive that the Bardi and several other lead-
ing firms were ruined. The precise story of the failure
has not been recorded as fully as might be desired; Parlia-
ment only took notice of the matter by petitioning that
the goods of the Italians, who had left the country, might
be assigned to their debtors.5 We thus find that within
a period of about sixty years, the whole of the agencies by
which finance had been carried on were swept away, and
a large field was left open for the operations of other
dealers.
In some respects this field may have been partially
restricted; coinage was coming into freer circulation;
payment in service and kind was less frequent, and
money transactions were becoming more general through-
out the country. The difficulty of procuring money for
1
¹ E. A. Bond, Archæologia, xxviii. p. 231.
2 Ibid., p. 231, n., p. 280, No. lxxxiii.
4 Ibid., p. 268, No. xxxiii.
5 Rot. Parl., ii. 240 (xxi.).
³ Ibid., p. 271, No. xliv.
The Later Middle Ages
77
any special purpose would be less; but on the other hand,
the opportunities for the profitable employment of money,
in trade and even in industry, were becoming more
frequent; so that on the whole, while the persons who
had monopolised the financial business were disappearing,
the openings for successful business of the kind were
increasing.
There was one body of aliens who appear to have come
to England in order to take advantage of this opening.¹
Several Flemings had established themselves as Bankers
in London, and were prepared to make a loan to the
government on the security of taxes, which were about to
be levied at an unusual rate; but they were not able to
prosecute this business for long. They appear to have
been the victims of the jealousy of the city magnates, who
were at no pains to restrain the fury of the mob; thirteen
of them, who had taken refuge in the church of the
Augustinian Friars, were ruthlessly slaughtered; while
the rioters were more judicial in their attack on the
colony at Southwark. Following a scriptural precedent,
they tested the unhappy Flemings by their ability to
say Bread and Cheese," and all who failed to come up
to the orthodox London pronunciation, were promptly
executed. Though we hear of individuals who had con-
""
¹ The merchants of Lovagne (Louvain) obtained fresh privi-
leges in London in 1338, before the Italian collapse. Rymer, ii.
1056.
2 E. Van Bruyssel, Histoire du Commerce en Belgique (1861–3), ii.
18. Allen, History of London, i. 126. Varenbergh, Histoire des
relations diplomatiques entre le compté de Flandre et l'Angleterre,
(1874), p. 423.
78
Alien Immigrants
siderable dealings with the Crown, it seems safe to
affirm that the business which had been done by foreign
financiers was not largely transferred to other aliens, but
was on the whole taken up by Englishmen, and done by
them with success. The financial arrangements which
were necessitated by Edward's French wars were, from
the time of the battle of Creçy, mostly carried out by
men of English birth, though they copied the methods
which had been introduced by foreigners.
15. It is difficult to follow out the complicated fiscal
transactions of the time; but this one fact lies on the
surface, that Edward III. tried to find the necessary
supplies by securing and exporting quantities of wool.
It was by means of wool that the heavy papal taxation
was conveyed abroad, and he endeavoured to adopt the
same expedient. He was empowered in 1337 to purchase
30,000 sacks, and for this purpose, merchants acted as
his agents. They ran very little risk, as they were
secured against loss by sea, etc., and were to have half
the profits on the transaction as their commission; ¹ and
if the figures given by Knighton are correct, there was a
large margin of gain for all parties concerned.²
1
In the following year, King Edward obtained, not
merely a special power of pre-emption, but a grant of
20,000 sacks of wool, which was to be taken up, trans-
1 Rymer, Fœdera, ii., 989.
2 Knighton (R. S.), ii. p. 1. They bought for nine marks and
sold for £20 in Brabant. Rymer, Fadera, ii. 988. Ordinary
trading was much disorganised, as the King impressed all ships
for the service of transport.
The Later Middle Ages
79
4
ported and sold on his behalf in Flanders. The King
secured a monopoly by prohibiting other purchasers from
buying and exporting wool till he was served; 1 but
apparently he defeated his purpose, as the wool did not
come in at all, and after more than one urgent letter 2 he
was forced to adopt the strong course of taking it up
wherever he found it. In 1340 he again obtained a
permission to buy up a quantity of wool, and very
elaborate arrangements were made for the purchase of
the right proportion in each county at a special price,
for the payment of customs and for the delivery of the
price of wool.5 At the same time King Edward appears
to have assigned a portion of this wool as security in
connection with a financial transaction by which the
royal jewels were taken out of pawn."
The commercial part of these transactions appears to
¹ Rymer, ii. 1022.
2 Ibid., ii. 1051.
3 lbid., ii. 1054. Cf. also R. P., ii. 182 (27): Bruton. It was
possibly at this juncture that the wool of English merchants at
Dordrecht was seized. William de la Pole was the King's agent
at Antwerp at this time. Fox Bourne, English Merchants (1866),
vol. i. p. 61 and refs.
4 Rot. Parl., ii. 118 (10). Apparently the merchants were to
pay one mark less than the usual price to the wool-owner, and
also 40s. per sack custom.
5 Rot. Parl., ii. 120 (18-25). About 4,300 sacks of wool were at
once arranged for, but letters had to be written to merchants in
all parts of the realm to get the contracts taken up to the full
extent required.
• Rot. Parl., ii. 121 (26). The Bardi and Peruzzi undertook at
this time to consolidate the King's debts, and seem to have
taken up wool on his behalf, for which they could not pay, as the
King did not discharge his debt to them. Rot. Parl., ii. 143 (58).
80
Alien Immigrants
2
have been almost entirely carried out by English mer-
chants. In the preceding century Italians had had a
large part in such business, and one third of the export
trade from Hull¹ had been done by them. They appear,
however, to have concentrated their attention more and
more on banking business, while Englishmen succeeded
to the wool trade. Reginald Conduct, William de la
Pole, and Walter Cheriton were the King's agents in
these dealings; and alike in the appeals made for con-
tractors to carry out the work, and in the current com-
plaints of oppression by the King's agent and by rich
merchants, it is chiefly of Englishmen that we hear.
4
The records of these special transactions enable us to
see who were the leading men in this business through-
out the country; that there were a certain number of
alien buyers as well is true enough. Edward III., in his
anxiety to conciliate his Flemish allies, gave them special
permission in 1337 to visit England and purchase the
wool which was necessary for the manufacturers in each
town and district; and when the Staple for wool was
held in England, as occasionally occurred, the actual
1 Fox Bourne, English Merchants (1866), p. 54.
2 An analogy may be drawn with the Fuggers and other
South German millionaires in the sixteenth century. Compare
Ehrenberg, Hamburg und England (1896), p. 2.
3 Rymer, II. ii. p. 988; II. ii. p. 1114. Fox Bourne, English
Merchants, vol. i. pp. 60, 61.
4 On Walter of Cheriton and his companions, compare Rot.
Parl., ii. pp. 169, 170: Nos. 38, 39, 49, with Rot. Parl., ii. 173 (68).
It was not till the good Parliament of 1376 that redress was
finally given. Ibid., 365,
The Later Middle Ages
81
1
export trade would be more generally in the hands of
alien merchants. But the trade as organised in 1353, and
as it centred at Calais, was conducted by the merchants
of the Staple, who combined to some extent the duty of
collecting the royal revenue with the private enterprise
of buying and exporting wool. From the date of the
reorganisation of the Staple, there seem to have been
fewer attempts on the part of the King to obtain profits
as a trader; and there was less irregularity in the con-
ditions for private trade, and in the rates at which
customs were levied. So far as private ventures were
concerned, the English woolstaplers had a better chance
of steady trade in known conditions; but there was also
a good deal of financial business which came into their
hands. The wool had to be officially weighed in order
that the proper customs might be charged, and consider-
able fees were obtained by the officials who had custody
of this trone or wool beam.2 Those who were engaged in
the collection of customs were able to obtain a consider-
able commission, while the official position of these
merchants gave them opportunities for speculating in
wool to great advantage.4 As the manufacture of cloth
3
1 There was, however, a case in 1347 when 20,000 sacks were
impressed as a loan. Rot. Parl., ii. 166, 11. Rymer, Fœdera,
iii. 116, 122, 130, 131.
2 In regard to difficulties arising in connection with weighing
see Rot. Parl., ii. 241 (36), and 312 (23).
3 It is said that the customs for wool amounted in one year
under Edward III. to £68,000. 27 Henry VI. c. 2. In the Tudor
times the Venetian ambassador said that about half the customs
levied leaked out in the process of collection.
4 See below, p. 97.
G
82
Alien Immigrants
in England developed, the trade in the raw product
gradually declined; 1 but during the fourteenth century
and beginning of the fifteenth, it still afforded ample
opportunities for a profitable business which was done.
by Englishmen and in which aliens no longer took a
prominent part.
16. While the transmission of money had thus passed
from the management of aliens to that of natives, a
similar change was occurring in the supply of the royal
necessities; these were coming to be met more and more
by English bankers. Edward III.'s attempt in 1340 to
borrow money from the city magnates in London was not
a success; he wished to get £20,000, but was only able
to procure £5,000 on the security of the Crown jewels; 2 in
1351 the city made a loan of 20,000 marks, and obtained
the farm of their own customs; 3 but during the next
half century the practice came more and more into vogue,
and large sums were loaned to Richard II. by various
towns and burghs. Private individuals were more ready
than municipalities to enter into such transactions. The
King's obligations to William de la Pole were enormous;
and he was, on one occasion, at least sufficiently public-
spirited to obtain a large advance for the Crown at his
personal risk, without security of any kind. Edward
III. acknowledged the extent of the service which William
1 This reacted seriously on the Florentine manufacture of
cloth. Villani, Florence, vol. vii., p. 203.
2 A. Law, Royal Hist. Soc. Trans., N. S., ix. p. 60.
3 Ibid., p. 68.
4 Tickell, History of Hull, p. 22, note.
The Later Middle Ages
83
de la Pole had rendered him in the following Letters.
Patent.
"Edward, by the grace of God, King of England, Lord
of Ireland and Duke of Acquitaine, Know ye, that when
our faithful and well-beloved subject, William de la Pole
(presently after our coming into the parts on this side of
the sea), hearing and understanding that our affairs, for
which we took our journey, were, for want of money, very
dangerously deferred; and (being sensible of our wants)
came in person unto us, and to us and our followers has
made and procured to be made such a supply of money,
that by his means, our honour, and the honour of our
followers, thanks be to God, has been preserved; which
otherwise had been exposed to great danger and afterwards
the said William, continuing our supply with exceeding
bounty, has undertaken the payment of great sums for
us to divers persons, and for which, he has engaged him-
self by bonds and obligations;
by whose means,
being thus assisted and supplied we got to Hanou, near
the marches of France,-but could go no further, our
monies there again failing us: and when it was held for
certain that our journey was altogether in vain, and our
affairs utterly ruined the said William having still a
care to relieve our extreme necessity, engaged himself,
and his whole estate,-procured for us a great sum of
money, and delivered us again out of exceeding great
danger."
His confidence was justified, for with Edward's success
he rose in dignity and increased in wealth. There was an
outward and visible mark of his success in ousting the
84
Alien Immigrants
Italian bankers, if, as is alleged, Edward granted him the
houses of the Bardi in Lombard Street.¹
John Pulteney, who served the office of Mayor of
London four times, was another wealthy 2 Englishman
who lent money to the Crown. The story of the transac-
tions of such men shows that there was a class of English-
men who were able to take up the business which was left
open by the failure of the Bardi in 1345.3 It is certainly
tempting to connect the disappearance of these merchants
with the rise of the Livery Companies, and especially of
the Grocers,5 which was incorporated in the very year of
the failure of the Bardi; it seems to have laid itself out
for administrative business in connection with the import
of goods of every kind. The rapid rise of this Company
to power in the city excited the jealousy of other dealers,
and their leader, Nicholas Brembre, was intimately
4
1 Napier, Synecombe and Ewelme (1858), p. 279. There is a
difficulty about the matter; the grant is dated by Napier as 26
September, 1339, but the failure of the Bardi did not occur till
six years later, and in 1339 they enjoyed the favour of the
Crown.
2 He endowed a charity in S. Lawrence, Candlewick Street,
Rymer, Fadera, ii. 841, and was the agent in 1340 for convey-
ing wool for the ransom of William of Montecute from the
French. Rymer, ib., iii. 1139. On his loans see A. Law, Royal
Hist. Soc. Trans., N. S., ix. 59.
3 Rot. Parl., ii., 240 (21).
4 Pulteney was a draper, and W. de la Pole a mercer, of
Hull.
5 Boccherelli was a member of the Pepperers, the original
Italian Warehouseman. J. A. Kingdon, Archives of Grocers'
Company (1886), I., Introd., xi.
6 On the Mercers' and Grocers' Companies, Growth of Industry
and Commerce (1896), i. 324.
The Later Middle Ages
85
involved in the projects of Richard II. At any rate, the
fact that the business of finance was now transferred to
English hands, was not only, like the rise of the wool-
staplers, a proof of the increasing prosperity of native
merchants, but it had a very real constitutional import-
ance. Edward III. had been able to evade the control
which Parliament desired to exercise over the finances of
the realm by obtaining loans from aliens; when he
borrowed from citizens, there was a direct association
between the taxpayer and the royal creditor, since both
could make themselves heard in Parliament. It is possible
that the temporary disgrace of William de la Pole arose
from his insistence that the royal revenues should be
applied to the most pressing objects, in accordance with
sound finance; but this was at least one effect of the
change which took place at this time in the sources of
royal borrowing.
At the same time it would be a mistake to suppose that
the competition of Englishmen and the royal breach of
faith served to drive the Italian bankers entirely from the
realm. So far as the papal revenue was concerned, they
continued to have the principal part in collecting and
transmitting it.¹ The Bardi had been acting in this
matter early in the reign; and the laws directed against
alien merchants in connection with the export of bullion,2
in the time of Richard II., seem to show that the collection
1 On the death of John XXII., they were enjoined by the
King to retain the moneys in their hands and not to transmit
them. Rymer, Fadera, ii. 899.
2 Growth of English Industry and Commerce (1896), i. p. 395,
86
Alien Immigrants
►
of papal revenue remained in their hands; this would be
in accordance with the practice of the papal administra-
tion generally.¹ It is more curious to find, however, that
certain Florentines retained such cordial relations with
the King, that they looked to him for protection when they
were attacked by Gregory XI.2 Edward extended the
necessary protection to them as "nostros servos proprios
et veros," and secured their liberty "ad opus nostrum
mercandisare, et commodum nostrum inde facere." We
still find Italians in the city after his time, but they were
no longer leaders in English finance; and when we look
at their dealings as merchants we shall find that they
were doing an entirely different business in the fifteenth
century from that which they had pursued in the
thirteenth.
ii. Commerce.
17. Commercial connections are more likely than any
other side of economic life to be influenced by political
relationships; this was very noticeable during the four-
teenth century. The political ambitions of Edward
III. may possibly have been shaped to some extent by
practical commercial considerations; but it is at least
clear that the continental schemes, which he cherished,
helped to determine the conditions of commerce and the
terms on which certain aliens were received in this
country. Edward III., in asserting a title to the Crown of
France, claimed to be sole ruler over the men of Gascony;
1 Gottlob, Aus der Camera, 109.
2 Rymer, Fœdera, iii. 1050,
3 lbid., iii. 1071,
The Later Middle Ages
87
he claimed also to be suzerain over the dukes of
Burgundy, and therefore over Flanders and Brabant.
The men of the Low Countries, like those of the south-
west of France, were treated as subjects of the English
Crown, though they were foreign to English soil, like
natives of India in the present day. Edward's commercial
policy was, on the whole, dictated by the desire to
propitiate the Flemings and the Gascons, so that he might
obtain their support as allies or subjects in securing the
recognition of his title to the Crown. The precise form
which commercial hostility to aliens took at this period
may be said to have turned on this fact; for the London
citizens and other Englishmen desired to restrict the
privileges which the King was ready to afford to alien
subjects of the Crown.
1
This may be easily illustrated by reference to the
branch of trade to which allusion has already been made,-
the export trade in wool. Special privileges in the matter
of purchasing wool were accorded to the Flemish towns,
as the Staple for wool was held at Bruges,2 to the advan-
tage of that town, but to the inconvenience of the country
purchasers and of Italian merchants, and therefore to
the loss of the English grower. But this was not a
lasting evil; the organisation of the Staple at Calais, as an
1 This policy seems to have been dictated by such considera-
tions, though the privileges conferred on aliens in 25 Ed. III.,
3, c. 2., were not confined to his continental subjects.
2 Rot. Parl., ii. 149 (5), 165 (10), 202 (13). Henry III. and
Edward I. had previously given special protections to Flemings
who visited England to buy wool. Diegerick, Inventaire, No.
52, 102, 176.
88
Alien Immigrants
ordinary thing, and the development of the English cloth
manufacture changed the conditions of trade; and the
special privileges of the Flemings were not continued.
With the Gascons the matter was different; from
time immemorial wine had been the chief commodity
imported into the country, and so soon as the political
connection with Gascony was cemented, the trading
relations with that vine-growing region seem to have been
developed. The question of the status of the Gascon
merchants in London was a matter of dispute in the time
of Henry III. They, in common with other alien
merchants, were favoured by his successor. In the
provisions issued for the regulation of the trade in wool
and skins in 1291, Edward I. enjoined the people of the
towns appointed as marts to abstain from all molestation of
merchant strangers; he further ordered that those of Gas-
cony and Guienne, who were under his obedience, should be
treated as denizens.' In London special opportunity was
afforded for the enforcement of this policy in consequence
of the ill-judged conduct of the mayor and aldermen.²
The mayor had been ordered to appear before the Lord
Treasurer, but did not come in his official capacity. For
this contempt he was deprived of office, and from 1285 to
1298 the King appointed the civic officers. In 1290 the
Londoners begged for the restoration of their rights, and
pointed out the loss which resulted from the prolonged
1 Hist. MSS. Commission: Report XIV., Appendix VIII. p. 6.
2 Noorthouck, History of London, p. 59.
The city was
³ Delpit, Collection, p. 1xx., Introduction.
allowed its liberties from 1298.
The Later Middle Ages
89
2
stay of merchants, who absorbed most of the retail trade,
and thereby impoverished the citizens.¹ Ten years later
the Gascon merchants obtained a charter; they were
allowed to have their own cellars, and this the City
authorities seem to have regarded as reasonable, though
they complained of the permission accorded to the Gascons
to live together and have their own table. The City
authorities contended that alien merchants should live
with hosts in London, an arrangement which was con-
venient both for commercial and police purposes, and this
point was reaffirmed by the charter given to London in
1327.3 From this time onwards there was frequent change
in regard to the disputed privileges of selling by retail,
and of aliens selling to one another. But in the time of
Richard II. the English citizens finally triumphed, and
secured the advantages for which they had been con-
tending.
It has been pointed out above that the success of the
English in other departments of commerce and finance
appears to be connected with the reorganization of the
Staple, and the formation of the Grocers' Company.
There need to be less hesitation in treating the incorpo-
ration of the Free Vintners as of fundamental importance
in connection with this trade.4 The company seems to
have consisted of those wine merchants, whether Gascons
1 Rot. Parl., i. 55.
2 Delpit, Collection, 1xx., lxxix. For Edward II. see also
Delpit, lxxix., xc., xci., xcii., c., ci.; and Brissaud, Les Anglais
en Guyenne, 169.
³ Noorthouck, History of London, p. 785.
4 Stow, Survey, ii., v. 282. Rymer, Fadera, iii. 742.
90
Alien Immigrants
or Englishmen, who were free to trade in the city of
London, and they possessed exclusive rights against other
aliens. The arrangements for the regulation of trade are
very complicated, as account had to be taken both of the
prices of wines, the measuring 2 of wines, and the form
in which the merchants might make their returns to
Gascony.3
1
The policy of Edward III. told against English subjects;4
and, if we may trust the complaints in Parliament, the
navy of the realm declined at the end of his reign.5 It is
in connection with the Gascony trade that we find the
first of the navigation acts 6 which were fraught with so
much importance in the later struggles of our country.
Wine was to be shipped exclusively in English ships;
even though the limitation seems to have affected the
amount imported, to have raised the price and dimin-
ished the customs, it was maintained with more or less
consistency in subsequent times.
Besides these legal restrictions, there were other changes
in trade, which told to the disadvantage of Gascon mer-
chants. Like other aliens, they had undisputed rights to
1 27 Ed. III. st. i.
cc. 5, 7. 2 Rot. Parl., ii. 279 (34).
3
³ 42 Ed. III. c. 8. See the Vintners' Charter, Rymer, Fadera,
iii. 742. This point introduced a complication with the Drapers,
who were incorporated at the same time.
4 27 Ed. III. i. cc. 5, 6, 7, subsequently altered by 38 Ed. III.
i. c. 11, re-enforced 42 Ed. III. c. 8, and again repealed 43 Ed.
III. c. 2.
5 Rot. Parl., ii. 306 (31), 307 (30), 307 (32), 311 (20), 314 (46), 332
(59). On Edward III.'s naval power and policy see W. L. Clowes,
The Royal Navy (1897), pp. 230–289.
6 5 R. II., i. 3; 6 R. II., i. 8; 14 R. II., c. 6.
The Later Middle Ages
91
trade in fairs; but they were brought into conflict with
civic privileges if they attempted to carry on dealings with-
in chartered towns. There is ample evidence that, towards
the close of the fourteenth century, the great fairs were of
less importance than formerly, and that business was
being concentrated within the towns,-at what we may
call regular, instead of occasional, marts. It is not alto-
gether easy to account for a phenomenon which meets us
on all sides; we find, on the one hand, an immense number
of grants for new fairs, together with complaints of the
decline of old ones at Richmond, Bristol, Winchester, and
elsewhere. It is possible that there was a mere sub-
division of the business that had hitherto been drawn to
particular points. But this will scarcely suffice as a
complete explanation. The distressed state of the rural
districts after the Black Death may have affected the
convenience of travelling, while the government disliked
excuses for the assembly of a discontented peasantry. But
it seems not unlikely that when wool was bought for use
within the country, it never got to the fairs at all, and
that the opportunities they afforded for the sale of raw
produce and purchase of supplies were less needed than in
former times. The great fairs in the eastern part of
France were decaying about the same period; but their
decline was obviously due to the influence of the Hundred
Years' War; still it is quite possible that their failure
re-acted on some of the English fairs as well. Whatever
the reasons may have been, the alien merchants found a
less satisfactory market than before, in the marts where
they had full privileges; they were therefore forced to
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Alien Immigrants
carry on their business under the conditions imposed on
them in the towns.1
18. The obligation to reside in the houses of English-
men was in itself onerous; so far as London was concerned
it was imposed on alien merchants by the statute of
Edward I.,2 for the government of the city; none but
citizens were to have hostelries for the reception of
foreigners. This system was enforced in other towns as
well; we hear of hostelers and hostmen, especially in
1 Compare the complaints of the French merchants towards
the end of the fifteenth century (Schanz, Englische Handelspolitik,
ii. 525); they might buy from or sell only with burgesses of
London or Bristol and might not buy in Blackwell Hall, where
the provincial drapers came. Also the grievances of the Han-
sards in regard to the Assize of Wine and Salt in London. Ibid.,
ii. 402.
2 13 Ed. I. Stat. Civitatis Lond.
"Whereas divers persons do resort unto the city, some from parts
beyond the sea, and others of this land, and do there seek shelter and
refuge, by reason of banishment out of their own country, or who for
great offence or other misdeeds have fled from their own country, and
of these some do become brokers, hostelers and innkeepers within the
saide city, for denizens and strangers, as freely as though they were good
and lawful men of the franchise of the city;
It is provided that
no man of foreign lands or other person whatsoever shall be a resident
innkeeper or hosteler in the city, unless he be a freeman of the city,
admitted and at farm before the Warden and Mayor and the Alderman as a
good man and true, that he hath well and lawfully departed and that he
find pledges justiceable before the bailiffs of the city to be answerable
to the King's peace and to save the citizens and the city harmless."
This same policy was enforced for the whole realm under Henry IV.
5 Hy. IV. 9. "It is ordained and established that in every city, town
or port of the sea in England, where the said merchant aliens or strangers
be or shall be repairing, sufficient hosts be assigned to the same merchants
by the Mayor, Sheriff, or bailiffs of the said cities, towns and ports of the
sea, and that the said merchants aliens and strangers shall dwell in no
other place, but with their said hosts so to be assigned."
•
•
The Later Middle Ages
93
Yarmouth and in Newcastle; attempts were made to
render the rule less oppressive by insisting that reasonable
rates should be charged for victuals; but though the
state professed to control the hostelers, it also made use.
of them as its agents for some important purposes. In the
time of Edward III. they were utilised as searchers,² who
were to see that English coin was not carried out of the
realm, and at a later date they were required to exercise
a complete supervision over all the trade of their "hosts.” 3
An attempt was made to meet the outcry against aliens
which had found expression in the Libelle of Englyshe
Polycyc. In 1439 it was decreed that all merchants should
be under the surveyance of hosts assigned them by the
mayors of the towns they visited. Every alien must pre-
sent himself within three days of his arrival, to have a
host assigned him; these hosts were to be Englishmen born,
good and credible persons, expert in merchandise, but not
exercising the same kind of merchandise as the aliens.
under their supervision, and they were to be privy to all
the transactions of the aliens under their charge. In
particular they were to see that they bought goods to the
full amount of the value of the goods imported, after their
necessary expenses were defrayed. This stringent measure
was allowed to expire eight years after it was passed, and
it does not appear to have been enforced stringently during
1 31 Edward III. st. ii.
29 Edward III. st. ii. c. 11.
3 The word is used indifferently of householders (hostelers)
and of foreigners visiting them. Dendy, Merchant Adventurers of
Newcastle (Surtees Soc.), vol. xciii. pp. xxxi. xxxii.
94
Alien Immigrants
the period when it was operative; but returns remain for
London and for Southampton which give most interesting
information as to the number of the aliens, and as to the
precise articles in which they traded.¹ In the six months.
from Easter to Michaelmas, 1440, two hundred and forty-
seven applications were made to the mayor; in the year from
October 1443 to October 1444, there were 185 fresh appli-
cations in London. The Genoese appear to have resented
this new interference especially; but others, like the
Hanse Merchants, escaped from it altogether.
The hostmen of Newcastle appear to have undergone a
curious development, for which it is not quite easy to
account. They figure in the sixteenth century as a cor-
poration who had powers in regard to the export of coals,
and insisted that they had exclusive rights in connection
with this branch of trade. It seems possible that they
had, despite the restrictions of the statute, acted as
brokers in the purchase of coals for export by aliens, and
had thus acquired a dominant position in the trade. At
any rate it may be said that their monopoly was regarded
as a usurpation, for though they were allowed to enjoy it,
they were forced to admit the members of other misteries
to their fellowship.
19. So much of the trade with Germany and the Low
Countries was concentrated at Calais, or was carried on
by the Hansards, that there is a very large predominance
of Italians among the aliens who are enumerated as visit-
1 Guiseppi, in Trans. Royal Hist. Soc., N. S., ix. 96 and 97.
2 Dendy, Merchant Adventurers of Newcastle. (Surtees Soc., vol.
xciii. p. xxxii.) Brand, Hist. of Newcastle, vol. ii. 662.
The Later Middle Ages
95
ing this country; it is instructive to notice, however,
that the Italians resident in this country in the fifteenth
century, were engaged in very different callings from those
which had occupied their energies in the preceding cen-
turies. The causes which had led to their relinquishing
woolstapling and banking have been sufficiently indi-
cated; but the development of the new and direct trade
between Italy and England is a matter of considerable
interest. The Venetian galleys had begun their regular
trade with Flanders in 1317;1 and the interruption to the
overland trade through France, which was caused by the
Hundred Years' War, forced mercantile communication to
be increasingly carried on by the sea route. The Venetians
were not always welcome in England; and after a serious
riot at Southampton, the occasional visits of the fleet were
for a time suspended. After 1392, however, the competi-
tion of the Genoese forced the Venetians to come to terms
with England and to include one or other of the Channel
ports in their regular route from Portugal to Flanders.
We hear a great deal of their import trade, and of
the useless luxuries which they carried to this country;
England was brought into direct contact with the pro-
ducts of those luxurious arts which had been preserved in
the East and partly transferred to Italian towns. The
difficulties which were felt in regard to the statute of
" employment" 2 appear to be inconsistent with the ordi-
nary English boast that our products were necessary to
1 Cunningham, op. cit., i. 425 n.
2 The obligation of purchasing English goods with money
obtained by the sale of foreign cargoes in this country.
96
Alien Immigrants
the prosperity of other nations. Some of the foreigners
bought a little wool for export to Flanders; and Italian
agents were largely engaged in buying up English cloth
for export, on terms that were said to be unfavourable to
the simple-minded natives.
"The grette galleys of Venees and Fflorence
Be wel ladene with thynges of complacence,
Alle spicerye, and of grocers ware,
Wyth swete wynes, alle manere of chaffare,
Apes, and japes and marmasettes taylede,
Trifles, trifles that litelle have availede
And thynges wyth whiche they fetely blere oure eye,
With thynges not enduryng that we bye.
Ffor moche of thys chaffare that is wastable
Mighte be forborne for diere and dyssevable.
A
Thus these galeise for this lyknge ware,
And etyng ware, bere hens our best chaffare,
Clothe, woole and tynne, whiche as I saide before,
Oute of this londe werste myghte be forborne.
For eche other londe of necessite
Have grete neede to by some of the thre,
And we resseyve of them into this cooste
Ware and chaffare that lyghtlye wol be loste."2
The Genoese trade was regarded with more favour than
that of the Venetians, because we were enabled by its
means to procure the materials necessary for the dressing.
of cloth; but on the whole, these merchants are pictured
as purveyors of useless luxuries, who interfered with the
prosperity of the country by ministering to unproductive
consumption.
¹ Compare e.g. the poem temp. Ed. IV. in Political Songs (Rolls
Series), ii. 161: Libelle of Englyshe Polycye.
2 Libelle of Englyshe Polycye, in Political Songs (R. S.), ii. 173.
See also the Ensampelle of Deseytte p. 174.
The Later Middle Ages
97
20. Under these circumstances there can be little sur-
prise that they suffered severely, not only from the
increasing competition of English traders, but from the
pressure put upon them by government, and still more,
perhaps, from the collusion of government officials with
the merchants engaged in trade.¹
1
-
The complaint of the Hansards in 1491 may be taken
as a typical instance of these charges. It was alleged
that the customers informed English merchants of the
contents of the alien ships, so that the former, acting on
this knowledge, were able to get a better market for their
goods; and also that the customers made unnecessary
delays in sealing the cloths exported by aliens, so that
the Englishmen arrived earlier and made the best sales
at continental marts. There were also complaints, on the
part of Antwerp merchants, of excessive capitation taxes,
of like those levied by Turks on Christian pilgrims, and
vexatious exactions on their goods, both in connection
with the discharge of their vessels and the packing of
their returns.3 The mutual recrimination as to the relative
treatment of Englishmen in foreign parts, may be left on
one side; the policy which was pursued in England to-
wards aliens was similar to that in vogue in other
countries at the time. It is sufficient to notice that
during this century it had the intended effect; there is
no reason to suppose that the total volume of trade de-
H
1 This complaint is confirmed by 20 H. VI. c. 5, which pro-
hibits customers from engaging in trade.
Schanz, Englische Handelspclitik, ii. 403: arts. 16, 17.
³ Id., ibid., ii. 180–2 (1–9),
98
Alien Immigrants
clined, but a larger and larger proportion of the existing
trade was gradually transferred into the hands of natives
from those of aliens.
Besides enduring these grievances in connection with
their trade, the alien merchants had also to contribute
directly to the taxation of the country. In the time of
Edward III. the principle was established, as against
the Lombards in the city of London,¹ that those who
resided in the country for more than forty days should
have a proportional share of the burdens which fell on
denizens. Nearly a century later times had so far changed,
that the aliens, instead of enjoying special exemption,
were charged with a special subsidy; sixteenpence was
imposed on alien householders in 1439, and the tax was
levied for five years in succession." In 1448-49 the
grant was renewed, but it became a more discriminating
duty; hitherto the natives of Wales and Ireland had been
exempted, as well as those of the Channel Islands (in
1442); but in 1448, the King's subjects of Guienne and
Gascony were also freed from the burden, while a specially
heavy tax was levied on Italians of all sorts, Catalonians,
Hansards and Prussians. In 1453 the rates on alien
merchants, householders, and their clerks and factors,
were increased to 40s. and 20s. respectively. This state
of affairs appears to have continued throughout the reign
of Henry VI.; but when a similar grant was made to
3
1 Rot. Parl., ii. 137 (13).
2 Rot. Parl. v. p. 6, and v. pp. 38, 39. It was for three years in
1439, and for two in 1442.
3 Guiseppi, Royal Hist. Soc. Trans., N. S., ix., pp. 91, 92.
The Later Middle Ages
$9
Edward IV., the merchants of Italy were exempted from
its operation.¹ Considering the obligations of Edward to
the Hansards, and the stringent policy which was being
taken against the Italians in other ways, this exemption
is extraordinary.
The Italian merchants had been temporarily expelled
from London in 1456, in consequence of a riot at the
time; 2 and under Edward IV. and Richard III. there
were several enactments which must have very seriously
affected the import trade of which we hear so much in
the Libelle. There was a stringently protective measure
in 1463 3 which prohibited the introduction of all those
sorts of finished goods in which Italian workmen excelled.
If it was at all successfully enforced, it must have seriously
interfered with the profits of trade; and it almost seems
strange that any Italian merchants should have continued
to carry on their calling amid such difficulties. Their
troubles appear to have culminated in the time of Richard
III.; while Henry VII. repealed some of the restrictions.
which had been placed upon them. Their final collapse
was not due to petty persecution, but to the larger causes.
which revolutionised the course of the world's trade. The
consolidation of France, and reopening of traffic across the
country, must have told against them to some extent; but
the discovery of the new routes to the East, which di-
verted the main lines of commerce from Italy altogether,
1 Guiseppi, Royal Hist. Soc. Trans., ix. p. 93.
2 Id., Ibid., ix. p. 94.
9 3 Ed. IV. cc. 3 and 4.
Uor M
100
Alien Immigrants
was of even greater importance. The final scene in the
story was sufficiently dramatic. The last of the Venetian
galleys was wrecked off the Needles in 1587.
iii. Industry.
21. The alien merchants left a deep and permanent
influence here, though many of them were so slightly
attached to this country as hardly to be immigrants in the
strict sense of the term. Their home ties and family con-
nections were for the most part on the Continent; the
deep-seated jealousy with which they were regarded was
to some extent due to the fact that they came here only to
make money, and not to cast in their lot with the country.
The antipathy which is felt for the Chinese in San Fran-
cisco, in so far as it is economic and not racial, is partly
due to the same feeling. The alien who enriched himself
in our land, and then returned with his wealth to his own
country, was the least popular of all aliens.
When we turn, however, from finance and commerce
to industry, there is no longer any room for this cause of
complaint; the alien who came to this country in order to
carry on weaving or any other industrial art, came here to
stay; he was not a mere bird of passage. There were all
sorts of other grounds on which he might be unpopular,
but that was not one of them. He came to this country,
and brought his skill with him, and threw in his lot, for
himself and his children, with a country in which he had
not been born.
It must not be forgotten that in the time of Edward
III., the wealth of England cousisted almost entirely of
Maou
The Later Middle Ages
IOI
raw products, and that her industry was but little
advanced. She was rich in wool, and corn, and coal; all
three were to some extent exported. There was also a
considerable trade in hides and in tin; her artisans were
able to supply the home market with substantial wares of
every kind; but the finer and more attractive goods were
brought from abroad, and there was but little sale for Eng-
lish manufactures in foreign parts. Edward III. took a
statesmanlike view of the commerce of his empire, in his
attitude towards Flanders and Gascony; but he may also
be credited with a far-seeing policy so far as England is
concerned. He may be said to have been the first states-
man who deliberately set himself to transform this
country, which was wealthy in its natural products, into
one which should be renowned for its manufactures; he
left the English navy weak, for in the later years of his
reign his policy proved inimical to this special interest;
but he may be said to have taken the first steps to render
this country the workshop of the world.
This statement must not of course be put forward too
absolutely; it is obvious enough that there had been a
considerable immigration of skilled workmen before his
time; it is obvious too that efforts had been made to
regulate and protect the home industry. Edward did not
introduce the manufacture of textiles; and the expedients
which he adopted for encouraging it, were no longer novel
in his time. But he may be credited with a conscious
effort to improve our trade, and the wisdom to do it in the
right way; not merely by protective legislation, but by
the introduction of those who had carried the art to a
102
Alien Immigrants
higher degree of perfection. Protection, by itself, may be
a barrier to improvement, and may hinder energy and
enterprise; Edward's legislation provided favourable con-
ditions so as to attract those who could improve the
manufacture.
It may also be said that there was real wisdom in the
direction he gave to national industry. There was a
temptation for a king, such as Edward appears to have
been, to foster the industries that were of special advan-
tage in connection with courtly requirements; to substi-
tute the native manufacture for the importation of articles
of luxury. This was a policy which was deliberately pur-
sued under court influence, at a later time in France, ¹ and
to some extent as we shall see in Scotland; but Edward's
main effort was to provide for the successful working up of
the materials provided within the country itself; it
established the leading English industry on the basis
which, as Adam Smith afterwards contended, 2 affords the
natural foundation of rural and industrial prosperity.
1
22. In pursuance of his policy, Edward III. looked to
Flanders as the source whence skilled labour might be
drawn. The intercourse between England and Flanders
had been frequent; from the order issued to local author-
ities throughout England in 1270,3 and again in 1315, for the
1 Pigeonneau, Histoire du Commerce de la France (1885), pp. 422,
423.
2 Wealth of Nations, iii., c. iii.
3 Henry III.'s two letters in 1270, at the time when the wool
trade with Flanders was interrupted, are of interest. In the
first he instructs the mayors to proclaim "that all workers of
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103
expulsion of all Flemings, except those who had married
denizens,¹ it seems justifiable to infer that they had settled.
here in some numbers. At the beginning of Edward III.'s
reign the two countries were complementary to each other
as regards economic conditions; English policy and oppor-
tunities conduced to an influx of artisans, while the quarrels
and disturbances in the Low Countries had done much to
render migration less formidable to the Flemish weavers.
In 1328, five hundred weavers and five hundred fullers
were compelled to leave Ypres for three years and settle in
France as hostages; and in 1344, the prime movers in a
disturbance, which occurred at Poperinghe, were banished
to England for three years.2 The merchant companies in
the great Flemish towns were unfriendly in their attitude
to the craftsmen, while the population of the towns was
also hostile to the workmen who lived in country districts
and in the suburbs. These local jealousies were chiefly
important, because they interposed obstacles to weavers in
obtaining a regular wool supply. Migration to England.
woollen cloth, male and female, as well of Flanders as of other
lands, may safely come into our realm, there to make cloth ";
they were to be quit of toll and tallage for five years. A month
later he issued an order that all Flemings should at once leave
the realm, with the exception of "those workmen, who with our
leave shall come into our realm to make cloths, and those in like
manner excepted who have married wives in our realm, and
who have lands and certain domiciles therein, and whom we
deem to be native born." Riley, Chronicle of the Mayors and
Sheriff's, pp. 142, 113.
1 Rymer, Fadera, ii. 277.
2 Diegerick, Inventaire des Chartres d'Ypres, ii. p. 135. No. 527.
104
Alien Immigrants
would remove this difficulty, while in other respects Eng-
land would appear a haven of rest. The policy of the
Crown towards towns had always been generous; Edward
I. in particular had distinguished himself by his energy in
developing municipal life in new centres; and on the other
hand, the capitalist and mercantile class had not attained
such power in England, that artisans had occasion to fear
oppressive restrictions. Conflicts, analogous to those in
the Flemish towns, were to appear in the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries in England, but they were not a prac-
tical danger in the fourteenth.
England was not yet suffering from the ills which
arise in a complicated and wealthy civilisation, as the
Flemish towns were doing; but it is instructive to notice
that in some respects she was in advance of other lands.
The royal authority was well established; there was
frequent immunity from civil war, and comparative se-
curity in which to practise the arts of peace. But more
than that, there was to some extent a national machinery
for the regulation and promotion of industry; in Flanders
the whole was strictly municipal; but in England the
aulnager was a national officer, and the weaver, who
lived in any part of the realm, could have the sufficiency
of his cloth duly attested. Local gilds were for the most
part unnecessary, so far as the maintenance of skill and
quality were concerned, when the matter was cared for
by royal authority; while the alien settlers (in the four-
teenth century) had sufficient access to fairs, for the
purchase of materials and the sale of their cloth. The
weavers could settle in almost any part of the country
The Later Middle Ages
105
and prosecute their calling under sufficient supervision.¹
The object of encouraging them to come was only fully
attained, in so far as they were dispersed through dif-
ferent parts of the country and did not form a class by
themselves, as was done by the earlier and to some extent
by the later immigrants, but mingled with the rest of
the community, and planted the skill which they them-
selves possessed. We shall see how far these conditions
were complied with.
The earliest letter of protection 2 on behalf of John.
1 That industry should be pursued without any supervision,
and as the individual pleases, is a modern idea; the mediæval
problem was how to provide the right supervision. It is at
least doubtful if the laissez faire scheme would have tended so
successfully to the improvement of the trade generally through-
out the country.
2 See plate. Pat. 5 Ed. III., p. 2, m. 25. Pro Johanne Kempe
de Flandria de protectione. Rex omnibus ballivis, &c. ad quos,
&c. salutem Sciatis quod, cum Johannes Kempe de Flandria,
textor pannorum laneorum, infra regnum nostrum Angliæ,
causa mesteri sui inhibi excercendi, et illos, qui inde addiscere
voluerint, instruendi et informandi, accesserit moraturus, et
quosdam homines et servientes, ac apprenticios de mestero illo
secum adduxerit; Suscepimus ipsum Johannem, homines, ser-
vientes, et apprenticios suos prædictos, ac bona et catalla sua
quæcumque, in protectionem et defensionem nostram specialem.
Et ideo vobis mandamus quod ipsum Johannem, homines, servi-
entes et apprenticios suos predictos, ac bona et catalla sua predicta
manuteneatis protegatis et defendatis, et eundem Johannem
mesterum suum predictum infra idem regnum tam in civita-
tibus et burgis quam alibi in eodem regno ubi pro commodo suo
melius viderit expedire, absque impedimento aliquo libere ex-
cercere ac illos qui de mestero predicto addiscere voluerint
instruere et informare absque calumpnia aliqua permittatis.
Non inferentes eis vel inferri permittentes injuriam, moles-
tiam, dampnum aut gravamen. Et si quid eis forisfactum
106
Alien Immigrants
Kemp in 1331 is perfectly general in character; it is
addressed to all bailiffs, etc., and applies not only to the
individual named, together with his servants and ap-
prentices, but to all other men of the weavers' mistery,
or fullers or dyers who might desire to come to England
from the parts beyond the seas.¹ It seems as if Edward
expected that there would be a large migration of those
who had attached themselves to the English interest in
Flanders. It has been surmised that those early weavers
selected the neighbourhood of Cranbrook, in Kent,³ for their
manufacture; but tradition assigns the eastern counties,
and especially the neighbourhood of Norwich, as the dis-
trict where many of these weavers settled. Half a cen-
tury later there were Flemings in Norfolk, who seem to
have been recent arrivals; and an explanation of certain
actions of the rioters at the time of the Peasants' Revolt
may be that the hatred which instigated them was partly
aroused by industrial rivalry. A band of the city insur-
gents, headed by a man from Lynn, entered Snettisham,
fuerit id eis sine dilatione faciatis emendari. Promittimus enim
nos aliis hominibus de mestero illo, ac tinctoribus et fullonibus,
venire volentibus de partibus transmarinis, ad morandum infra
idem regnum nostrum ex causa præmissa, consimiles literas
nostras de protectione fieri facere debere. In cujus, &c. quamdiu
Regi placuerit duraturas Teste Rege, apud Lincoln, xxiii. die
Julii.
1 In 1337 there was a similar letter on behalf of a body of
weavers from Zealand, fifteen of whom are mentioned by name.
Rymer, Fadera, ii. 969.
2 Delpit, Collection, clxviii. It is commonly said, e.g. by Fuller
and others, that he sent emissaries to induce them to come.
3 Furley, Weald of Kent (1871), vol. ii. pp. 325, 330.
4 Longman, Life of Edward III. (1869), i. 87.
The Later Middle Ages
107
3
4.
with the deliberate intention of killing any Flemings
they might succeed in finding;¹ while others put to
death three foreigners whom they found imprisoned at
Yarmouth.2 But though the eastern counties were the
chief, they were not the only district in regard to which
we have documentary evidence of the immigration of
weavers; some of the aliens established themselves in
London, two weavers from Brabant obtained authority
to settle in York, while Thomas Blanket set up looms
and carried on the manufacture on a considerable scale
in Bristol.5 We have thus good evidence for connecting.
these immigrants with centres of the clothing trade
in divers parts of the country. The later immigrations
of destitute aliens were concentrated in the counties
nearest the coast, from which they were gradually
passed on; but those skilled artisans, invited here
under royal patronage, appear to have made their way
to the neighbourhood of the wool-growing districts.
There is perhaps least evidence of their presence in the
appropriate part of the island, which lay closest to the
continent, the Surrey and Sussex downs, which supplied
wool for the Guildford cloth. But we shall hardly be
wrong in ascribing to them the main influence in the great
development which had taken place in all districts by
the time of Edward IV. The statute of 4 Edward IV.
1 Edgar Powell, The Rising in East Anglia (1896), pp. 61, 135; at
Lowestoft one of the leaders, Richard Ressh, was a Dutchman,
Ib., p. 24.
2 Id., ibid., p. 32.
4 Ibid., ii. 954.
3 Rymer, Fœdera, iii. 23.
5 Ibid., ii. 1098.
108
Alien Immigrants
is an interesting record of the state of the trade in his
time; it not only throws light on the method in which
the manufacture was organised, but, along with other
legislation of the period, it shows that it was regularly
established, and cloths of distinct makes were being pro-
duced in Kendal, Guildford, Norfolk and the eastern
counties and Devonshire. How far the varieties were due
to differences in the traditional practice of the art, or to
the peculiarities of the wools of the several districts, cr
to differences of local taste, we cannot say; but there is
no difficulty in supposing that the immigrants would be
able to adapt themselves to the special circumstances
of the places where they were established.
In so far as these new immigrants settled in towns,
there was reason to fear that they would be the victims
of the jealousy of local weavers. The London weavers
enjoyed chartered privileges, and paid a ferm to the
Crown; they could not be expected to welcome the in-
trusion of skilled competitors; and a special letter of
protection had to be issued on behalf of the aliens there.
So too in Bristol; the operations of Thomas Blanket and
his employees were seriously interfered with by the
townsmen;¹ but those who settled in villages, or rural
districts, would have no such difficulty to contend with.
Pursuing a trade, the products of which were to be sold.
in the neighbouring towns, they could not interfere with
the domestic manufacture of homespun cloth for wear;
they would buy up wool, and give out spinning, and spend
1 Rot. Farl., ii. 449 (110).
The Later Middle Ages
109
money in the place. Fuller's picture of the weaver in
the yeoman's household may be a fancy one;¹ but in its
main features it is highly probable, for it implies that
there was almost at once a complete intermingling of
the new elements with the old. Nor is it at all likely
that these weavers attempted to keep their arts to them-
selves; the common complaint in the beginning of the
fifteenth century that children were withdrawn from
agriculture is hardly consistent with any such reluctance
on their part; in some of the towns there was a difficulty
in securing a sufficient number of apprentices. It is
clear that there was no artificial hindrance to instructing
native Englishmen in weaving according to improved
methods. We are justified in inferring, not only that
this industry was widely diffused through the country,
but that the newcomers trained up a considerable popu-
lation who were competent to perpetuate the trade.
It must be admitted that definite evidence, which
would enable us to be certain that the great development
of the trade as exhibited in the time of Edward IV. was
due to the alien immigrants in the time of Edward III.,
is sadly lacking. We are forced to rely for the most
part on mere tradition; but it may be noticed, that in so
far as the new-comers were welcomed, and amalgamated
readily with the old population, it is necessarily less
easy to trace them than in other cases where they were
a disturbing element.
There is, however, one of these rural settlements of
¹ Church History of Britain (1845), ii. 285.
W
IIO
Alien Immigrants
which it is possible to follow out the history-the cloth
manufacture at Castle Combe, in Wiltshire. In the
middle of the fifteenth century Sir John Fastolfe pur-
chased more than a hundred pounds worth yearly of red
and white cloth of his tenants at Castle Combe.¹ It was
a large and flourishing industry, and had given occasion
for the rise of a hamlet of Nether Combe, distinct from
the older Over Combe, where the yeomen lived. But
we may infer from an extract of 1340, that the principal
weaving families had not then settled in the place. This
is confirmed by the statement of William of Wyrcester,
who visited the place in 1458, that "William Toker,
Huchecok Toker, and Thomas Toker, were the first in-
habitants who were artificers of wool and cloths here.” 3
These Toukers are mentioned in the Court Rolls of 1350
and 1380,4 while their names seem to indicate their
Flemish origin.
-
Even in a case like this, where the industrial popula-
tion formed a separate hamlet, they did not keep aloof
from the old inhabitants; for in 1435 William Heyne,
serf and clothier, died and left chattels estimated at
£2,000, on which the Lord of the Manor obtained a
handsome fine. The trade of this place seems to have
been introduced by aliens, but natives were soon able to
take advantage of it and profit by it.
1 Scrope, Castle Combe, p. 201.
2 Ibid., p. 3.
3 Ibid., p. 248. There is some evidence of Flemish settlers here
before this date; pp. 149, 204.
4 Ibid., pp. 160, 163. And Walter the Fuller is spoken of as
early as 1355; p. 160.
The Later Middle Ages
III
23. In connection with the earlier invasion of Flemish
artisans, an attempt was made to show that it is probable
that a definite type of industrial organization—the craft-
gild-was introduced by these weavers into England
from abroad; there is every reason to believe that the
new-comers from Flanders in the time of Edward III.,
were the pioneers of capitalistic production in England.
Capital had, of course, been engaged in commerce; and
there were small capitalists who undertook building
operations on contract, but a very large proportion of the
industry of the country was carried on with the help of
advances made by customers, or on materials which
customers furnished. In the cloth trade, however, as it
is depicted for us in the time of Edward IV., we find
the capitalist clothier, who supplied wool or yarn, paid
the employees, and traded in cloth; the workmen were
not brought together in factories, but the business was
analogous in type to that of a modern employer. The
clothier was probably able to buy materials to ad-
vantage, and to exercise a careful supervision over the
work he accepted from the hands and put upon the
market, while he also had an advantage in organizing
the different processes of the industry-spinning,
weaving, shearing, fulling, etc. Accordingly the statute ¹
of 1464 is directed against the abuses of capitalist
industry, and the petty oppression which could be
exercised by the wealthy clothiers. We might be
¹ 4 Edward IV. c. i. Only lawful money was to be paid in
wages, and due weight of wool was to be delivered to work-
people.
I12
Alien Immigrants
tempted to suppose that the whole of the trade was
conducted on capitalist lines; but we know from other
sources that this was not the case, and that the inde-
pendent craftsmen continued to survive in many regions.
Still it is clear that the capitalist organization, which has
gradually come to be universal in modern life, had already
developed itself to some extent in this branch of industry.
The gild regulations, which were concerned with the
good training of workmen and limited the number of
apprentices, were inconsistent with capitalist production;
they seemed to assume that the master was a house-
holder, and was responsible for the training and dis-
cipline of the members of his household.¹ But the
capitalist, who carried on his trade outside the sphere of
gild jurisdiction, was more free to do as he liked; national
regulation applied to the quality of the product, but not
at this period to the conditions of production. There
was, in the time of Edward III., freedom for the growth
of that capitalist organization of industry, of the exist-
ence of which we find evidence inthe time of Edward IV.
Nor is it possible to doubt that such men as John
Kemp and Thomas Blanket may be properly described as
capitalists; they came with their servants and appren-
tices, and they set up their looms for weaving: they do
¹ In this aspect the principle of the gild may be regarded as
that of mutual supervision through elected officials; and pro-
vision was made for the formation of weavers' gilds of this type
in Norfolk as late as the time of Henry VIII. The principle of
the capitalist organization of industry is supervision by an
employer.
The Later Middle Ages
113
2
not seem to have been mere artisans who migrated with
their own households. The expansion of the cloth manu-
facture was opening the way for a profitable cloth trade,
and we hear more and more of drapers and clothiers; the
connections between this branch of commerce and the
industrial employments were close and may have been
various. We might have artisans, whether shearmen
or others¹ rising in the world by engaging in the drapery
trade, or there might be clothiers who found it profitable
to become employers and superintend the production of
goods for the market; it is obvious that in the latter
part of the fifteenth century the capitalist organization
of the clothing trade was very common, and in one town
at least it had fitted itself into the company organiza-
tion. The clothiers of Worcester were a body of
capitalist cloth merchants who practically controlled the
terms of manufacture in the district, and the rules which
were accepted by the town authorities for the government
of the trade in 1497 are of considerable interest.3
1 Ashley, Economic History (1893) I., Pt. ii. 211, 212.
2 Charter of Drapers' Company in 1364. Herbert, Livery
Companies, i. 480.
3 Valentine Green, Worcester, II.; Appendix, p. xlvii. From
Liber Legum (1497).
"Making of Dagons and Mercery cloth."
"Also, that the wool weyght within the said citie called the spynnyng
weyght, excede not in all with the oyle and lust 3 pounds of the
weyght of avurdupoise, and that the said weight of three pounds be
ensealled according to the Kyng's standard upon peyn of 6s. 8d. of him
or hur that occupieth, to the cofur, to be paid to the baill: for the tyme
beyng as often tymes as hit may be provid, and to be further punnyshed
according to the statute. Item, hit is ordeined that the keper of the
yeldhall have the said spynnyg wyght, to the entent that evy person may
I
114
Alien Immigrants
From the provision against truck and the possibility
of frauds in the giving out of wool, as well as the permis-
sion to the weaver to make cloth for his own use, we see
have recourse and knowledge of the same for trouthe, and by the same
to mak them ther spynnyg wyght; and yf eny spynner fynds hur grevid
in the matter foreseid, that she come to the said keeper of the yeldhall,
and therupon, the weight seen and found defective, she shall have
remedy by the baills: and where hit is used and accustomed grete cloth
makyng to be hedd within the said citie and suburbs of the same, and so
occupied by grete parte of the people there dwellyng, that is to say
spynners, websters, dyers, shearmen, and other labourers or artificers
appertayning to the same, and where of late hit hath ben usid that to
divers of the said artificers by masters and makers of cloth, they shuld
non otherwise be contentid or paid but in mercery, vitayll, or by other
means, and not in silver, that hath growen to the grete hurte of all the
said artificers, laborers, and of the pore commonaltie: also hit is ordeyned
from hensfurth by the present yeld, that no maker, chapman, or siller of
cloth, paying to every artificer or laborer of the said citie for ther labor,
enything in chaffer, but redy money, and the said money by the said
artificer or laborer so taken in eny wise by color or threte of the maker,
chapman, or siller of cloth be not compelled for the said money to buy
ware of him, but be at his liberty to buy his ware with the same money
where hit pleasith him, and he or they that presume to do the contrary,
as often tymes as he or they be founden in defawte to pay 20s. half to
the baill: and half to the comons: and also hit is ordeined that all arti-
ficers that maketh cloth within this citie may make a dagon of clothe of
8 yards or within to sill where hit pleaseth him, provided that he
maketh not divers of them by cooyn, to the prejudice and hurte of the
draper's crafte; and that every artificer may make for hymself, his wife,
his children and menyal servants, as moche cloth as wull suffice and serve
them without eny agreement to the said crafte of drapers, provided that
yf eny cloth white or coloured mysfortune or before hurt or empared in
the myllyng, that the walker shall as he comyth from the mill wright hit
and sell hit to his most advantage and profit without any agreement to
be made to the said stewards of drapers' crafte; and yf eny person
occupyng cloth makyng sill or utter any cloth otherwise then ys above
rehersed then to be contributory to the drapers crafte: and that no
person inhabitant within the citie ne libertie of the same oppynly ne
covertly sill mercery, grocery, or haburdashery without he agree with
the stewards of the crafte, provided that evy man or woman denysyn
may sill linen cloth of their proper makyng without contradiction of eny
person."
The Later Middle Ages
115
that the capitalist type of industry in all its aspects was
supreme in this trade at Worcester at this date. That
business, even when thus organized on modern lines,
tended to migrate to new centres and freer conditions,¹ is
also an instructive fact; but so far as we can trace the
beginnings of the new type of organization, we may say
that they seem to have synchronised with the development
of the trade in the latter part of the fourteenth century,
and that the earliest "captains of industry" whom we
can identify by name were immigrants from Flanders.
24. The development of the cloth trade led naturally
to the further development of subsidiary employments,
such as the trades of shearmen, fullers, and dyers. We
can often trace these by the mention of fulling mills or
walk-mills, as well as by the growth of their organi-
zation, as at Coventry, or by the frequent allusion to
2
1 Statute for Worcester; 25 Henry VIII. c. 18.
2 The fulling mill on the Irk, the oil from which is said to
have made the citizens so fat, was estimated in 1282 as worth
26s. 8d.; but in 1320 its value had fallen one half. It is often
called in old documents the walke-mill, from the Flemish
walcken, to full. The fullers were called walkers, and their
piece of land connected with this mill on the bank of the Irk
was known as the Walkers' Croft till a few years ago. This
shows that Flemings were early dwellers in Manchester (Har-
land, Mamecestra, ii. 315). There are walk-mills at Dunfermline
and near Perth. In the time of Edward I. there was a fulling
mill at Bradford (Yorkshire). (James, History of Bradford, 275);
and one on the Colne, near Manchester, in the time of Edward II.
(Collectanea, Chetham Soc., lxviii., pt. i. 78). There was also a
fulling mill in Cambridge in 1353 (Cooper, Annals, i. 104), and
one at Leeds about the same date (Thoresby, Ducatus Leodensis,
78).
116
Alien Immigrants
one or other of the callings in towns like Cambridge,¹
where the trade was not organized; at the same time, it
cannot be said that these trades got a firm footing in the
country, for in the sixteenth century a large proportion
of English cloth was exported to the continent, undressed
and undyed. In other departments of industry we
appear to have relied on foreign skill. Aliens were
engaged at the Mint from time to time, there being be-
tween two and three hundred employed there under
Edward I., and Germans, miners, were brought by
Richard of Cornwall at the end of the thirteenth century,
to work at the Cornish mines.3 We hear of the sporadic
immigration of aliens who came to practise other trades
-of linen weavers 4 from Flanders and clockmakers 5
from Delft, under Edward III.; local tradition speaks of
Flemings as settled in South-East Lancashire in this same
reign, and attributes the introduction of clogs to them.
2
1 In a map of Cambridge (in Civitates Orbis Terrarum, 1573–1617,
Tom. i. pt. 2), the road which now connects King's Parade with
Market Place, passing on the left of Great St. Mary's, was called
Sherer's Row. Shearmen are frequently spoken of in the town's
history of the fifteenth century. Curiously enough the trade
had completely died out in the county in De Foe's time. It
is likely enough that cloth woven over a large area would be
brought to a common centre to be dressed.
2 Henry III. issued a writ for the introduction of foreign
moneyers. Pat. 31 Henry III. m. 3, quoted by Ruding, Annals of
the Coinage, i. 23.* For Italians at the Mint see Bond, Archæo-
logia, vol. xxviii. p. 233.
3 K. H. Schaible, Geschichte der Deutschen in England (1885),
p. 35.
4 Madox, Firma Burgi, 197.
5 Noorthouck, History of London, 72.
The Later Middle Ages
117
But it is not easy to be sure that all of these immigrants
had much effect on the industry of the country at large,
either at the time or in the future.
25. In the fifteenth century we have evidence of a
considerable immigration of artisans under somewhat
different conditions to those already described. They
came to manufacture those finer goods in which Eng-
lishmen were at the time unskilled; and the evidence
regarding the movement is almost entirely derived from.
the statutes that were passed to protect home industries.
The earliest measure of this kind was passed in 1455,
and was intended to protect the London silkwomen from
the competition of imported goods. On the face of it
there is nothing to show that these silk women were not
English, but there are one or two circumstances which
render it probable that they were the forerunners of this
type of alien immigrants. In the first place, the trade
was in itself a novelty in Western Europe; it had been
established at Lucca for some time, but it was not planted
in Florence till 1315, or in France till Louis XI. intro-
duced it at Tours in 1469.1 Silk throwing in England.
involved the importation of raw silk from abroad; and it
could hardly have sprung up as an indigenous art unless
immigrants had brought it here. Still further, as an
organized women's trade it may be regarded as an exotic
on English soil; women's gilds were common enough in
Paris in the thirteenth century, but in England they
1 Pigeonneau, Histoire du Commerce de la France (1885), pp. 415,
423.
118
Alien Immigrants
seem to have been unknown, and women had a compara-
tively unimportant position in the craft gilds and livery
companies. The material they used and the form of their
organization alike suggest that this body, on behalf of
which Henry legislated,¹ was of foreign origin, while it
is equally clear that they must have come from Italy or
the Levant. The experiment of protecting this trade.
was first made for a period of five years, and was re-
peated in subsequent reigns.2 It seems to afford an in-
stance of antagonism to alien merchants on behalf of alien
artisans settled in England."
But this protective policy soon produced unexpected
results. As early as the reign of Richard III. we find
evidence that alien artificers were flocking to this coun-
try. The merchants had been prevented from importing
finished goods from abroad; and this rendered it tempting
1 33 Henry VI. c. 5.
2 3 Ed. III. c. 3; 22 Ed. III. c. 3; 1 Rich. III. c. 10; 19 Henry
VII. c. 2.
3 This legislation on behalf of the silk women was explicitly
directed against the Lombards; but the Hansards claimed that
their chartered privileges permitted them to defy the prohibition.
They continued to import silk from Germany; but a royal
official forcibly entered the steelyard and destroyed some Cologne
silk which he found there; the body of London artisans who
agitated in favour of protection was much larger than the silk
workers could possibly have been. In 1456, the Italian mer-
chants were so insulted by the London shop-keepers and artisans
that they determined to withdraw altogether and to make Win-
chester the depôt for their trade (State Papers: Venetian, i. 339).
And during a temporary suspension of export trade, which
hampered the merchant adventurers in 1494, the London appren-
tices and journeymen, who were thrown out of work, attempted
unsuccessfully to destroy the steelyard altogether.
The Later Middle Ages
119
แ
1
to try and organize manufactures in this country by
introducing foreign hands. "Moreover," we read, a
great number of artificers and other strangers, not born
under the King's obeysance, do daily resort and repair
to the city of London, and other cities, boroughs and
towns of the said realm, and much more than they were
wont to do in times past, and inhabit by themselves in
the said realm with their wives, children and household,
and will not take upon them any labourious occupation,
as going to plough and cart, and other like business, but
use the making of cloth and other handicrafts and easy
occupations, and bring and convey, from the parts beyond
the sea, great substance of wares and merchandize to fairs
and markets, and all other places of this realm at their
pleasure, and there sell the same, as well by retail as
otherwise, as freely as any of the King's subjects use to
do, to the great damage and impoverishment of the King's
said subjects, and will in no wise suffer nor take any of
the King's said subjects to work with them, but they
take only into their service people born in their own
countries, whereby the King's said subjects, for lack of
occupation, fall into idleness, and be thieves, beggars,
vagabonds, and people of vicious living, to the great per-
turbance both of the King and of all his realm."
"Our sovereign lord the King, of his abundant grace,
¹ 1 R. III. c. 9. The preamble complains that they withdrew
when they had made money here. This may be true of the
Italian merchants, against whom the statute is mainly directed,
but is not likely to be true of the artificers who came here with
their wives and families.
120
Alien Immigrants
willing against the premisses to provide remedy in this
behalf, by the advice and assent of his lords spiritual and
temporal, and at the prayer of the Commons in the said
parliament assembled
hath ordained
that
no person not born under the King's obeysance, as before
is said, shall exercise or occupy any handicraft, not the
occupation of any handicraftsman in this realm of Eng-
land, but that all such persons which after the feast of
Easter shall come into this realm, and everyone of them,
shall depart into their own country again, or else be
servants to such of the King's servants only as be expert
and cunning in such feats, arts and crafts, which the
said strangers can occupy, upon pain of forfeiture of all
their goods which shall come and dwell within this
realm contrary to this act, in whose hands soever they
shall be found.”
•
•
It is impossible to doubt that immigration took place on
a considerable scale, and one or two definite illustrations
may be given from other places than London. In 1453
the inhabitants of Dinant complained that three copper-
founders had secretly left the town with their tools, and
had emigrated to England, and it was feared that the
industry they established there would flourish to the
consequent hurt of the trade which had hitherto been
carried on between Dinant and England in copper goods.¹
There was a grant to John de Salvo and Anthony Spy-
nile, allowing them to introduce foreign cloth-makers;
¹ Pirenne, Dinant (1889), pp. 94, 95, and 105.
2 Campbell, Materials for Reign Henry VII., vol. ii. pp. 134, 528
The Later Middle Ages
121
Spynile was a Southampton man, and both he and De
Salvo, though natives of England, were not improbably of
Italian origin.¹ Flemish workmen were established at
Seend in Wiltshire within a few years of this date, 2
while an Italian, Anthony Bonvis, obtained permission
to introduce an improved method of spinning into Devon-
shire.3 These contributed to our industrial progress.
Another alien of this period was the pioneer of the
Tudor voyages of discovery. John Cabot, an inhabitant
of Bristol, but a Genoese by birth, commanded the
first English expedition that reached the mainland of
America.4
26. We are fast approaching the time when the re-
ligious differences of the Reformation gave an entirely
new impulse to alien immigration. But there was another
purely economic influence which must yet be considered;
it preceded, and also continued to operate after the new
wave had set in. The discovery of America and the
importation of silver from the New World, had turned
attention all over Europe to the possibility of discovering
✔
¹ Many aliens obtained naturalisation about this time. Camp-
bell, Materials, ii. 512, 227, 287, 289, 318, 342, 378, 423. About a
dozen Frenchmen (shoemakers) settled in Dorset between 1496
and 1520, and others following various trades after 1521. These
were probably driven out of France by religious persecution, and
were naturalized in 1544. Westminster Denisation Roll, 36 Hy. VIII.
2 J. Aubrey, Topographical Collection for Wilts (Wiltshire
Archæol. and Nat. Hist. Soc., 1862), p. 301. Natural History of
Wilts (1847), p. 112.
3 Strype, Annals, p. 870: 20 Hy. VII.
4 It seems possible, however, that the family was not Italian,
but of Norman blood, and located in the Channel Islands. H.
Cabot Lodge, in Nineteenth Century, May, 1897, p. 734.
!
122
Alien Immigrants
the precious metals nearer home, while it had given a
great impulse to the metallurgical arts generally. France,
and especially Germany, were in advance of other coun-
tries of Europe in engineering and chemical science at the
beginning of the sixteenth century. Men from Brittany
were brought to work the tin mines of "St. Hersie" in
Cornwall; and Frenchmen from Croys were employed.
66 in moynes of iron, lead and other metals as well of the
King's highness as others of his faithful subjects by
virtue of a commission to one William Pexwell, merchant
of Bristol." 2
3
4
By the end of the century copper was being extensively
worked in Cornwall, at Treworthy, Perrin (Perran ?)
Sands, St. Just,5 and Logan; these mines were worked
by Dutchmen.7 Endeavours were made by Henry VIII.
to obtain the services of Germans in order to develop
the mineral resources of England. In 1528 Joachim
Hechstetter of Augsburg was appointed principal sur-
veyor and master of all mines in England and Ireland,
1 On Westminster Denisation Roll, 36 Hy. VIII. These men are
entered as "tynners." They had been in England for periods
varying from forty to twenty years.
2 Westminster Denisation Roll, 36 Hy. VIII., "in England 40
years," or a great space."
แ
3 State Papers Domestic, Eliz., clxiv. (4).
4 Ibid., clxviii. (13) and clxix. (16).
• Ibid., clxxi. (4).
7 Ibid., clxix. (16). A remonstrance from Sir T. Smith with
regard to high wages paid to Dutch miners, and a suggestion
that Cornishmen should be employed, as they work for less
charge.
8 Letters and Papers of the Reign of Hy. VIII., iv. 2, No. 5110.
5 Ibid., cxcv. (39), (50).
The Later Middle Ages
123
and was empowered to come over with six Germans and
start operations and to erect smelting - houses. This
appears to have led to little at the time, but his son
Daniel¹ became master of the royal mines in 1571. His
appointment appears to mark an epoch in the progress of
English mining. In the intervening period several other
Germans were brought over, partly in order to work at
the Mint, and partly for the sake of mining. Among
them was J. Kundelfinger 2 in 1550, and Daniel Ulstatt
of Augsburg and his partners.3 The prospect of success-
ful mining seemed to be favourable, both for gold, silver
and copper, and in 1563 a German mining company was
floated. This company of the royal mines, under the
direction of Thurland 5 and Hechstetter, started operations
at Keswick 6 and elsewhere in Cumberland, and sought
permission to bring in three or four hundred workmen."
4
↓
1 S. P. Foreign, Eliz., No. 2075. S. P. Dom., Eliz., xxxiv. (59),
xc. (48). Ehrenberg, Hamburg und England, p. 5, note 4.
2 S. P. Foreign, Ed. VI., Nos. 245, 273.
3 Burgon, Gresham, i. 355, 359.
4 S. P. Dom., Eliz., Addenda xi. (94). S. P. Dom., Eliz., xviii.
18.
5 Master of the Savoy. He appears to have been an energetic
promoter of mining enterprise, but he relied on German skill, and
German labour. The space at my disposal does not allow me to
make full use of the materials in regard to the mining for silver,
gold, iron, copper, etc., which was attempted by foreigners in
different parts of England in the earlier part of Elizabeth's
reign. Much information will be found in the State Papers,
and in the Lansdowne MSS. (British Museum), under the various
names mentioned in the text.
6 S. P. Dom. Eliz., xxxv. (3), xxxvi. (25), xl. (14).
7 lbid., xxxvi. (59).
124
Alien Immigrants
2
To encourage this venture, the promoters were, at the
outset, freed from the payment of all tenths and fif-
teenths.¹ Humphrey, a paymaster of the Mint, appears
to have interested himself in speculations of a similar
kind; he directed his attention specially to Ireland, and
was associated in his enterprise with Christopher Shutz,³
a German engineer. Cornelius de Vos was a rival pros-
pector, who obtained permission to work alum mines in
the Isle of Wight.5 As in the case of other mining pro-
jectors, the results attained do not appear to have come
up to their expectations, and it is impossible to say
what influence they may have had on subsequent develop-
4
6
ments.
27. Besides the specific instances which have been
given of the immigration of artisans, there is further
evidence, from the increased activity on the part of
municipalities and municipal gilds at this time. The
Shrewsbury regulations showed a growing vigilance
against "foreigners," in whom aliens would at any rate
be included; the same antagonism is evidenced in the
ordinances of the tailors and coopers of Southampton,
1 S. P. Dom., Eliz., xxxvi. (43).
2 Ibid., xxxvi. 73, 81–83, xl. 17.
3 Ibid., xxxvii. 5, 40–44.
4 Ibid., xxxvi. 82.
5 Ibid., xxxvi. 72.
• Ibid., xlviii. (12).
The connection between England and Augsburg capitalists
at this time must not be underrated, and may have had some
influence on the beginnings of other trades, which it seems im-
possible to trace to their source. See Ehrenberg, Hamburg and
England, p. 7, note referring to "Augsburg fustians" at Bolton.
Nemnich, Reise durch England, Schottland, etc. (1807), p. 576.
The Later Middle Ages
125
and the reconstitution of the government of Worcester
in 12 Henry VII. exhibits traces of like feeling.¹ This
prevalent jealousy of native artisans for alien artisans
found expression in the statutes of 3 Henry VIII. and
14 and 15 Henry VIII.
The first of these Acts was
directed only against aliens who were engaged in cord-
wainery. In it we get the charges which, justly or
unjustly, were preferred against them. The alien con-
science was evidently held to be very elastic, if not
non-existent, for the sum and substance of the preamble
amounts to an accusation that these aliens of set purpose
cheated the "King's liege subjects" by the production
of ill-wrought goods. The statute which followed, eleven
years later, was wider in its scope, and its tenor was
completely in accordance with the spirit of the time. It
seems to have been thought that aliens were a necessary
evil, since Englishmen were not inventive, and were de-
pendent, so far at least as the textile manufactures were
concerned, upon the introduction of improved methods
from abroad.
We have, in the Discourse of the Commonweal, a
record of the accepted economic opinion on this matter
in 1549. This may be taken as typical of the feeling
which was called forth by similar conditions during
the fifteenth and the first half of the sixteenth century.
The Discourse is written in the form of a dialogue,
and the Doctor, one of the speakers, stands for the
1 On English jealousy of foreigners in sixteenth century,
Ehrenberg, Hamburg und England, p. 18; Schanz, Englische
Handelspolitik, i. p. 431; also below, p. 264.
126
Alien Immigrants
exponent of sound views. His opinion is given in the
conversation which he holds with the Capper.
CAPPER." And do youe thinke it is reasonable that a
stranger should be as free in a citie or town as they that
weare prentices theare? Then no man would be prentice to
anie occupacion yf it weare so.”
DOCTOR.-"I saye not that they should commonly have like
libertie, or franchise. But as one crafte makes but one parti-
cular companie of a towne or citie, so I would have the wealthe
of this citie regarded, rather then the commodite or franchise
of one crafte or misterie; for thoughe commonly, none should
be admitted theare to worke but suche as is free, yet when a
singuler goode workman in anie mistery comes, which by his
knowledge might bothe instructe theim of the towne, being of
the same facultie, and also bringe into the town muche com-
moditie beside; I woulde, in that case, have private liberties
and privileges give place to a publique wealthe, and suche a
man gladly admitted for his excellencie to the fredome of the
same towne, withoute burdeninge of him with anie charge for
his first entre or settinge up. Yea, wheare as a towne is decayed
and lackes artificers to furnishe the townes with suche craftes,
as other weare sometime well exercised theare, or might be by
reason of the satuation and commoditie of the same towne, I
would have better craftes allowed oute of other places where
they be plentie, to come to those townes decayed to dwell,
offringe theim theire fredome, yea theire house rent free, or
some stocke let theim of the common stocke of suche townes.
And when the towne is well furnished of such artificers, then
to staie the comminge of forreners." 1
This same policy had been advocated by an anonymous
author of the reign of Henry VIII. He shows that
many benefits would arise in the prevention of idle-
ness and the multiplication of exports, if new employ-
ments were found for Englishmen. He urges that "all
¹ Discourse of the Commonweal, edit. Lamond (1893), p. 129.
The Later Middle Ages
127
workers of artificialite be "set to worke as well
strangers as Englyshmen." But the reason and justi-
fication which he gives for the employment of stran-
gers was not such as would have appealed to the
native craftsmen. Aliens were to be encouraged "be-
cause the good workmanship of all artificialite is most
comenly seen in strangers." For this fact the writer
adduces the reason that the excessive import of foreign
goods had precluded the sale of home manufactures.
Strangers, with constant practice, had perfected them-
selves in various arts, at the expense of Englishmen
who had lost "all corage to studie for all such feates."1
The antagonism of this theorist was thus concentrated,
in contrast to that of the English workman, not upon
the immigrant craftsman, but upon the merchant, who,
whether alien or denizen, flooded the country with,
foreign commodities in his own selfish interests. But
to the jealous native artisan, the alien competitor must
have appeared to be the cause of his woes. If he could
not obtain a market for his goods, the advent of other
men who plied the same craft threatened to increase
1 Treatise entitled How the comen people may be set to worke an
order of a Comen Welth, in Pauli's Drei Volkswirthschaftliche
Denkschriften, p. 57.
2 In this opinion this writer is again in accordance with the
Doctor in the Discourse of the Commonweal. The Doctor held
that "it weare better for us to paie more to oure owne people
for those " (i.e. imported) " wares than lesse to strangers." Paper
is instanced as a manufacture which had failed in England,
because English craftsmen were undersold by foreigners. Dis-
course of the Commonweal, p. 66.
128
Alien Immigrants
his difficulties. The outcry, not merely against alien
merchants, but against alien artificers, appears to have
increased in violence until it culminated in the great
riot of Evil May Day in 1517.¹ This was an attack
apparently organized by the apprentices and journeymen
against their foreign rivals, and fomented by men of
position, who were severely punished for the part they
took in the affair.
A comparison of the attitude which was adopted
towards aliens at the end of the fifteenth and early in
the sixteenth centuries, with the treatment which was
accorded to them in the thirteenth, shows that the
jealousy of aliens had become much more pronounced.
Certain changes in economic conditions had rendered
their presence less necessary, and their position less
pleasant. It has been shown that the growth of a
capitalistic class of Englishmen in the fourteenth century
ousted the aliens from the financial operations of the
country, which they had hitherto conducted; and these
capitalists were able to undertake the foreign as well
as the internal trade, almost to the exclusion of foreign
merchants. The restrictions which had been imposed.
upon alien traders in respect of length of stay, residence
in particular houses, and supervision of their traffic,
tended to prejudice their status; while the Navigation
Acts precluded them from acting as carriers for English
goods. In consequence England was much less attractive
to alien merchants than it had been at the beginning of
1 Stow, Annals, 1517.
The Later Middle Ages
129
the intervening period, though it still offered a field for the
development and organization of manufactures. Economic
motives pure and simple were becoming less powerful in
conducing to the immigration of moneyed men.
iv. Scottish History.
28. The conditions of life in Scotland during this period
did not offer such good opportunities for industrial develop-
ment as were occurring in England. There was little or
no national life, for the king's power was far less effective
than in England; the country had far less¹ to attract alien
merchants,—like the Lombards, Gascons, and Flemings;
and there are few signs of the prosecution of a national
commercial policy such as was inaugurated under Richard
II. With the single exception of James I., it would
appear that the kings had not the will, even if they had
had the power, to trouble much about the economic de-
velopment of the country.
Nor were matters specially favourable within the towns;
municipal life in Scotland had not prospered in the years
that followed the war of independence. Under Edward I.
1 The order issued by the English king at the beginning of
the fourteenth century to the Scottish Chancellor for the seizure
of the goods of the Pullici and Rembertini is evidence that some
Italian merchants had penetrated into the North. (Cochran
Patrick, Medieval Scotland (1892), p. 128).
Flemish merchants seem to have visited Scotland to purchase
wool. Edward II. attempted to stop this traffic, with only par-
tial success, in 1313. In 1347 a staple was established at Middle-
burgh, in Zealand, of which Scotsmen appointed the Mayor, and
after this date the trade was probably chiefly in the hands of
natives (Cochran Patrick, loc. cit., p. 128, 129).
K
130
Alien Immigrants
→
there had been a great unification of the separate juris-
dictions in English burghs into one government for each
town; but the Scottish towns continued to be an aggre-
gate of neighbouring and distinct jurisdictions. The city
of Edinburgh was wedged in between the Castle and the
burgh of Canongate, while Broughton and Calton and the
two Portsburghs lay on its flanks. The royal burgh of
Rutherglen and the episcopal burgh of Glasgow were rival
centres of trade; in the towns of the highest status-the
royal burghs-there was a premature development of the
plutocracy, which had already become powerful in con-
tinental towns. The convention of royal burghs was a
sort of mercantile parliament; and the interests of those
who lived by dealing were unduly cared for, while the
industrial classes were but little considered. In the
fourteenth century in England we find the harmonious
development of craft-gilds, as integral parts of municipal
government, and under municipal authority; but there
is no corresponding movement in Scotland, till a century
later, and when we come across it, it follows the lines of
Flemish, rather than of English organization. It has been
pointed out above that the conditions of industrial life
in England were probably so far superior to those of
many of the workmen in Flanders as to conduce to im-
migration; but there is no reason to suppose that there
was any similar attractiveness so far as Scotland was con-
cerned; except that, as it was a wool-producing country,
the chief material for the manufacture of cloth might
be easily obtained. Neither the political nor the social
condition of the northern kingdom rendered it a favour-
The Later Middle Ages
131
able sphere for the operation of the new industrial in-
fluences, which, under the fostering care of the king, were
doing so much to revolutionize the character of English
trade. In discussing the effects of the Norman Conquest,
it was possible to show that the wave of immigration
rolled on into Scotland, and that similar results showed
themselves on both sides of the Tweed; but, in the four-
teenth and fifteenth centuries, the barrier between the
two countries was so complete that Scotland did not
appreciably share in the progress of England.
One possible exception may be noticed in this matter.
King James I. of Scotland spent his youth at the English
Court, and returned to his own land imbued with English
ideas. He may well have been struck with the results
of the industrial policy of Edward III., and he gets
credit from the chroniclers for sending for craftsmen out
of England, France, and Flanders, and planting them in
Scotland.¹ There is but little, if any, documentary evi-
dence to confirm this tradition; but still it is clear that
during the fifteenth century there was some increase in
the industrial life of the towns. We hear for the first
time of the organization of labour, and though it seemed
to be quite unsuccessful in securing a status like that
of the skilled artisans in English towns, the struggle is
in itself worthy of notice.2
The right of electing deacons for each craft was the
1 Metrical Chronicle, in Buik of the Croniclis of Scotland (R. S.),
iii. 545. Crawfurd, Trades House (1828), 23.
2 For an account of the struggle, see Gross, Gild Merchant, i,
213.
132
Alien Immigrants
point in dispute; the deacons had supervision over the
wares exposed for sale, and the question was whether
these officials should be elected by the craftsmen or im-
posed upon them. It does not appear that the deacons
had any powers of supervising the materials, or enquired
into the hours and conditions of work; they were directly
concerned with, and limited to, the passing or condemning
of wares exposed to sale. We thus see that the whole
of the industrial organization and legislation with regard
to apprenticeship and so forth, which is so prominent in
the English "compositions," 1 has scarcely a parallel in
Scotland. On the other hand, the Scotch trades appear to
indicate their continental affinity by the stress laid on the
essay, which was almost neglected in England. Apart
from their express claim of following the custom of the
towns of France and Flanders,³ we might have been led
to believe that the trade organization of Scottish towns
was strongly influenced by continental, rather than by
English, models.
2
It seems possible, then, that it is to the fifteenth cen-
tury, and especially to the time of James I., that we
are to attribute the large immigration of weavers which
undoubtedly took place at some time or other. The fact
that they bear the name Brabanters in not a few towns
renders it improbable that they were introduced in the
1 An agreement between the town authorities and a craft gild
as to the rules to be enforced.
2 A piece of work done to prove a candidate's fitness for being
a master. Colston, Incorporated Trades, p. 13.
3 Acta Parl. Scot., iv. 30.
The Later Middle Ages
133
twelfth or thirteenth century, before Brabant had come
into prominence; and they appear to have migrated an-
teriorly to the sixteenth century and the religious strug-
gles of that date. The walkers and litsters may be
survivals of a previous immigration, though their incor-
poration in the year 15001 would point to their increas-
ing importance. But the Brabanters may almost certainly
be connected with the fifteenth century-the partial re-
flection of the great development which had already
occurred in England.2
It is also true that the political connections of Scotland
had an economic influence of their own; it appears that
the French affinity extended beyond political and military
affairs, and left its mark on industry as well. In par-
ticular, Mary of Guise is alleged to have introduced work-
men from France, but these appear to have been brought
over to cater for Court requirements, rather than with a
view to the industrial development of the country; it
appears that a satisfactory substitute for the Paris shoes
was not found in the local workshops either in Edinburgh
or the Canongate.4 Still industrial development was not
3
-
1 The walkers of Edinburgh were incorporated in 1500.
Cochran Patrick, Mediæval Scotland (1892), p. 35.
2 Ib., p. 23. The protective policy in regard to cloth in 1473
may have been deliberately copied from similar measures which
were adopted in England. In addition to this prohibition of the
import of cloth, its export is recorded in an Act of the Scottish
Parliament of the year 1483. Ib., p. 135.
3 F. Michel, Les Écossais en France et les Français en Écosse
(1862), vol. i. pp. 429, 432.
* Ibid., i 435.
134
Alien Immigrants
2
altogether forgotten. French miners and masons came
to Scotland during the reign of James V.¹ So far as
artistic work is concerned, both in the goldsmiths' and
the building trades, the intimate connection between the
two countries can be easily proved by surviving examples,
as well as by the history of particular individuals. In
this case, however, it may be said that the influence of
the Scot abroad, or rather of the travelled Scot who
returned home, is more noticeable than that of the alien
who came to this island.
1 F. Michel, Les Écossais en France et les Français en Écosse
(1862), i. 429, 431. In 1526 James V. had given mining con-
cessions to some Germans (Chambers, Domestic Annals (1858), i.
17), and as early as 1511 a Dutchman was employed as melter at
the mine on Crawford Muir (Ibid.).
2 P. M. Chalmers, A Scots Mediæval Architect (1895), 34, 64.
THE REFORMATION AND RELIGIOUS
REFUGEES
IV
THE REFORMATION AND RELIGIOUS REFUGEES
29. Till the middle of the sixteenth century there had
been little occasion for popular migration on purely re-
ligious grounds. The planting of monasteries may, of
course, be regarded as a sort of religious colonization, and
it had a considerable industrial importance in the earliest
ages in England, and in the thirteenth century as well;
and in the history of the crusades it is not easy to sever
the religious from the commercial motives. But so long
as Christendom was united, there was little reason for
persons engaged in secular callings to migrate from one
country to another on rcligious grounds; the conditions
were so far alike that this motive would hardly come into
play.
Nor, so far as fifteenth-century England was concerned,
would it be specially attractive to those who were be-
coming dissatisfied with the life and practice of Latin
Christianity. Lollardism had indeed been widely dif-
fused, but it had been closely associated with political
nihilism and social anarchy; and the Lancastrian legisla-
tion had dealt severely with heresy. From the time when
Europe was rent in twain by religious differences all was
changed; there was now a deeply drawn line of demarca-
137
138
Alien Immigrants
tion which affected all social relations; to a large portion
of the industrial population in Germany, the Low Coun-
tries, and France, migration became a practical necessity.
Their prime reason for migrating was religious; and
their prime object was, not to discover a country that
offered special advantages for their own calling, but to
secure an asylum where they could live according to
their convictions. That they exercised an enormous eco-
nomic and industrial influence is true; but this result
was incidental; the motive that brought them here was
not industrial, but religious.
For many of them there was a considerable amount of
English sympathy, which found its keenest expression
at the time of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes,
and on the whole they had powerful patrons at Court;
but at the same time they had to contend with the
deep-seated dislike of aliens, which was engrained in the
English mind; at the close of the fifteenth century this
had taken the special form of jealousy of the superior
skill of foreign artisans. In the sixteenth century this feel-
ing was very active, but it was conjoined with a new reason
for dislike; at this time we come in contact with the
destitute alien, who had lost all for conscience sake. He
might be an admirable person, but he added to the over-
whelming difficulties of existing pauperism. All through
the Tudor times the position of the unemployed was
causing great anxiety, and there was a not unnatural
indisposition to receive aliens who might be a burden,
or who by their competition would injure the struggling
native. Towards the end of the seventeenth century
The Reformation and Religious Refugees 139
there was a decided change of feeling in the matter, but
in the Tudor times the new settlers were not very wel-
come in the localities where they were established. On
the other hand, this fact gives us the means of tracing
these settlers more easily. The immigrants in the time
of Edward III. appear to have been rapidly merged with
the rest of the population; but the religious refugees
were apt on the whole to form separate communities,
with special religious rites and church registers, and
special arrangements for providing for the relief of the
poor. It is on this account much easier to trace their
geographical distribution and settlements; but, on the
other hand, we see that there were more grounds than
formerly for industrial jealousy. There was at all events
some apparent reason for the complaint that they prac-
tised their calling to enrich themselves, but did not plant
the industry among Englishmen. Much of the effort of
the seventeeth century was directed to the attempt to
absorb these colonies into the industrial and religious
life of England.
Of most of these religious immigrants it is perhaps
less true to say that they were attracted to England
than that they were obliged to leave their own countries,
and that England was one of many regions where they
took refuge. At the time of the Revocation of the Edict
of Nantes it was not by any means the principal asylum,
as large numbers sought shelter in Hesse, the Baltic
provinces, and elsewhere.¹ But the fact renders clear the
¹ C. Ancillon, Histoire des Etablissements des François Refugiez
(Berlin, 1690).
140
Alien Immigrants
principle of division, which will prove most convenient;
we shall look in turn at the sources from which the
successive waves of religious immigration originated.
Just as the economic immigration continued after the
incursion of religious refugees had begun, so too do we
find that ecclesiastical evidence gives us a certain amount
of retrospective light on previous incursions. It enables
us to connect the manufacture of blankets at Witney, in
Oxfordshire, with alien settlers in a way that we should
otherwise fail to do. Among the lists of those who were
proceeded against for heresy in 1521 we find several
names which are suggestive of Flemish extraction.¹ This
was yet in the early times, when ecclesiastical authorities.
were concerned in preserving England from the contagion
of the new doctrine which was being widely spread in
Germany.2
30. In the reign of Henry VIII. religious motives pro-
bably co-operated with other influences to cause a stream
of immigration to flow towards this country; on the
whole, it continued fairly steadily, though it appears
to have received a temporary check about the time when
the hostility of the English artificer was most pronounced
and had shown itself in the outbreak of Evil May Day.
As religious dissension became rife in the northern coun-
tries of Europe, the influx increased; though in their
selection of England as their destination, the settlers can
hardly have been deluded by the hope of religious tolera-
1 W. J. Monk, History of Witney, p. 131.
2 Compare the letter to Pope Clement in Balan. Monumenta
Ref. Luth. (1884), no. 260, p. 550.
The Reformation and Religious Refugees 141
T
tion consequent upon the king's breach with Rome; so
far as Henry was concerned,¹ no warm welcome would be
vouchsafed to those who maintained Lutheran doctrines.
But there were powerful men like Cromwell, who were
ready to give them protection for a time, and they would
feel more sure of their position when Somerset obtained
authority. Still it is only on the supposition that the
majority had been practically forced into exile that the
influx of such large numbers becomes intelligible.?
The immediate legislation of the time was calculated
to deter, not encourage, the advent of foreign artisans.
Politically, strangers were a menace to the realm when
relations with other powers remained strained, and the
number of naturalizations granted, as well as the pro-
clamation of 1544,³ ordering all Frenchmen, not denizens,
to depart, point to the recognition by Government of
this danger.
1 Rahlenbech, Les Réfugiés Belges, p. 7. Reprinted from the
Revue Trimestrielle, ii. Ser. t. viii. Oct., 1865.
2 Froude, History of England (1872), i. 126,. states that the
number of Flemings in London as early as 1527 was 15,000.
In 1536 the strangers in London were called upon to take part
in repressing the rebellion of that year. The French tailors in
London were armed with arquebuses, and given two groats a
day, with one groat of drink money for every five miles they
marched. The Flemish shoemakers were compelled to go at the
same wages. The English only got 6d. a day and drink money.
Letters and Papers, Henry VIII., xi. (714). Schickler, Les Églises
du Refuge en Angleterre (1892), vol. i. p. 6, argues as regards the
greater number of French and Walloons of Henry VIII.'s reign
that their membership of the French Church in Elizabeth's reign
testifies to the motive which brought them to England.
³ Proclamation 16 May, 36 Henry VIII, Ames, Typographical
Antiquities (1785), 446.
142
Alien Immigrants
There was one new departure on the part of Govern-
ment, however, which tended to promote the immigration
of certain classes of workmen. Attention was evidently
being directed to the manufacture of ordnance; and it
looks as if the trade had been introduced by imported
skill. Under Henry VIII. a new officer had been in-
stituted, "the provider of the King's instruments of
war," and this post was filled by an alien then, and
in the three successive reigns.1 Sundry gunners and
armourers from France, Germany, and the Low Countries,
settled in Southwark and Blackfriars.2 Peter Bawde, a
Frenchman, "maker of bombards," had several of his
countrymen in his employ; and Le Caron and his asso-
ciates made morris-spikes. Italians contributed to the
progress of this industry. A cannon founder, Arcana,
settled here, and Italians are said to have established
a gun foundry at Salisbury Court.3 Nearly forty work-
men, almost all of them natives of Normandy, were em-
ployed at Pelham's Wybarn's, and other ironworks, and
were made denizens for this purpose in 1544.4
There are also many signs of private enterprise on the
¹ W. Page, Hug. Soc. Pub., viii. Introduction, p. xlii. I am
indebted to the valuable introduction to this work for many
interesting references.
2 Westminster Denisation Roll, 36 Henry VIII.; cf. Hist. MSS.
Commission, iv. 194.
9 W. Page, op. cit., Introduction, p. xlii. The church of the
Italian colony in London was small (see below, p. 150), and its
affairs were not very prosperous. Lansdowne MSS., xlv. 29.
4 West. Denis. Roll, 36 Henry VIII. Several Frenchmen were
working at Sir T. Bowyer's saltpetre works. Ibid,
The Reformation and Religious Refugees 143
part of immigrants at this time, though it is almost im-
possible to say whether the trades exercised by them were
wholly new to this country or not. Silk-weaving was; 1
so probably was ribbon-weaving; the making of combs,
buttons, jewellery, baskets, and embroidery, were among
their occupations.² Dutch tapestry-makers settled in
London, and there were others of the same trade at the
court.3 There were several glaziers from the Low
Countries 4 and from France.5 Printing had been learnt
by Caxton in the previous century in Germany; but at
this time many printers came from abroad. Bookbinding
was largely done by foreigners.7 Stow, who says that
the making of felt hats commenced in the beginning of
Henry VIII.'s reign, attributes the first introduction of
the art to Spaniards and Dutchmen; we may owe it to
a felt-hat maker who came from Caen in 1514, and was
followed by others of his trade at intervals during the
reign.8
¹ A silk weaver from Rouen came in 1532, and two others a
few years later. A ribbon-weaver came from Gascony in 1628.
Westminster Denisation Roll, 36 Henry VIII. Various proposals,
on the part of Italians and others, for establishing the silk
manufacture were brought before Cecil in 1559 and considered
by him. S. P. Dom. Eliz., viii. 32-35).
2 West. Denis. Roll., 36 Henry VIII. See this same Roll for
other trades.
3 W. Page, in Hug. Soc. Pub., vol. viii., Introd. p. l.
4 J. W. Clark, Architectural History of Cambridge, i. 500 n., 618.
Galien Hone and foreign workmen. Pat. 26 Henry VIII.,
p. 2 m. 42; in Hug. Soc. Pub., vol. viii. 125; and Introduction,
p. xlv.
6 Schaible, Geschichte der Deutschen in England, p. 119.
7 W. Page, Hug. Soc. Pub., vol. viii., Introduction, p. xliii.
8 Ibid., and Stow, Annals, 870. The felt-makers were incor-
144
Alien Immigrants
31. Since many of these immigrants were not attracted
to this country by purely economic motives, they appear to
have been guided by other than economic reasons in the
choice of the special localities where they settled. So far
as London is concerned, the aliens took up their abode in
the various liberties, in the precincts of monasteries, most
of them in Blackfriars and St. Martin's, in Westminster,
and the borough of Southwark.1 After the abolition of
the college of St. Martin's under Henry VIII., strangers
occupied the houses which were built in its place, and
they sought to retain the privileges which had attached
to the religious foundation. The freedom of the liberties
and sanctuaries from the jurisdiction of the city authori-
ties made them attractive to the foreigners; while sanc-
tuaries, though a licensed refuge for offenders, afforded
protection against attack. This tendency was observable
before the reign of Henry VIII., and the precedent in the
selection of their quarters was followed by subsequent
settlers.3
There was a considerable temptation to adapt the
deserted monasteries for industrial purposes, and one of
the noblest of the ancient abbeys was utilized in this
porated in 2 James I., and worked in a hall near Christchurch.
Straw hats were introduced by a man from Guelders in Henry
VIII.'s time. Pat. 22 Henry VIII., p. 2 m. 35. In Hug. Soc.
Pub., vol. viii. p. 136.
1 Hug. Soc. Pub., viii., Introd., p. xli.
2 Noorthouck, History of London, p. 545.
3 The number of sanctuaries was limited to certain towns and
to minor offences. 32 Henry VIII, c. 12. The privilege was
abolished 1 James I. 25,

JK KREITE KN BART GELUK KUTERINE
NOIR BY ANNO DE FESTY
1939 38
THE ALIENS' DISH, GLASTONBURY.
The Reformation and Religious Refugees 145
fashion, for early in 1550 we find some Walloon weavers
settled at Glastonbury,' under the patronage of the Duke
of Somerset. Such a migration would not seriously differ
from others that had already taken place, when foreign
capitalists introduced workmen to some appropriate dis-
trict, but there can be no doubt that in this case religious
motives were primarily at work,² and the new-comers were
organized as a church; their minister used the liturgy
which had been approved at Strassburg.3 The religious
changes also gave the opportunity for settlement in
Somerset; the break up of the abbey must have been a
serious loss to the town of Glastonbury, and it was wise
to try and replenish the population and increase the trade.
The abbey, with its lands and tenements, had been granted
to the Duke. Dwellings were assigned to the worsted
weavers by him; and the money necessary for the pur-
chase of tools and materials. They were placed under
the care of an English overseer who did not forward their
4
1 Strype, Life of Cranmer (1812), vol. i. p. 346. The Subsidy
Roll for Somerset, 3 Edward VI. 178, shows that there were a
few aliens in Glastonbury in 1549, but they were described as
more in dett than they be worth."
"
2 Rahlenbeck, Les Refugiés Belges, 8.
3 Liturgia sacra, seu ritus ministerii in ecclesia peregrinorum
propter Evangelium Christi Argentina. Valeranus Pollanus pub-
lished this liturgy; Strype (Ecclesiastical Memorials, vol. ii.
pt. i. p. 378) speaks of the weavers as coming from Strassburg;
but this is a mistake-they were Walloons. Cf. J. H. Withof,
Vertheidigung (1753), 15.
4 Strype, Life of Cranmer, vol. i. p. 348. The settlers were all
made denizens. E. Green, Somersetshire Archæol. Trans., vol.
xxvi. pt. ii. 21, quoting Pat. 5 Ed. VI. p. 4, m. 38.
L
146
Alien Immigrants
interests.¹ They seemed to have fared ill after the dis-
grace of their patron, for it was found necessary to petition
the Privy Council on their behalf.2 After this, an en-
quiry was made into their case, and a loan of money
granted to them,3 but at the death of Edward VI. and
the accession of Mary, all strangers were commanded to
leave the realm. The weavers returned to the Continent,
and settled in Frankfurt, where they formed no incon-
siderable part of the refugees from England who eventu-
ally assembled there. The use of a church had been
granted them, and service was held in French and English
on alternate days, while the refugees were to arrange
among themselves about service on Sundays. But this
proved no easy matter. Some of the English refugees
regarded the Prayer-Book as the badge of their national
church, and were anxious to use it; while the Walloon
weavers, and another section of the refugees, were de-
cidedly Calvinistic; they preferred not to use the English
Liturgy as it had been remodelled in the time of Edward
VI.; and there was, in consequence, much squabbling
between the rival parties as to the continued use of
the English Prayer-Book. Eventually the Calvinistic
section succeeded in carrying the day, and in bringing
round many of the exiles to their views. Thus indirectly
these Walloon weavers were able to leaven some of the
¹ Strype, Life of Cranmer, vol. i. p. 318.
2 Id., ibid., vol. i. p. 349.
3 Id., ibid., vol. i. p. 350.
E. Green, op. cit., pp. 18, 20.
4 Id., ibid., vol. i. p. 509; and A Brief Discourse of the Troubles
begoune at Franckfort, in Phoenix (London, 1707), ii. 46.

Fouf
Holy
Wing Commare
tellers Aulent
fon a lanes
his Congregations
EDWARD VI. GRANTING THE PATENT FOR AUSTIN FRIARS' CHURCHI TO JOHN A'LASCO.
The Reformation and Religious Refugees 147
Marian exiles with their sentiments, and contributed to
render them more advanced in their Protestantism on their
return to England on the accession of Elizabeth. These
weavers are of interest in connection with the origins of
Puritanism, but their industrial influence was slight;
though the worsted trade seems to have lingered on in
Somersetshire until the seventeenth century, as there
were then tradesmen's tokens having reference to this
manufacture.¹
Another settlement, which was practically contempor-
aneous, was much more important. The refugees, who
found their way to London at the time when Charles V.
was endeavouring to enforce a compromise known as the
Interim,2 have left their mark more permanently. King
Edward VI., acting on the impression made by one of
Latimer's sermons, granted the use of the Austin Friars
Church for the German refugees, and nominated a Pole,
John A' Lasco, as their superintendent. The congregation
were to be allowed to use their own rites and ceremonies,
and to enjoy their own ecclesiastical discipline, though
these were not in accordance with the order established in
the realm.4 In the time of Queen Mary they were com-
1 Warner, History of Glastonbury (1826), p. 262.
2 Rahlenbeck, op. cit., 8.
3 See the patent given by J. S. Burn, History of French,
Walloon, Dutch, and other Protestant Refugees, p. 265. He appears
to have had supervision over all foreigners in London, both
Walloon and German-speaking, Italians and Spaniards. This
London settlement was the nucleus of the Dutch Church.
4 The number of aliens in London in 1548-1550 was about
5,000, according to Schaible (Geschichte der Deutschen in England,
p. 130).
148
Alien Immigrants
pletely dispersed, and the church was utilized for ware-
housing naval stores; but, when Elizabeth ascended the
throne, a considerable number returned to the land of
their adoption, and the church was reconstituted-not
under a separate superintendent, but under the surveil-
lance of Grindal, the Bishop of London. It formed a
nucleus to which the Germans, who came here at subse-
quent times, attached themselves, and the current of its
life was much disturbed by the Arians and Anabaptists
who brought with them the extreme doctrines which were
being preached among their compatriots at home. Two
Flemish-born Anabaptists were burned as heretics in
1575,¹ and in May of that year eleven Dutch people, ten
of whom were women, suffered death at Smithfield for
the same cause.2
This congregation would appear to have contributed in
no small degree to those features of the Elizabethan Court
which impress the imagination most vividly. We are
familiar with the portraits of the Queen in her elaborate
ruffs; but the art of starching linen was unknown in
England at the time. Mrs. Dingham van der Plasse, the
daughter of a Flemish knight, introduced the art into
England; for the fee of £5 she was prepared to instruct
English gentlewomen in the approved methods of getting
up linen, and so greatly was her teaching prized that she
soon amassed a considerable estate.³ Another member of
the same community was William Boonen, who is credited
¹ J. S. Burn, p. 190, and Rymer, Fœdera (Hague Edition), vol.
vi. p. 161.
2 Stow, Annals, p. 679. 3 Id., ibid., p. 869. + Id., ibid., p. 867.
The Reformation and Religious Refugecs 149
with introducing the use of coaches into England; he is
said to have acted as coachman to Queen Elizabeth, who
occasionally availed herself of this new method of progres-
sion. Considering how large a part these arts play in
modern life, it is worth while to notice the persons to
whom their introduction is assigned. So far as linen goes,
the matter is likely enough, for, as the manufacture had
never taken root in England, the art of getting it up to
advantage would be less likely to be cultivated.
32. In following out the fortunes of the congregation
at Austin Friars we have already entered on a new period;
the accession of Elizabeth was marked by the return of
the foreigners who had been exiled under Mary, and it
was speedily followed by an immigration on a large scale
from the Spanish Netherlands.1 The task of governing
¹ During the reign of Elizabeth we find frequent and careful
returns of the number of refugees in London and elsewhere, and
the statistics are much more reliable than the estimates of pre-
ceding reigns (see above, p. 141, n. 2, and p. 147, n. 4). There is an in-
teresting list dated 22 June, 1561, of about 230 men, born under
Philip's allegiance, who were members of the German Church;
it gives their families, trades, and occupations (S. P. Dom. Eliz.,
xvii. 33). We have also a certificate of all strangers in London,
Westminster, Southwark, etc., dated 20 January, 1563. In the
three first years of the reign, 371 (157 men and 214 women and
children) had come for religion, and in the last twelve months
311 (179 men and 172 women and children), making a total of 712.
The number of those who had not come for religion during the
same period was 962; while the number of those who had come
here before Elizabeth's reign began was 2,860. The total number
was 4,534 (S. P. Dom. Eliz., xxvii. 19). In 1566 there is another
list of the members of the German Church in the city (Lansdowne
MSS. at British Museum, ix. 31), as well as articles for enquiry
to be made throughout London and the suburbs in 1567, as
150
Alien Immigrants
his vast dominions had taxed the powers of Charles V. to
the utmost; and his son, with all his extraordinary
capacity for work, was less fitted than his father had
been for dealing with his Flemish subjects; he was also
unwilling to delegate his powers, and was not always
happy in the choice of his ministers. The aspect of
affairs in the Low Countries became more and more
threatening, till the advent of Alva secured for a time.
the apparent triumph of the policy of repression; and
peaceful citizens were inclined to follow the course, which
had been taken by so many of their predecessors, and
migrate from Flanders to England.
1
In 1561 a number of families-406 persons in all—who
had been driven out of Flanders and Brabant, were
allowed to settle in Sandwich,2 in order to carry on weav-
to the number of strangers? their length of residence? their
trades? whether they were "favourers of any naughtie religion
or sect"? whether they went to their parish churches or the
German Church in the city? (Lansdowne, x. 46). An address to
the queen in 1568 is also of interest in this respect (S. P. Dom.
Eliz., xlviii. 47). In 1581 there was a very full return of the
strangers in the city, arranged by wards; it divides them into
denizens and mere strangers; the total was 3,909, of whom 1,149
attended the French Church, 66 the Italian, 1,043 the English,
1,364 the Dutch, and 287 were of no Church (Lansd., xxxii. 10,
11, also xxxiii. 59). It is interesting to compare this return
with that obtained in April, 1583. S. P. Dom. Eliz., clx. 27.
For another certificate in 1593 see Lansdowne, lxxiv. 31.
1 In June, 1567, the Duchess of Parma wrote to Philip of
Spain that the report of the expected arrival of the Duke of
Alva, at the head of an army, had caused people to flee from
all parts to France, England, Cleves and elsewhere. Gachard,
Correspondence de Philippe II. (1851), vol. i. pp. 546, and see also
p. 556.
2 They seem not to have gone to Sandwich direct, but to have
The Reformation and Religious Refugees 151
ing and to engage in fishing, and about the same time.
a large settlement was also made in Canterbury. These
Walloons were granted the crypt of the Cathedral
for their services, and obtained royal protection in the
exercise of their callings. As at Sandwich, a limitation.
was imposed on the number of householders, though this
must have been maintained with difficulty, as fresh
recruits were constantly arriving from abroad, and it
could not be always easy to pass these immigrants on.
Some neighbourhoods were ready to receive them, how-
ever. The corporation of Norwich, a town which had
never recovered from the suppression of Kett's rebellion,
petitioned to have some families settled in their town,
and thirty Dutch families of weavers were sent among
them.¹ They met with some opposition from local arti-
sans, especially the dyers; but after ten years had
2
been members of the strangers' Church in London. S. P. Dom.
Eliz., xviii. 9. See also below, p. 162.
1 Lansdowne MSS., vii. 81. We can occasionally trace the sub-
sequent planting of the trades thus introduced in other parts of
England. Thus at Pickering in 1652 the justices arranged to
bring men from eastern counties to introduce the manufacture
of serges and employ the poor. Hist. MSS. Com. Report, ix. 331.
So possibly at Chester in 1674. Ibid., viii. 390.
2 According to Stow, there was a real decline in the home de-
mand for the old drapery as the new drapery came to be pre-
ferred for many purposes. Survey, vol. ii. bk. v. p. 267. There
certainly was a decline in the broad-cloth manufacture at
Newbury in 1564, and though this was probably due to the
closing of foreign markets, it would not conduce to the favour-
able reception of alien weavers. The incident gives an interest-
ing glimpse into the duties of capitalist employers as then
understood. The justices were to "deal roundly" with those who
152
Alien Immigrants
elapsed¹ there was no longer any doubt as to the advan-
tages which the town had derived from their presence.
In 1567 a body of Walloons sought permission to settle
in Southampton.2 The town authorities agreed to admit a
hundred strangers,³ and through the mediation of Bishop
Horne a settlement was effected.4 The church which was
organized there was re-enforced by natives of France and
the Channel Islands, although originally designed for
the Netherlanders.5 The people of Maidstone were also
anxious to have a colony 6 to carry on different branches
of manufacture; the scheme was carried out, and the
thread manufacture was planted with considerable suc-
cess; a report, which was drawn up two years later,
details the result of the experiment." Indeed, this year,
1567, marks the chief activity in the matter. There were
foreigners who pressed their needs upon Cecil, and who
desired to immigrate in numbers, and their case was
eagerly pushed by Grindal. That Cecil was himself in
sympathy with them may be proved by the fact that he
8
dismissed their hands, even though business was at a standstill.
S. P. Dom. Eliz., xxxiv. 43.
1 S. P. Dom. Eliz., lxxvii. 58. See also S. P. Dom. Eliz., xx. 49,
a paper I believe to be of this date.
2 W. J. C. Moens, The Walloon Settlement and French Church at
Southampton, Hug. Soc. Proc., iii. 56, 58. There was some dis-
cussion as to the desirability of distributing the strangers
between the three towns of Winchester, Salisbury, and South-
ampton. S. P. Dom. Eliz., Add. xiii. 80, 81, 82.
3 S. P. Dom. Eliz., xlii. 71.
4 Ibid., xliii. 16.
6 S. P. Dom. Eliz., xliii. 19.
8 Ibid., xliii. 29, 30.
5 Moens, loc. cit., pp. 67, 68.
7 Ibid., cx. 10.
9 Ibid., xliii. 29.
The Reformation and Religious Refugees 153
2
3
granted them the use of a house of his own at Stamford.¹
The most permanent result of the attempts to plant the
immigrants was the establishment of the settlement at
Colchester in 1570. They had landed at Sandwich and
found their way to Essex; the bailiffs of Colchester de-
sired that they should remain, but did not like to act on
their own responsibility. On the whole they were well
received, but disputes arose before long. Some of them
appear to have left Colchester and settled further inland
in the neighbourhood of Halstead; 4 but apparently the
project did not answer,5 for a few years later we find that
the weavers had returned to Colchester, and that the
people of Halstead and neighbouring towns were eagerly
petitioning that they should be compelled to return.
There are also returns in 1571 as to the numbers of stran-
gers settled in London," Harwich,8 Dover," as well as in
Yarmouth 10 and Lynn.11
6
1 S. P. Dom. Eliz., xliii. (11); lxxxv. (76); and lxxxvi. (5).
For the requests of the settlers, see also Strype, Life of Parker
(1822), Appendix, lxxvii.
2 Morant, Essex, i. 75; cf. S. P. Dom. Eliz., lxxviii. 9.
3 In 1575, S. P. Dom. Eliz., ciii. 33, 34.
4 S. P. Dom. Eliz., cviii. 54.
5 Ibid., cxx. 22.
6 Ibid., cxlvi. 63.
7 Ibid., lxxxii. (i.), lxxxiv. (i.), lxxxiv. (ii.). For Colchester,
see S. P. Dom. Eliz., lxxviii. 9. For Sandwich, see S. P.
Dom. Eliz., lxxviii. 29. For Rye, see Lansdowne MSS., xv. 70.
Given by W. J. Hardy, in Hug. Soc. Proc., ii. 569, 575. There was
a Dutch church at Ipswich in 1574, and one at Thetford in 1575
(Schickler, i. 279). Burn refers to one at Dover in 1576 (op. cit.,
p. 220); and the French church at Wandsworth is said to date
from 1573. Burn, op. cit., 117.
8 Ibid., lxxviii. 8.
was only eight.
11 Ibid., lxxviii. 13.
The number of strangers here at this date
9 Ibid., lxxviii. 19. 10 Ibid., lxxviii. 10.
This town had been frequented by aliens
154
Alien Immigrants
The fisher interest at Yarmouth resented the intrusion
of “Frenchmen," and the natives succeeded in placing
certain restrictions upon these foreign fishermen,¹ and the
colony was eventually expelled from Yarmouth. Barn-
staple, on the other hand, was a town which was generous
in its treatment of such strangers as were needy; on one
occasion some Flemings, who represented that they had
been robbed, were helped, and two other Flemings re-
ceived public money. It was, of course, easier to succour
the casual applicant than the permanent settler and pro-
bable rival. On the whole, however, when we consider
the jealousy which was commonly felt of alien artisans,
we may say that their reception was cordial.
2
3
4
Such wholesale immigration from the Low Countries
was strongly objected to by the Spanish authorities, and
Elizabeth was anxious to keep up appearances and not to
give unnecessary offence to Philip of Spain. In 1574 she
refused to allow any additional members to be received
in the Dutch Church in London; she insisted that the
Lord Mayor should disperse them, and that they should
in a much earlier time. Compare the fines exacted from aliens
in the time of Henry V. and VI. Harrod, Report on Deeds and
Records of Lynn, 119.
1 Hist. MSS. Comm. Report, ix., Appendix, 3172, 1st Oct.
28 Eliz. Yarmouth Corporation. In the list of strangers in this
town in 1571 several are mentioned as having come from France.
S. P. Dom. Eliz., lxxviii. 10.
2 In 1607. North Devon Herald, 19th August, 1880.
3 Ibid., 5th August, 1880. At a later date a Grecian and a
Turk were aided (Ibid., 5th August, 1880), in 1612 and 1614, and
four Frenchmen (Ibid., 19th August, 1880), in 1646.
4 Rahlenbeck, Les Réfugiés Belges, 21.
THE
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The Reformation and Religious Refugees 155
be settled in provincial towns, where their increasing
numbers would be less likely to attract the notice of the
Spanish Ambassador.1 This policy had been already
acted upon by Cecil, who had removed a number of
strangers from London to Stamford, where they retained
their own church till the beginning of the eighteenth
century.
2
These immigrants, though all coming from the Nether-
lands, may be naturally divided into two well-marked
groups: the Walloons, who came from Artois, Hainault,
part of Flanders and Brabant, Namur and Luxemburg,
and spoke a dialect of French; and the Flemings or
Dutch, who spoke a Teutonic dialect. The latter became
the heirs of the privileges granted to the Germans by
Edward VI. in the church of Austin Friars, while the
former had obtained the lease of the church of S. Anthony
in Threadneedle Street. The Walloon congregations, both
in Canterbury and London, were subsequently increased
by the Huguenot immigration from France; 4 but this
¹ Strype, Annals of the Reformation, vol. ii. pt. i. p. 574. See
above, p. 150, n. 2.
2 S. P. Dom. Eliz., xliii. 11. Burn, Hist. of the French, Walloon,
Dutch and other Protestant Refugees, p. 218.
3 A French service appears to have been held in London prior
to the Dutch one. In the first instance the church of Austin
Friars was granted for the use of both Flemish and French-
speaking congregations. The increase in the number of Dutch
settlers led to the grant of this church of S. Anthony. Schickler,
Les Églises du Refuge en Angleterre, i. 26, 27 and 36.
4 In 1618 the number of strangers in London had increased to
10,000, but by far the larger number of these were Flemings and
Walloons; there was a sort of French colony in Farringdon
156
Alien Immigrants
1
does not seem to have been of very great importance till
after the time of Elizabeth. In 1562, when Elizabeth
threw herself into alliance with the Huguenots, and the
north of France was in a very disturbed condition, there
was a considerable immigration from Rouen and Dieppe.
These Frenchmen landed at Rye, but the permanent
settlement there does not appear to have been large.
Each successive flight across the Channel, occasioned by
civil strife in France, was followed by pacifications and
the return of many of the refugees. Though the stay in
England was of short duration, the number of the fugitives
on each occasion was, for the time being, large.³ The
third influx, after the massacre in 1572, consisted of
nearly the entire Protestant population of Dieppe, with
others from Rouen and Lillebonne. It was considerable
enough to tax the capacities of Rye to the uttermost, and
to necessitate an overflow settlement at Winchelsea.4
The colony at this latter place had no continued existence;
but the renewed immigration from Dieppe to Rye in
1585-6 resulted in its re-establishment at that date.5 A
further incursion took place in 1621.6 The burden of
Within, but some of these were Papists, and there is no reason
to believe that there was a considerable Huguenot invasion.
Camden Society, vol. lxxxii., Preface and Appendix.
1 S. P. Dom. Eliz., xxv. 38, 55; xxvi. 7. 2 Burn, op. cit., p. 277.
3 The first arrivals in 1562 numbered more than 650 (Sussex
Archæological Collections, xiii. 183). For the second immigration,
see Ibid., 194, and Hug. Soc. Proc., ii. 569–575. After the exodus
of 1572 there were nearly 700 people.
4 Schickler, op. cit., i. 297.
5 Ibid. i., pp. 302, 303.
6 Walter Yonge's Diary (Camden Society, xli.), p. 39. He speaks
The Reformation and Religious Refugees 157
contributing alms, for the poor people who had recently
come over in great numbers from France, was one of the
pleas advanced by the members of the French Church in
London for not levying certain sums which had been
demanded of them; 1 and a collection on behalf of the
French fugitives was ordered by the king in that same
year. The returns of the strangers in Dover in 1622
show that there had been a considerable influx there at
that date;³ and others landed at Rye and at Sandwich.4
Such of the Huguenots as remained do not appear to have
formed separate communities; in so far as they were not.
merged with the general population, they appear to have
attached themselves to the Walloon colonies.
33. These colonies of Walloons and Flemings have a
certain analogy with the groups of settlers who held by
special tenures and on special terms in Norman times, but
there are also many and striking differences. Norman
England was comparatively amorphous, and the intrusion
of a fresh element did not create anything exceptional.
Elizabethan England was very different in every respect;
there was a definite constitution, and the subjects had to
of many who fled from Rochelle, and chose England as their
refuge, some going to Jersey and Guernsey.
1 S. P. Dom. Jas. I., cxxii. 44.
2 Bewes, Church Briefs (1897), p. 109. In 1627 there was
another brief for refugees from the Isle of Rhé, p. 127. Ibid.
8 Camden Society, vol. lxxxii.: Lists of Foreigners, p. 12. A
French church existed here during the years 1621-2. Another
settlement was formed by Walloons and Dutch, political
refugees, in 1635, and their church seems to have continued till
about 1660. Hug. Soc. Proc., iii. 130, 286.
4 Hug. Soc. Proc., ii. 228, 422.
158
Alien Immigrants
make considerable contributions for the support of the
government; the question remained, how would the new
colonies fit into the existing system? What should be
their share of the burdens either general or local?
Especially there was the pressing question as to the relief
of their poor.
Nor was this all. England had a very definite ecclesi-
astical system, a system which the government was
determined to uphold, so that the nation might present
a definite front as a whole. But little favour was shown
to dissentients of any sort, and it was at least an anomaly
to respect the consciences of aliens, while so much.
pressure was put upon natives. The view, which appears
to have been commonly taken, was that the exception to
the established order had been made out of very special
circumstances, but that it was undesirable that separa-
tism of this sort should be perpetuated in the land.
So, too, at this time there was a very definite industrial
system, with a specified period of apprenticeship, and
many restrictions as to the place and manner in which a
man might ply his calling. To such regulations the new
colonies could not be easily accommodated; while it was
considered undesirable that they should be perpetuated
as separatist, and it was supposed, as specially favoured
institutions. In order to appreciate the position of these
settlers, we must think not merely of jealousy on the part
of other artisans, but of the exceptional legal arrange-
ments which had to be made on their behalf.
So far as the general burdens of the country were con-
cerned they do not appear to have enjoyed any special
The Reformation and Religious Refugees 159
exemptions; they had to pay the additional customs on
the import of their goods, and they appear to have taken
their fair share when men were mustered for the defence
of the realm,¹ or munitions of war had to be provided;2
indeed, their ambition seems to have been that they
should not be more heavily taxed than other residents,
but this was not always attained.4
3
The incursion of these weavers rendered it necessary to
make a considerable re-adjustment in the customs. The
migration of the industry from the Low Countries reduced
the customs on the export of wool, and there was a re-
duced payment on the importation of the new drapery,
as it was now made within the realm.5 After some
discussion it was determined to collect an imposition of
4d. per cloth on the new drapery manufactured within
the realm. There was uncertainty about the constitutional
right to levy this tax, and there was also some doubt
6
1 S. P. Dom. Eliz., xx. 49. Hist. MSS. Com., Report IX.,
Appendix i. p. 158¹. Archæol. Cant., xii. p. 45. In 1587 the
strangers in London and Norwich furnished men for the levy to
repel the Armada. Hug. Soc. Proc., ii. 128, and Hug. Soc. Pub., i.
46. Apparently the strangers at Southampton were called upon
for foreign service at Rochelle. Hug. Soc. Proc., iii. 120.
2 Hist. MSS. Com., Report IX., Appendix i. p. 1592.
3 Burn, Hist. of the French, Walloon, Dutch, and other Protestant
Refugees, 275 (first addit. article).
4 Ibid., 273: “Besides, we are more extraordinarily sessed
than the English, for the King's ships, for the reparation of the
church, for the musters."
5 Stow, Survey (1754), vol. ii. bk. v. 267. Compare the discussion
of the whole situation by J. Johnson: "An estimate of the
Proffit that will growe by the clothinge of Straungers in Eng-
land." Lans. MSS., xxxiv. 69.
6 The point was referred to Sir Giles Gerrard, the Attorney-
160
Alien Immigrants
W
whether the aulnager should be responsible for the new
manufacture as well as the old. Eventually it was
decided that this business was outside his department,
and a new office was created, charged with the duty of
viewing the new drapery and collecting the impositions.
The refugees who carried on weaving were thus enabled,
after the immigration, to get their wool cheaper; but
they had to submit to a tax on their cloth, whether it
was sent abroad or sold in the home market.
In regard to the relations with the towns, we find a
very full account in the articles agreed on at Canterbury.
The settlers were still treated as aliens, and were only
to sell their manufactures in gross, not by retail;¹ but
they were permitted facilities in other respects. They
might have their own carriers, and their own artisans,
shoemakers, and victuallers, to suit their requirements in
carrying on their work; and they were to be allowed to
hire houses for such time as they thought fit. They were
2
General, who held that the Queen "might set any reasonable
imposition upon any piece of such drapery as should be made by
any strangers-and that for two causes. The one was, that for
all the strangers that made such things did work here only by
Her Majesty's sufferance, and therefore they were to obey such
impositions as should be laid on them, or else not work at all.
And another cause was this: for that Her Majesty did now
receive some loss and detriment by their great drapers of wool,
which heretofore was used to be vended out of the realm and
now was not; and thereby Her Majesty did lose her ancient
customs that were paid her for those wools when they were
transported." Stow, Survey, vol. ii. bk. v. 267.
1 The same condition was made in the articles of settlement
at Norwich. W. J. C. Moens, Hug. Soc. Pub., i. 18, 19.
2 Burn, op. cit., 275. At Southampton it was agreed that the
rents should not be higher than for the two years past.
›
The Reformation and Religious Refugees 161
also to have a place assigned them in which they might
maintain poor strangers travelling, and they undertook
to be responsible for their own poor. Five years later
we learn that this was no light burden, as in a paper,
claiming that they should be free from the ordinary poor
rate,¹ they assert that the cost of their own poor was
£30 annually besides their clothing, in addition to the
expense to which they were put on behalf of passing
strangers.2 The practice of providing for the needs of
their indigent members was general in the refugee
colonies. It existed at Colchester, at Sandwich, and
at Norwich.5
3
4
6
The town of Norwich also furnishes evidence of the
method adopted for the preservation of order in an alien
community; all important disputes among the strangers
and between them and the natives were dealt with by
the magistrates. For the settlement of trivial disagree-
ments between the members of the colony, twelve men
(eight of whom were elected by the Dutch and four by the
Walloons) were chosen by the strangers from among their
own number, the appointment of these officials being sanc-
¹ After 1612 the strangers at Norwich had to contribute to
the town poor rate, which was levied on the value of their
house property. Hug. Soc. Pub., i. 61. Payment of clerical dues
by the alien communities was usual.
ii. 427.
Moens, Hug. Soc. Proc.,
2 Burn, op. cit., 273.
3 P. Morant, Hist. of Colchester, in Hist. of Essex (1768), i. pp.
77, 78.
4 For an account of the relief of their poor, see paper by
Moens, Hug. Soc. Proc., v. p. 321.
5 S. P. Dom. Eliz., xx, 49, clx. 37,
• Hug. Soc, Pub., i. 28, 29.
M
162
Alien Immigrants
tioned annually by the mayor. These men represented the
colony in dealing with the town authorities; and besides
securing good order among disputants, they were bound to
see that such strangers as broke the laws were remanded.
When the settlement at Stamford was proposed, one of
the conditions suggested was that the aliens should
select seven men for their governance, who should be
sworn into office by the magistrate. These were to be
elected and were to act in accordance with the precedent
set at Norwich and Sandwich.¹
As an additional illustration of the status accorded to
the new-comers, the conditions of settlement at Sandwich
in 1561 may be quoted as typical; they are very similar
to those of Canterbury, and were repeated in almost the
same form when the settlement was effected at Maidstone.
"Elizabeth, by the Grace of God, &c., to our well
beloved the Mayor, jurats and commonaltye of our towne
and porte of Sandwiche
greatinge.
·
"For divers special considerations us movinge, as well for the
helpe, repayre and amendment of our saide towne and porte of
Sandwiche by plantinge in the same men of knowledge in sondry
handycrafts, as also for the relief of certaine strangers nowe
resyding in our citie of London, being verye skilful therein,
belonging to the church of strangers in our said citie of London,
we of our gras especiall and mere mocion do by theis presents
give and graunte lycence to all and everye persons strangers, as
by the most reverend father in God the Archbishop of Canter-
burye and the Bishop of London for the tyme beinge shalbe
unto youe signified to be persons mete to inhabite within our
said towne and porte of Sandwiche for the exercise thereof the
facultie of making saes, bay and other cloth, which hath not
¹ Strype, Life of Parker (1822): Appendix lxxiii. p. 210.
The Reformation and Religious Refugees 163
been used to be made in this our realme of Englonde, or for
fishinge in the seas, not extendinge the nombre of twentie, or
fyve and twentie householders, accomptinge to everye household
not above 10 or 12 persons, that they and everye of them may
savely repaire to our said towne and porte of Sandwich, and
there by our consent and order inhabite and take houses for
their habitacion and have suche and as manie servants as shall
suffice for the exercise of the saide faculties there, not excead-
inge the nombre above expressed without any payne, forfacture
or other losse, damage or hindrance to be sustained or incurred
by youe or any of you, or by them or any of them, for or con-
cerninge the premises or any part thereof; any acte, statute,
provision, usage, custome, prescription, lawe, or other thinge
whatsoever to the contrarye hereof had or made in any wise
notwithstandinge. And theis our letters shalbe unto you and
every of you, and also unto them and every of them, from tyme
to tyme a suffycient warrante in that behalf, to continue
duringe our pleasure." 1
Some years after the colonies had been established, an
attempt was made to regulate the residence of such
among the strangers as were merchants in the towns, and
to revive the restrictions imposed upon them by the
statutes of Edward III. and Richard II.2 Letters patent
were obtained by a certain William Tipper in 1576, author-
izing him to appoint hosts in London and other places,
but the supervision of the merchant trade was denied in
1578. In Norwich, at least, Tipper's attempt to carry
out his right came to nought, for the authorities had
learnt fully to realize the benefits accruing to the town
from the presence of foreigners, and they bargained with
1 Boys, Sandwich: Appendix G, p. 740. S. P. Dom. Eliz., xviii.
9
2 The illegalities with which they were charged are recited at
scme length in a complaint of certain citizens of London. S. P
Dom. Eliz., lxxxi. 29.
164
Alien Immigrants
Tipper for the surrender of his privilege.¹ Very pro-
bably this was the only outcome of the scheme in other
places.
34. It is less easy to follow out in detail the arrangements
which were made for the supervision of the industries
practised by these Protestant refugees. The regulations
of English industries, which had been growing up for
centuries, culminated in the Elizabethan Act of Ap-
prenticeship in 1562. We need not consider the clauses
which had reference to the assessment of wages at pre-
sent; the main provision of the measure may be regarded
as establishing a vast system of technical education; it
specified the callings which were open to different in-
dividuals, the length of apprenticeship required, and the
proportion of apprentices who might be kept at any given
time by one householder. It was impossible under these
circumstances that aliens should be left free to carry on
their trades in any fashion they chose, but it was neces-
sary that some modus vivendi should be found if they
were to earn their livings at all.
The law with regard to alien workmen at that date
was exceedingly strict. The measure of Richard III.,
which had been passed with reference to Italian immi-
grants in 1484, had begun by enacting that no more alien
artisans were to be allowed to settle in the country at all,
except as the servants of English masters. If any new-
comer wished to set up on his own account he was to be
made to "depart into his own country again"; it seems
1 Moens, Hug. Soc. Pub., i. 40, 41.
The Reformation and Religious Refugees 165
as if the very reception of a great part of the Protestant
refugees was in itself condemned by this unrepealed law.
It was also enacted by the same measure that the alien
workmen already established in the realm should not be
allowed to have any alien apprentices except their own
children. The whole meaning of the measure was to
limit the alien invasion, and to insist that those who had
come should teach their arts to Englishmen.
The measure which was passed in 1523 enforces the
same general policy; no stranger was to have an alien
apprentice, or to have more than two alien journeymen;
they were not to work apart from Englishmen, but in
such a fashion that natives might learn all the secrets of
their trades. They were also brought under strict sur-
veillance so far as the quality of their work was con-
cerned; in London and in other towns, where companies
of trades existed, the wardens of these companies were
to have supervision over all the strangers practising a
craft; and in other towns the municipal authorities were
empowered to search and refuse strangers.¹
The difficulties of which we hear in the City of London,
were chiefly connected with the supervision which the
companies claimed to exercise over aliens. Many of the
C
1 14 & 15 Henry VIII. c. 2, par. 14. See also 32 Henry VIII.
c. 16. It is rather curious to notice the trades which are speci-
ally noted in connection with this statute: blacksmiths, joiners,
coopers and pouch-makers, and they only were compelled to use
trade marks; by a later Act (22 Henry VIII. c. 13) alien bakers,
brewers, surgeons and scriveners were exempted from its opera-
tion; noblemen and gentry were to be allowed to employ alien
joiners and glaziers in their own work without molestation.
166
Alien Immigrants
refugees, who settled in the city or the suburbs, were shoe-
makers, and they soon came into contact with the authorities
of the Cordwainers' Company, who seem to have been a
powerful body. They had secured a new charter from
Queen Elizabeth, and an Act of Parliament in 1562 gave
them widely extended powers of searching and of exacting
quarterages. They had erected a new hall, and held a
magnificent house-warming in 1575; and they deter-
mined to defend the privileges of the free shoemakers
against the aliens and unfree Englishmen, who purchased
leather and made shoes within the area over which they
claimed supervision. They do not appear to have had
much satisfaction as the result of their action, for three
years later they were again petitioning the Lord Treasurer
to interfere in their behalf and to restrain certain aliens
and foreigners who disregarded their chartered claims. ¹
The Company of Weavers took similar action in 1582,
though it was directed against freemen of this city, who
had learned silk-weaving from aliens 2; this is in itself
an incidental proof that the London silk-weavers did not
keep their art to themselves. Naturally enough the com-
plainants in this case got no support from the authorities;
and when certain apprentices, who were plasterers by
trade, organized an attack on aliens in 1586, they were
promptly and easily suppressed ; but the city was more
"
¹ Stow, Survey, ii. bk. v. 300.
2 Ibid., ii. bk. v. 306. There is a good statement here of the
curious custom of the city of London with regard to changing
trades.
8 Ibid., ii. bk. v. p. 436.
The Reformation and Religious Refugees 167
interested in asserting that the old order should be
maintained in connection with transactions in the
new sorts of cloth. Blackwell Hall was a centre to which
the products of the old-established English manufacture
were brought for sale; and the charge, which was levied
as hallage, yielded a handsome revenue. The new
drapery, on the other hand, was bought and sold in a sort
of clandestine fashion, both in the city and the surburbs,
and an ordinance was issued by the Mayor on 28th Oct.,
1576, insisting that there should be a regular market
for the new drapery in Basinghall Ward two days each
week, and levying hallage on the goods thus brought for
sale. The Norwich drapers resented this demand, and it
was not effectively enforced; but, on the whole, the
London authorities were able to control the industry of
aliens settled within their bounds.
In the suburbs, which were rising rapidly to the west of
London, things were different; the want of industrial
regulation among the aliens and foreigners, ¹ who were
crowding into the fields beyond Lincoln's Inn and Soho,
was one reason for the frequent proclamations 2 under
Elizabeth, James and Charles against the expansion of the
great town. In the reign of Charles I., an attempt was
made to get over this particular difficulty by erecting a
great industrial corporation in the suburbs. At another
time it was proposed to divide the responsibility between
1 Rymer, Fadera, xx. 173.
2 Growth of Industry, ii. 172-3.
3 Rymer, Fadera, xx. 173. See also S. P. Dom. Chas I., cccx.
53; ccclxiii. 88; ccclxxii. 10.
168
Alien Immigrants
the cities of London and Westminster, by assigning a
definite area to each; but this project also fell to the
ground, and no effective industrial regulation appears to
have been exercised over the suburban aliens. The re-
turns made by the Companies¹ in 1621 show that the
various trades were jealously on their guard against alien
competition; while a petition in 1616 enumerates the
grievances of the citizens most clearly; they gave expres-
sion to their dislike of the frugality of the aliens, and
jealousy of the machinery they had introduced; but the
complaint that the aliens kept their misteries to them-
selves would be most likely to rouse the Crown or Parlia-
ment to interfere.
Ma
"Their chiefest cause of entertainment here of late," runs the
petition, was in charity to shroud them from persecution for
religion; and, beinge here, theire necessity became the mother
of theire ingenuitie in deviseing manye trades, before to us
unknowne.
"(
"The State, noteing their diligence, and yet preventinge the
future inconvenience, enacted two speciall lawes:—
"That they should enterteine Englishe apprentices and
servants to learne those trades, the neglect whereof giveth them
advantage to keepe their misteries to themselves, which hath
made them bould of late to devise engines for workinge of tape,
lace, ribbin and such, wherein one man doth more amongst
them than seven Englishe men can doe; soe as their cheape sale
of these comodities beggereth all our Englishe artificers of that
trade and enricheth them.
“Since the makinge of the last Statute they are thought to be
1 Lists of Foreigners, 1618-1688 (Camden Society), vol. lxxxii.
pp 23 seq.
2 The opposition to foreigners in London is evidenced by the
proclamation which the Lord Mayor found necessary to address
to the Companies of the city in 1581 (Clode, Merchant Tailors, i.
198), enjoining them to give "good usage" to certain Frenchmen.
The Reformation and Religious Refugees 169
increased ten for one, so as no tenement is left to an Englishe
artificer to inhabite in divers parts of the cytie and subburbs,
but they take them over their heads at a greate rate.
"Soe their numbers causeth the enhauncinge of the prices of
vittells and house rents, and much furthereth the late disorderly
new buildings, which is so burdonous to the subject that his
Majestie hath not any worke to performe for the good of his
comons (especially in cities and townes) then by the takinge of
the benefitt of the law upon them, a thinge which is don against
his owne subjects be common informers. But their daylie flock-
inge hithere without such remedie is like to grow scarce tollor-
able. 1
3
In some of the other towns where they settled, the
question of their interference with existing industries was
a burning one. At Canterbury, and also at Sandwich,
2
pains were taken to secure that they should not trespass
on existing callings, but practise arts which were new to
the town; while at Hull effect was given to the principle
that if they did practise established callings, they should
come to an arrangement with the local authorities; 4 no
alien stranger might practise the craft of cordwainery or
shoemaking 5 without agreement and licence of the fellow-
1 S. P. Dom. Jas. I., lxxxviii. 112 (1616).
2 Burn, Hist. of French, Walloon, Dutch and other Protestant
Refugees, p. 275. The silk-weavers were subsequently formed
(1676) into an independent corporation under Charles II. Hasted,
Hist. of Canterbury, i. 94.
3 Boys, Sandwich, p. 740, and Hug. Soc. Proc., ii. 228 seq. Cf.
Norwich, Hug. Soc. Pub., i. 18; Southampton, Hug. Soc. Proc., iii.
58; and Colchester, Morant, Essex, i. 76.
+ Cordwainer's composition in 1564. Lambert, Two Thousand
Years of Gild Life (1891), 316.
5 It is perhaps worth noting that in 1633 complaints arose
from the Society of Skinners, Whittawers, and Glovers in
Preston, Wigan, Lancaster, Liverpool, Manchester, and Newton
170
Alien Immigrants
1
ship of that mistery in the town. The pressure of com-
petition at their doors gave a new importance to these old
organizations, and it is obvious that just at this period
the companies obtained a new lease of life in various
towns, such as Coventry and Hull, if indeed they were
not created anew. They obtained charters from the
Crown, and thus occupied a more dignified position than
the merely municipal craft gilds had previously done. It
is not easy to see what new economic function, distinct
from the regulation of aliens and prevention of baneful
competition, they could be intended to subserve.
35. Such were the attempts to draw the aliens into the
industrial system existing in the country; in two or three
cases a somewhat different line was taken, and they were
permitted to organize their own industry and enforce the
ordinances they themselves deemed wise. Neither in
Norwich, nor in Colchester, did they secure this privilege
without a struggle; in Norwich they came into conflict
with the dyers, and there was an attempt to oust them,
but they soon secured the favour of the city authorities,
and the system of searching cloth which they approved
was authoritatively adopted. In Colchester the struggle
was more severe; the Dutch had, in apparent defiance of a
in Makerfield, against "interlopers," and the Judges of Assize
were ordered to inquire into their grievances. Lancashire and
Cheshire Antiq. Soc. (1892), p. 6.
¹ Lambert, loc. cit., p. 316. The Corvisors of Lichfield renewed
their statutes in 1625 (Lancs. and Cheshire Antiq. Soc., 1892, p. 12).
And the cutlers of Hallamshire sought a new charter in 1624.
Hunter, Hallamshire. p. 151.

HE
BOURNE POND MILL, COLCHESTER.
The Reformation and Religious Refugees 171
statute, erected a hall and made illegal ordinances for
their own trade. But the complaint had no success, and
under James I. they were confirmed in their privileges of
self regulation.
As an industrially organized colony, this was in some
ways the most important of the settlements of the time.
The manufacture of Bays continued to be very important,
and the cloth thus produced was an important article of
export. There is still standing near the town an inter-
esting monument of these Dutch bay-makers; in 1591
they erected a fulling mill, which was worked by water
from the fish-pond of the ancient abbey. The abbey
buildings were utilized in connection with the new manu-
facture, not as in Malmesbury, where they formed a
factory, but as a quarry from which the materials for
the new mill were obtained. The beautiful inlaid work
of the perpendicular period (see p. 189) reappears in the
horizontal courses of the Dutch building. The trade con-
tinued to flourish during the seventeenth century, but
suffered severely in the eighteenth, when imported cotton
fabrics began to be used in preference to light woollen.
goods.
Categ
36. The refugees were more successful in securing their
own organization for religious than for industrial pur-
poses. There were quite a number of centres where they
had their own worship, their own ecclesiastical discipline,
their own registers of baptisms and marriages, and, as
noted above, their own provision for their own poor.
Sometimes, as at Canterbury, they had the right to use
a portion of an existing church; more often they had
172
Alien Immigrants
churches assigned them, or built their own.¹ Just as
the immigrants had caused difficulties in connection with
the elaborately established industrial system of the times,
so the existence of these privileged colonies was a diffi-
culty in connection with attempts to enforce the estab-
lished ecclesiastical discipline.
It was, according to the current ideas of the time, the
part of the civil magistrate to assist in the enforcement
of religious duty; and one recognised religious duty was
that of attending service in the parish church. From
this the aliens were exempt; and the native Englishman,
who disliked the established order, must have felt it an
injustice that he should not have the same liberty for his
conscientious scruples as was enjoyed by men of foreign
birth. On the other hand, there were grounds for saying
that it was not unreasonable to make exceptional arrange-
ments for refugees to have their accustomed worship in
a language they understood; but that a mere temporary
permission should not be allowed to become a permanent
institution, and that the descendants of the refugees
might be fairly expected to conform to the religious
system of the country, in which their fathers had found
an asylum and they themselves had been born. This
was the position taken by Laud in his attack on these
separatist organizations.2 Though there was much to
¹ The seventeenth-century colony at Thorney Abbey of Dutch
drainers used the parish church, while the Dutchmen in the
district of the Isle of Axholme erected a church of their own at
Sandtoft.
2 Collier, Eccles. Hist. (1862), viii. 56. See Agnew, vol. i. 21, 22,
The Reformation and Religious Refugees 173
be said for this policy from the ordinary standpoint of
the time, the privileges actually conferred had not been
explicitly limited in the sense he would have wished,
and the congregations which survived maintained their
immunities, and were probably strengthened by the
sympathy of those who were opposed to Laud. It was
one of the points on which Prynne laid stress in getting
up the case against the Archbishop.¹
37. The complaints, partly industrial and partly eccles-
iastical, which were from time to time made against
these separately organized colonies, were not passed over
in silence. They were carefully examined in the time of
James I.
1
In 1615 a committee was formed to inquire into the
alleged grievances, and orders were issued by the Lord
Mayor to all the City Companies, directing them to state
their case.2 In accordance with this order the Weavers
Company formulated their complaints.3 The support
which the King promised the strangers against in-
formers in 1616 called forth another petition from the
Londoners; this has already been quoted.5 The citizens
apparently succeeded in enlisting the sympathy of the
4
and authorities quoted, especially Bulteel, Relation of Foreign
Churches in Kent (1645), and Letter from the Norwich Churches
as to the difficulties of Laud's policy.
¹ Prynne, Complete History of the Tryall and Condemnation oj
William Laud (1646), p. 27.
2 S. P. Dom. Jas. I., I. lxxxi. 9.
3 Ibid., lxxxi. 56.
4 Ibid., cxxxi. 12.
5 Ibid., lxxxviii, 112. See above, p. 168.
174
Alien Immigrants
Council.¹ Two years later returns were ordered of all the
strangers dwelling in London and Southwark.2
Here the matter was allowed to rest; but in 1621 it
was taken up again, and a regular commission sat on the
alien question.3 The warrant for this commission was
issued in July. Its members were the Lord Keeper, the
High Treasurer, the Attorney and Solicitor-General, and
nine others. These commissioners were instructed to
take, "with all convenient speed," a written survey of
all the strangers in England, and were to register their
names, qualities, and professions. This was to be done
annually. Foreigners were to submit to all the rules
touching servants and apprentices to which Englishmen
were subject; they were also to pay quarterage. Mer-
chants who only sold in gross were to continue their
calling as formerly; but those who were occupied in
handicraft or manual trades, or who sold by retail, were
to be restrained. Every alien householder was to pay a
tax of twelvepence; all others over seven years of age, six-
pence, except such as were servants to the English, and
they were exempt from all taxation with the exception
of a registration fee. Special favour was to be shown to
any stranger who had brought or who should bring in
a new trade, and in this case the introducer was to
exercise his craft freely for seven years. The commission
Q
1 W. J. C. Moens, in Hug. Soc. Proc., i. p. 65, quoting
Ruytinck's MSS.
2 S. P. Dom. Jas. I., xlix. 22–24, 42-47, and exviii.
3 Ibid., Warrant Books, vol. xv. bundle xxiv. no. 15a.
The Reformation and Religious Refugees 175
was to be no empty formality; the aliens were either to
acquiesce in its rulings or leave the country, under pain
of such punishment as the Attorney-General should
adjudge legal.¹ There had been some talk of appointing
an officer to exercise a personal supervision of this kind
in the reign of Elizabeth, but nothing had come of it,
and there was at all events an apparent need for appoint-
ing a commission to supplement and support the action of
local authorities.
2
The returns collected in connection with these efforts
supply an immense amount of information which is of
interest to the historian; but, on the whole, they failed to
prove the need of the special intervention that had been
contemplated. The several companies of Goldsmiths,³
Coopers, Clockmakers,5 Leatherdressers, Cutlers, and
Dyers in London had an opportunity of pressing their
grievances.
4
6
m
8
9
A second commission was constituted in the following
year; against this the aliens promptly protested.10 The
charges addressed to its members were similar to those
of 1621, the prominent point insisted upon being that a
proper difference should be put between the aliens and
¹ S. P. Dom. Jas. I., vol. cxxii. 48.
2 Monson, Dymoch, and Sir T. Mildmay, in my Growth of
Industry and Commerce, ii. 50. William Herle, in 1571, had made
a proposal for a survey of foreigners, and had tried to obtain the
office of surveyor. S. P. D. Eliz., lxxxi. 34, 35.
8 S. P. Dom. Jas. I., cxxvii. 12. 4 Ibid., cxxvii. 14.
5 Ibid., cxxvii. 15. 6 Ibid., cxxvii. 20.
7 Ibid., cxxvii. 17. 8 Ibid., cxxxiii. 4–9.
9 Rymer, Fœdera, xvii. 372–3. 10 S. P. Dom. Jas. I., cxxxi. 12.
176
Alien Immigrants
natives for the satisfaction of the King's subjects. Special
favour was to be shown to such of the French nation as
had come to England owing to troubles at home.
Soon after their appointment, the commissioners placed
a tax on all English goods sold by strangers, equal in
amount to half the export duty on such commodities.¹
In March 1623, the French and Dutch congregations
appealed against this impost, and Heath was ordered to
render an account of the proceedings of the commission.2
Nothing more is heard of this body, and the net result
of the whole investigation does not appear to have been
great.3
So far as can be gathered from the returns in 1622, the
colonies which had formerly existed at Ipswich and Yar-
mouth had ceased to exist; 4 while the aliens in other
towns practised a great variety of callings, some of
which were newly introduced. It seems to have been
thought that, so far as old-established industries were
concerned, the companies already possessed all the powers
they required.
The return of 16165 shows that there were in London
1,343 persons practising 121 different trades. In many
of these they are likely to have introduced some improve-
1 S. P. Dom. Jas. I., cxxxiii. 2. 2 Ibid., cxxxix. 60.
3 In 1626 it was ordered that aliens should "use their trades
without let or hindrance." Hug. Soc. Proc., iii. 137. No annual
returns appear beyond those of 1622.
4 There were a few Dutch people at Hythe at this date.
S. P. Dom. Jas. I., cxxix., 66.
5 Ibid., vol. lxxxviii. 113.
The Reformation and Religious Refugees 177
ments,¹ for England was very backward in manufactures
of every sort in Tudor times; but it is worth while to
notice a few cases where they got the credit of introducing
an art which had not been practised at all. The estab-
lishment of glass-engraving in London,2 and also of new
potteries,³ is attributed to them. Silk-weaving was begun
in Canterbury, and thread-making at Maidstone; the new
drapery was a fresh development at Norwich, Colchester,
and Sandwich; linen-weaving, printing, and the making
of gallipots were also started by them at Norwich; the
making of needles and parchment were subsidiary in-
dustries at Colchester; and many of those who practised
industrial callings were also skilled as gardeners. The
introduction of lace-making is attributed to the refugees
4
¹ As, for instance, in glass-making. There had been foreign
glass-makers in the time of Henry VIII., and others from
Murano under Edward VI. In 1565 an unsuccessful attempt
was made to set up the manufacture (S. P. Dom. Eliz., xxxvii.
3). Two years later Becku and Carré, Low Countrymen, ob-
tained royal licence for glazing (Ibid., xliii. 42–46, and xlvii. 56.
Cf. Hist. MSS. Com., Report VII., p. 621). Verselyne, a Venețian,
began the making of drinking glasses. (S. P. Dom. Eliz., ccxli.
40; also see Hist. MSS. Com., Rep. XIII., Ap. iv. p. 62). But there
was a difficulty in regard to this manufacture on account of
the wood required. See the Bills on the subject in the Lords.
Hist. MSS. Com., Report III., 5. The manufacture of flint glass
is said to have been introduced by refugee families from Lor-
raine, who settled at Stourbridge, in Worcestershire, in the
sixteenth century. Nash, Worcestershire (1782), ii. 212.
2 Hug. Soc. Pub., viii.: Introduction, xlvi.
3 Stow, Survey, ii. bk. v. 327.
4 Jaspar, Andreas, and Jacob Janssen of Antwerp petitioned
in 1570 for a monopoly of the manufacture of galley (glazed)
tiles and apothecaries' vessels. Lansdowne, xii. 58, 59.
173
Alien Immigrants
of the Low Countries.1 Flemish names figure in the
church registers of Honiton in the end of the sixteenth
century,2 and many others of the same extraction are to
be found in Bedfordshire.3 Tradition assigns the origin
of the manufactures at Newport Pagnel, Stony Stratford,
and Aylesbury, and also those of Northampton, to the
same source. The trade was prospering in Northamp-
ton, Buckinghamshire, and Devon in 1650, and in
1626 a school for teaching the art had been established
at Great Marlow.5
4
400
In attempting to discriminate the precise economic in-
fluence exercised by religious refugees, it must be re-
membered that many of the foreigners who settled in this
country came for business reasons. Some of these, like
the Keswick miners, were Protestants who desired to
have their own religious services, but they had not come
to this country as an asylum from persecutions on the
Continent. Cecil appears to have been keenly interested
in developing the resources of the country in many ways,
and especially in utilizing native materials so as to render
us independent of foreign lands. In many cases this
could only be done by accepting the assistance of foreign
undertakers and foreign workmen. We have projects in
1 Poole, Huguenots, 92. Smiles, Huguenots in England and
Ireland (1889), 110.
2 Palliser, History of Lace (1875), p. 355.
³ Ibid., p. 336.
4 Ibid., pp. 336, 343. These laces are of old Flemish design.
5 Felkin, Lace, in British Manufacturing Industries, edited by
G. P. Bevan (1877), i. p. 46.
6 S. P. Dom. Eliz, xlvi. 80.
The Reformation and Religious Refugees
179
4
5
connection with dyeing¹ and with the manufacture of
canvas,² of paper 3 and of soap, and for the production of
saltpetre. There were also numerous competing proposals
for the manufacture of salt.6 Humphrey was very ener-
getic in attempting to develop new branches of the
manufacture of brass; with the help of German associates
he endeavoured to mine for copper and calamine stone,
and he established wire and battery works at Tintern.
Cutlery had long been made at Sheffield; but the improve-
ment in the manufacture of knives at this date was in
all probability due to the settlement of Flemish cutlers,
8
1 Caspar Vosbergh at Stamford (S. P. Dom. Eliz., lxxvii. 65) ;
Peter de Croix (Lansdowne, ix. 62); Grafignias (Ibid., 1. 16).
2 S. P. Dom. Eliz., xvii. 48, 49; xviii. 22. This was attempted
at Stamford, but the alien settlers do not seem to have taken
part in it. Ibid., xliii. 11.
3 Sir J. Spilman (S. P. Dom. Eliz., ccxvii. 70).
4 Groyett (Pat. 3 Eliz., p. 13, m. 1); Fauk (S. P. Dom. Eliz.,
cxxvi. 45).
5 Stephinsonn (Lansdowne, xxiv. 51, 55, 56, 57); Leonard Engel-
bright (Ibid., xxiv. 54); Bovyat (S. P. Dom. Eliz., cvi. 53).
6 Francis Bertie of Antwerp (S. P. Dom. Eliz., xxxiii. 51;
xxxix. 26); Caspar Seeler (Ibid., xxxiii. 5); Mount (Ibid., xl. 12;
xli. 13); Back (Ibid., xliii. 3); Backholt, Van Trere, and others
(Ibid., xxxvi. 40; xliii. 38); Franchard (Ibid., lxxxiii. 12);
Baroncelly (Pat. 6 Eliz. p. 3, m. 12, d).
7 S. P. Dom. Eliz., xxxvii. 21; xl. 11; xli. 12. Godfrey Box of
Liège is also credited with introducing wire drawing in 1590
(Harrison, Description of England (Furnival), ii. 37). Wire
making was started at Esher in Surrey by Mommer and Deme-
trius; and there was a Dutchman who opened a wire mill at
Richmond in 1662. The making of Spanish needles was begun
in England by a German in 1566. Ibid., ii. 34.
8 Probably for the work that is now done in stamping mills.
Men were brought from Holland to establish the brass manu-
facture at Bristol in the eighteenth century. Nicholls, Bristol
(1880), iii. 158.
180
Alien Immigrants
under the patronage of the Earl of Shrewsbury;¹ others
are said to have begun the manufacture of steel at Shotley
Bridge, near Newcastle.2
Another of our important industries seems to have
resulted from the coming of the refugees. Cotton was
imported from Antwerp in 1560;³ the first reference to
this textile as a fabric of English make was in 1641,4
and in 1660 it appears as a manufacture of Manchester.
During the interval which had elapsed between 1560 and
1641, the sack of Antwerp had taken place (1585), and
the consequent flight of the inhabitants brought many
refugees to England. The same period is marked by a
great growth in the population of Manchester. In
1578, in a petition to the Queen for the reconstitution of
Christ's College, Manchester, the number of townspeople
was estimated at ten thousand; by 1635, in a similar
petition, the population had doubled itself. These facts,
taken in conjunction, point to the probability that it was
by refugees that the cotton manufacture was established
there.
There were also engineering works of various kinds
undertaken during this period with the assistance of
1 F. Callis, Sheffield, in vol. iv. of British Manufacturing In-
dustries (1877), p. 156. The Jacques de Liège knife suggests a
foreign origin; it became the pattern for the later clasp knife.
2 Smiles, Huguenots in England and Ireland (1889), p. 111.
3 Macpherson, ii. p. 131.
4 Lewis Roberts, Treasury of Traffic, pp. 32, 33. In 1660, in
the Discourse, Provision for the Poor, cotton was stated to be a
trade of Manchester.
5 Manchester Court Leet Records, Appendix, p. 82 (Chetham Soc.,
vol. lxv.).
The Reformation and Religious Refugees 181
German immigrants. Considerable works in the harbour.
at Dover were carried out for the Government under the
advice of Poyntz,1 and Flemish workmen were employed
upon them.2 Humphrey Bradley, a Dutch engineer of
high repute,³ was also consulted about them.4 He turned
his attention to the reclaiming of marshes; his sug-
gestions are embodied in A Discourse of Humphrey
Bradley, a Brabanter, concerning the Fens in Norfolk.5
In connection with the draining of parts of Holland in
Lincolnshire, foreigners were consulted, and the reclaim-
ing of Plumstead Marshes was undertaken somewhat
earlier by Giacopo Acontio of Trent." Waterworks for
London were projected by an Italian named Genebelli.8
It is evident that the Englishman of that generation had
much to learn both in regard to planning and executing
works of this character.
6
The industrial influence exerted by these colonies must
have been enormous; but it was for the most part very
local; large areas of the country were untouched by the
1 S. P. Dom. Eliz., cliii. 56, etc. 2 Ibid., cl. 82; clxxii. 18.
3 He carried out extensive draining works and improved the
water communication of France for Henri IV. Fagniez, L'Écon-
omie Sociale de France, 26, 193.
4 S. P. Dom. Eliz., clxxiii. 96.
5 Lansdowne MSS., lx. 34. The advice of Engelbert was also
highly thought of. Ibid., cx. 7.
6 S. P. Dom. Eliz., ccxiii. 28.
7 S. P. Dom. Eliz., Add. xi. 99.
8 Lansdowne MSS., ci. 14. He also had a scheme for draining
Kent and Sussex (Ibid., cx. 8, 11). He appears to have been em-
ployed in repairing the defences of Gravesend at the time of the
Armada. S. P. Dom. Eliz., ccxvii. 4.
Lansdowne MSS., xli. 45 seq.
See also 23 Eliz. c. 13.
182
Alien Immigrants
residence of the refugees. The method of their immigra-
tion, and the necessity of distributing them in groups,
had prevented them from being scattered generally, but
at each centre the knowledge of the arts they practised
was not kept entirely to themselves, but diffused itself
more or less rapidly among their English neighbours.
38. It might have been supposed that considerable
numbers would have sought refuge in Scotland at this
time, and that the Protestantism of the northern king-
dom would be more congenial than the ecclesiastical
system of England; but the traces of immigration to
Scotland at this time are comparatively few. It may be,
however, that, just because immigrants who settled there
could accept established usages more readily, they were
more readily absorbed in the general population, and
did not maintain themselves as separate colonies. There
was neither such a highly organized industrial system
with authoritative searching, nor such stringent ecclesi-
astical regulation in Scotland as in England. In addition
to this, the willingness of the gilds to admit Flemish
workmen ¹ resulted in their ready amalgamation with the
native craftsmen. The social features, which occasioned
the separate organization of the alien colonies in England
and gave rise to their history, had no real correlative in
Scotland.
1
But there are cases where the presence of aliens can
be traced. In 1582 two Dutch printers were employed
¹ A. W. C. Hallen, Huguenots in Scotland (Hug. Soc. Proc., ii.
167).
The Reformation and Religious Refugees
183
in Edinburgh,¹ and in 1584 a printing press was set up
there by Vautrollier, a Huguenot. Two years later,
Pierre du Moulin, a minister from France, settled in
Edinburgh with a considerable number of refugees.³
Nicholas Langlois, another exile, became
exile, became a French
teacher, and two French fugitives were engaged to mend
the city roads.5
4
6
James VI. was desirous of encouraging the cloth trade,
and in 1587 an Act was passed in favour of three Flemish
weavers, who sought leave to set up their craft. For
the furtherance of their "gude and godlie enterprise" a
sum of money was assigned, and they were to be ex-
empted from taxation and town dues. Naturalization was
to be granted to them, they were to be created burgesses
of whatever town they selected for their abode, and per-
mission was given for the establishment of a church of
their own, subject to the laws and discipline of the Church
of Scotland." The conditions laid down were that they
should remain five years, and that they should bring
1 W. T. Dobson, Bassandyne Bible (1887), p. 186.
2 Chambers, Domestic Annals (1858), i. 155.
3 Ibid., i. 164.
4 Ibid., i. 95.
5 A. W. C. Hallen, Huguenots in Scotland (Hug. Soc. Proc., ii.
171).
6 Acta Parl., Jac. VI. (1587), c. 119.
7 Disputes soon arose between two of the Flemings and the
authorities of the Kirk. These men were ordered either to submit
or to leave the kingdom. Edinburgh Burgh Records, 8 May, 1588.
Quoted by Hallen (Hug. Soc. Proc., ii. 168). In 1588 other Flem-
ings seem to have come. Edinburgh Burgh Records. Quoted by
Hallen (Hug. Soc. Proc., ii. 169).
184
Alien Immigrants
thirty weavers and fullers, and such other workmen as
should be necessary for making bays, serges, and other
cloths. Good workmanship was to be ensured by the
appointment of an Edinburgh burgess as searcher and
sealer of their goods. The weavers were to take "na
prentices bot Scottis boys and madinnis," for whom they
were to provide during the five years of apprenticeship,
and the Flemings were to see that none of their company
fell into idleness or want.
2
In 1600 liberty was accorded for the settlement of a
hundred clothworkers, and favourable conditions were
again made for their establishment.¹ In the following
spring it was proposed to bring in twenty strangers,
artificers; in the summer a settlement of Flemings was
effected. Bischof, a refugee, agreed to come from Norwich
to work in Edinburgh; 3 and twelve weavers from Ley-
den 4 were received at Edinburgh, Perth, Dundee, and
Ayr. At this time the strangers in Edinburgh were
suffering from opposition on the part of the borough
¹ Privy Council Records (Scotland), vol. vi. p. 123. There is no
record of any arrivals consequent on this.
2 Records of the Convention of Royal Burghs (1597–1614), (Edin.,
1870), 14 Feb., 1601.
3 Ibid., 10 July, 1601. These settlements from Norwich and
Leyden were the result of a commission which had been des-
patched to Flanders, France, and England, to induce craftsmen
to immigrate. Ibid., 3 July, 1601.
4 Ibid., 10 July, 1601. Eight years later there were alien
weavers in the Canongate. Chambers, Domestic Annals, i. 421.
Attention has been drawn to the fact that many names at
Muthill and Perth are of Flemish origin, also that many mano-
rial meal mills were utilized for fulling from this period. Hallen,
Huguenots in Scotland, in Hug. Soc. Proc. ii. 174, 5.
The Reformation and Religious Refugees 185
magistrates. The baillies were summoned before the
Privy Council to reply to the complaints of the strangers
lately brought for the cloth manufacture, who alleged
that "they were neither intertaneit nor put to the work,"
and that separation retarded their progress.1 The Council
ordered that these grievances should be redressed, and
that the weavers should be suffered to live together in
Edinburgh.
With regard to these Flemish artificers and other
foreigners who arrived in Scotland in the latter half of
the sixteenth century, it is impossible to say whether
they were, or were not, exiles for conscience sake, though
it seems as if the settlement of some of them had been
more directly due to the economic inducements offered
to them. Eustacius Roche had a patent granted to him
for the manufacture of salt. Several Flemings obtained
mining rights;³ and in 1590 a German, Peter Groot
Heare, and several associates, were licensed by the Privy
Council to make paper for nine years.4 So far as Ireland
is concerned, only a solitary instance has come under my
notice during this period; a settlement of refugees was
1 Privy Council Records (Scotland), vi. p. 274. 24 July, 1601.
2 Ibid., iv. 319, 20.
3 Cornelius de Vos in 1567, and Gray. Chambers, Domestic
Annals, i. 59, 51. Petierson in 1575. Privy Council Records, ii. 506,
598. Arnold Bronckhurst, in 1580. Chambers, Domestic Annals,
i. 50, 51. Eustacius Roche, in 1583. Privy Council Records (Scot-
land), iii. p. 602; iv. 22. The Keswick Company mentioned
above (p. 123) entered into negotiations for mining for gold on
Crawford Moor. S. P. Dom. Eliz., xl. 79, 80; xli. 38; xlviii. 14.
4 Chambers, Domestic Annals, i. 195.
186
Alien Immigrants
made under the patronage of Sir Henry Sidney at Swords,
near Dublin, where the manufacture of ticking and leather
work was carried on.¹
39. Great as was the industrial influence which was
exercised by the colonies of religious refugees, their
presence in England was fraught with far-reaching con-
sequences of other kinds. They had a responsibility of
their own with regard to providing for the poor, and
they were privileged to maintain their own religious
rites; in each aspect the effect of their example was
remarkable.
One of the most characteristic features of English in-
dustrial life in the present day is the existence of great
Friendly Societies established on a sound financial basis.
They are a form of self-help which has proved so suc-
cessful that there is less inclination here than on the
Continent to rely on State intervention and assistance;
as the results of combined industrial effort they are a
standing protest against the socialistic tendency of the
Elizabethan poor law. If English workmen are more
self-reliant than their continental brothers it is, partly
at least, because of the great benefit societies which they
have built up by their own efforts. The extraordinary
importance of these societies only comes into light, when
we remember that the Trades Union movement is an
offshoot of the Friendly Society, and that it was only in
their character of Friendly Societies that Trades Unions
¹ Sir Henry Sidney's Memoir of His Government in Ireland,
quoted in the Ulster Journal of Archæology, vol. v. 306.
The Reformation and Religious Refugees 187
were first recognised as permissible institutions. But
though the Friendly Society, with its offshoot the Trades
Union, is characteristically English now, it is not a native
institution; it seems to have had its origin in the Eliza-
bethan colonies of refugees. They were responsible for
the maintenance of their own poor, and in their method
of fulfilling this duty they set an example of organized
frugality which native Englishmen began to copy in the
eighteenth century. Just as the weavers of the twelfth
century established associations which served as the type
of the medieval craft gild, so did the organization,
which their circumstances forced upon the refugees, serve
as the model on which Friendly Societies came to be
formed. It was thus that the much-lauded frugality of
the aliens embodied itself in institutions for mutual self-
help.
The existence of these colonies had also an important
bearing on the political and religious changes which
occurred in the seventeenth century, and which were
embodied in the triumph of Whig principles at the
Revolution settlement. The close inter-connection be-
tween religious conviction and political opinion and
action was the crux of statesmen in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries. Politics were necessarily more
or less determined by religious considerations; the very
origin of these colonies of refugees was an evidence of
the fact. It was possible to maintain in theory-as one
or two persons did-that the State had nothing to
do with religious conviction. But in days when some
men preached assassination as a religious duty, and
188
Alien Immigrants
others claimed a religious right to disregard the legal
claims of property, it was impossible for the statesmen
to accept religious toleration in a wide sense. Tolera-
tion for all the vagaries of fanatics of every sort meant
social anarchy. The fundamental problem which states-
men had to face was this-How far can the State with
safety be indifferent to the varieties of religious
opinion? Laud held that it could be indifferent to
varieties of opinions so long as one worship and disci-
pline was maintained. The continued existence of the
refugee separatist congregations, without political danger,
gave a practical demonstration of the possibility of carry-
ing this sort of policy farther than he approved. The
Whigs held that the forms of ecclesiastical worship
and discipline might be safely regarded as a matter of
indifference by the State.
These communities were not in themselves advocates
of toleration; they took their part in the condemning
of heretical opinion,¹ but they made for the policy of
civil toleration, not by advocating it, but by the ex-
perience they afforded of its working. To the minds
of Elizabeth's advisers, the Roman priests and Catholic
worship were centres for foreign intrigue against the
Crown; to the minds of Cromwell and his majors-
1 J. S. Burn, Hist. of French, Walloon, Dutch, and other Protes-
tant Refugees, 190. Utenhove took the initiative in inducing
Grindal to excommunicate Hambstedius, an upholder of Ana-
baptist doctrines, and certain Anabaptists, from the Flemish
Church in London. Schickler, Les Églises du Refuge en Angle-
terre, i. 117.
•

The Reformation and Religious Refugees 189
general, the Prayer-Book and the ministrations of duly-
ordained clergy, appeared to be the means of keeping
alive an attachment to royalty that was a danger to
the common weal; to the men of the Restoration Parlia-
ment, conventicles were gatherings which might be used
for political purposes by those who had close connec-
tions with the regicides. But the congregations of
refugees maintained themselves without being used for
treasonable purposes, and when they were largely in-
creased by another wave of exiles, who were bitterly
hostile to our hereditary foe, they seemed to be a
political strength, rather than a danger. It was not
by what they taught, but by their mere existence and
the experience it afforded, that they exerted such a
powerful influence in this direction.
THE BLACK ABBEY GATE, COLCHESTER.
INTERCOURSE WITH THE DUTCH
V
INTERCOURSE WITH THE DUTCH
40. There have been two great waves of immigra-
tion by Protestant refugees from the Netherlands, in
the time of Alva, and 120 years later, on the revoca-
tion of the Edict of Nantes. Between these dates,
there was a vast amount of intercourse between Eng-
land and the newly-founded republic which had defied
the power of Spain. Political and religious affinities
brought the two nations together, though at times
mutual jealousies and rivalry kept them apart. In the
strained state of feeling it was impossible that there
should be much friendly communication between Eng-
lishmen and countries like France or Spain, while the
old trading intercourse with Germany had also broken
down. There were no similar obstacles to frequent
communication with Holland; and, as a direct result,
there was a decided modification in many English insti-
tutions and habits of thought.
The intercourse was of two kinds; we have not a
few cases of Englishmen who visited Holland for a
time, and became familiarized with Dutch political, in-
dustrial, or commercial practice; it would be almost
true to say that there was hardly a leading man in
193
Q
194
Alien Immigrants
the last half of the century, from Charles II. down-
wards, who had not had some experience of the kind.
But, besides the visitors to Holland, there were also
immigrants from Holland. It is not easy to assess how
much each of these classes had to do with the con-
scious imitation of the Dutch which went on during
this period; it is at least true to say, that the immi-
grants took a leading part in suggesting and carrying
out the changes by which England and English ways
were brought into close accord with the Dutch model.
In writing about the Walloon colonies, there was a
temptation to dwell on the analogy between these sepa-
ratist settlements and the Flemish weavers' gilds, of
which we read in twelfth-century towns. In a similar
fashion we may note in passing the analogy between the
Norman influence exerted in England under the Confessor
and the Dutch influence which was brought to bear in
England in the century before the Revolution. There
had been a deliberate imitation of Norman methods, and
introduction of Norman statesmen, which rendered it pos-
sible for the first William to come as a conqueror; and
there was a long preparation in the deliberate imitation
of Dutch methods, or the nation would not have been
ready to welcome the landing of the third William,
and to accept him as a king. The parallel is suf-
ficiently close, despite the distance of time and inter-
mediate constitutional and social growth, to serve as a
convenient basis for dealing with the chief alien in-
fluence in the seventeenth century.
(a) There were many merchants who migrated from
Intercourse with the Dutch
195
Rouen to England after the Norman Conquest; and
Dutch men of business were a very important class
among the precursors of the Dutch invasion. They
came to a country where commerce was developing
rapidly, and they entered into keen competition with
the London merchants, both in trade and finance. Since
the time of the Edwards, when the Jews were expelled
and the Bardi ruined, the alien immigrants to this
country had not, on the whole, been moneyed men; but
in the seventeenth century we find the wealthy settlers
once more competing in foreign commerce and assisting
in the financial affairs of State. The re-introduction of
the Jews under Cromwell is not without significance.
(b) We also have, as at the Norman time, a con-
siderable immigration of artisans, though here also there
is a difference. They came, not in the wake of Nor-
man barons, but rather in the wake of Dutch capitalists
or undertakers. The most important movement of the
kind was the great attempt to reclaim Hatfield Chase
and to drain the Fens; and this was accomplished by
Vermuÿden, an engineer of Dutch extraction, and by
the labour of Dutch settlers.
(c) The military element, which was most striking
at the Norman Conquest, was not altogether absent in
the seventeenth century, though it was comparatively
unimportant. William III. brought with him a few
regiments of troops from Holland who did not return
there, but found homes in England and Ireland;¹ and
1 They were, for the most part, French refugees who had
found a temporary home in Holland. See below p. 244,
196
Alien Immigrants
the suspicion which attached to his foreign officers, and
the constitutional disabilities which were imposed on
them,¹ serves as a curious echo of the hatred of Nor-
man favourites, which broke out so bitterly in the
reign of the Conqueror.
These few words of comparison may serve, not only to
bring out the real resemblances between the two periods,
but also—and this is even more important-to mark the
contrast as well.
41. It has been pointed out above that the industrial
jealousy of the refugees, and the difficulty of enforcing
regulations upon them, seem to have given a new impetus
to the formation of companies for particular crafts. There
can be but little doubt, I think, that jealousy of alien
merchants contributed to maintain the great merchant
companies in life, when they had ceased to be obviously
beneficial either economically or politically. All through
the seventeenth century the relative advantages of com-
pany trading and of "free" trading were under discussion,
from the time, in 1604, when the Commons passed bills.
against the companies which were rejected in the Lords,2
till the Revolution swept away the chief basis of their
chartered privileges. Even then, however, the matter
was not fully threshed out; as after a period of violent
controversy, the monopoly of the East India trade was
reserved by statute in the hands of a single Company,3
and the privileges of the Turkey Company enabled them
1 12 & 13 W. III. c. 3 § 3.
2 Journals of the House of Commons, i. 218-221, 229, 232-3, 252-3.
3 6 Anne, c. 17,
Intercourse with the Dutch
197
to continue to dominate over the commerce with the
Levant.1
The formation of companies, and establishment of fac-
tories at definite points, were of great advantage for
carrying on business, because English merchants could
thus, and thus only, obtain a satisfactory civil status in a
foreign town. Their whole position as to tolls, and as to
the courts in which they might plead for the recovery of
their debts, was necessarily uncertain, unless they obtained
authoritative privileges. On the other hand, good order
in a factory was most easily maintained by agreement
among the merchants; rules were laid down for their
conduct and the disciplined life they should lead, and
these were intended to prevent any excuse for municipal
interference. By establishing a factory, and living to-
tɔ-
gether in it, merchants obtained civil status and were
freed from petty injustices and trivial accusations. There
were, besides, certain economic advantages in the posses-
sion of a factory; of these the chief was that merchants
could generally store their goods, and were better able to
avoid the loss which might be caused by forced sales in a
limited time. Factories with common government privi-
leges secured for a period of years almost necessarily
involved some sort of corporation to which these rights
might be granted.
The companies, which had been formed in the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries, were empowered by the Crown to
1 See the charter of the Turkey Company, 1605 (Macpherson,
Annals, ii. 242), and the confirmation of the privileges of the
Company in 1643 (Ibid., il. 421-5).
198
Alien Immigrants
regulate trade between England and some definite area of
foreign territory; the most important of them was the
Company of Merchant Adventurers, which consigned
English cloth to the Low Countries, where it was dressed,
dyed, and finished for the requirements of the wearers.1
But early in the seventeenth century the East India
Company was transformed into an organization of a dif-
ferent type; as the members traded with a single capital
or joint stock, instead of trading separately on their
private capitals. It was deemed absolutely essential to
the good of this trade that Englishmen should not com-
pete against Englishmen either as buyers or sellers in
foreign markets, but that all transactions should be con-
ducted as the business of the company as a whole.
This
joint-stock trade, when protected by an exclusive charter,
was in the strict sense of the word a monopoly; no mer-
chant could join in the business and secure a share of its
gains except by buying the interest of some other member;
the privileged joint-stock companies were, therefore, more
obnoxious to attack than any others. But even the regu-
lated companies might lay down ordinances which prac-
tically threw the whole trade into the hands of a small
ring,³ and enabled them to gain at the expense of the
1 This Company was established by charter in 1505, but it had
been in existence long before.
2 The first joint-stock voyage was in 1612. Bruce, Annals of
the East India Company, i. 556.
3 Thus the membership of the Levant Company was restricted
in 1661. No person residing within twenty miles of London,
except noblemen and men of quality, could become free of the
Intercourse with the Dutch
199
public; the Merchant Adventurers had at one time, as it
appears, charged high fines for admission, and thus limited
their membership,' while they might lay down rules for
the times of shipping, which imposed practical restrictions
that differed very little from the joint-stock trading of the
East India Company.
The supposed economic advantage of these regulated com-
panies was that they introduced a "well-ordered trade"; by
this was meant a trade that was steadily developed, and
above all, that never allowed foreign markets to be glutted
with English goods so as to bring about a serious drop
in prices. The policy of trying to maintain a high price
for our wool or woollen cloth had been pursued all through
the Middle Ages, and the Merchant Adventurers prac-
tically accepted it. They also argued that the regulations.
of their company prevented the trade from being engrossed
in the hands of a few rich men, but gave the young mer-
chant his fair chance, as well as the wealthy man. They
could point to the disasters which had occurred at Narva,
where there had been a period of free competition in the
export trade to Russia, as justifying their view; and the
fact that their privileges were renewed, after they had
been allowed to lapse by James I., and again under the
Commonwealth, despite the constant criticism to which
2
Company unless he were a freeman of the City of London.
Macpherson, Annals, ii. 494.
¹ 12 Henry VII. c. 6. The fee for entrance into the fellowship
was reduced from £40 (the original fine had been one noble ster-
ling) to 10 marks.
2 In 1615 the charter was restored, and two years later a new
WorM
200
Alien Immigrants
they were subjected, goes to show that they could still
make a good case for their continued existence.
At the same time the economic disadvantages of the
system are obvious; to maintain high prices is advan-
tageous to the trader certainly, but it is incompatible with
vigorous efforts to push a trade and increase the annual
exportation. This was the commercial policy which manu-
facturers desired, and this enterprising policy would also be
beneficial to the English consumers of foreign goods. But,
besides this, a well-ordered trade, just because it was con-
ducted under regulations, could not be easily adapted to any
changed conditions; the interests of the Merchant Adven-
turers were inconsistent with such an improvement in the
dyeing and dressing of cloth in England as would inter-
fere with their export of "whites."1 Companies might
serve to maintain regular intercourse in a comfortable
fashion for the persons concerned, but they were not
well adapted for pushing trade. Enterprise is the soul
of business, and enterprise was more commonly found
among outsiders and interlopers.
one was granted. Macpherson, Annals, ii. 251. In 1634 and in
1647 the charter was again confirmed. Ibid., ii. 387, 432.
1 James I. had attempted to restrict the Merchant Adven-
turers in order to foster the process of dyeing and dressing cloth
in England. Referring to this action, which had been reversed,
Malynes says (Maintenance of Free Trade, 1622), "I cannot
omit to observe the practices which were used by combination
with other nations and domestic intelligences at home whereby
many good actions are overthrowne, to the generall hurt, and
with little advancement to the particular," p. 45. Misselden re-
ferred to this observation as "a tacit and secret aspersion on the
Merchant Adventurers." Circle of Commerce, p. 49.
Intercourse with the Dutch
201
This brief account of the general condition of trade at
the time renders it possible to show the precise influence
which was exercised by the presence of alien merchants
in England. They are commonly spoken of as a numerous
body, and it seems likely enough that they were so;1
English commerce was
was developing rapidly, and the
natives of the countries with which it was carried on
desired to have a share in it. In the time of Elizabeth
the Merchant Adventurers had succeeded in ousting their
old rivals, the Hanseatic League, and had established a
factory at Hamburg; and foreign merchants in London.
swelled the ranks of the interlopers and made common
cause with them against the company. In the great
struggle, which occupied the first decade of the seven-
teenth century, English manufacturers, together with
English interlopers and foreign merchants were com-
bined in an attack on the company of Merchant Ad-
venturers, and were temporarily successful.
2
But it was not a strength to the English complainants
that they made common cause with aliens in this matter.
The companies could point to the only trades which
were not under regulation, and argue that when the
aliens got the chance they could succeed, by cutting prices
and the general meanness which characterized them, in
ousting Englishmen from commerce altogether.³ The
1 In the lists of 1616 there were no fewer than 183 alien mer-
chants (Camden Society, vol. lxxxii. p. vi.).
2 Ehrenberg, Hamburg und England (1896), p. 209.
3 Between the years 1571-1588 a controversy had been carried
on touching the dealings of foreigners. It was alleged that the
202
Alien Immigrants
French trade had never been the subject of monopoly, since
it had ceased to be concentrated as far as possible at
Calais; while the trade betweeen England and Holland
was chiefly in the hands of Dutch merchants. It could
be argued with plausibility that if English commerce and
English shipping were to be maintained, it must be by
safeguarding the English merchant against the hostile
competition of the aliens. This policy was embodied in
the famous Navigation Act of 1651, which drove the
Dutch, whether resident in England or not, out of the
English carrying and colonial trade; and in the earlier
part of the century the regulated companies were the prin-
cipal organs by which similar results had been attained.
When the Navigation Act afforded effective protection
to the English merchant, the political excuse for "well-
ordered trade came to an end; but the commercial pre-
""
Netherlanders and the French absorbed the entire trade with
Spain, Portugal, and the Low Countries, while Philip Corsini
had the monopoly of the Pope's alum. Complaints were made
that the aliens failed to comply with the statutes of employment,
and that, instead of exporting English goods to the value of half
their imports, they transmitted their receipts in bullion or by
bill of exchange; that when a sudden demand arose for any
foreign article, strangers forestalled Englishmen and enhanced
prices; and that, in similar fashion, they supplanted Englishmen
in supplying calls abroad; further, that they defrauded the
customs. Enforcement of the statute of employment was advo-
cated as a remedy. It was held that an increase in the customs
would result from an enforced export of English goods by aliens;
that a better market would be opened for home products; the
export of bullion would decrease; and that strangers being
obliged to pay high customs, Englishmen would be able to
undersell them, and thus successfully oust alien rivals. Stow,
Annals (1751-5), vol. ii. bk. v. pp. 399-401.
Intercourse with the Dutch
203
judice in favour of it, backed as it was by the interest of
wealthy merchants, died hard. The reasons, which were
alleged by citizens of London against the Bill for the
General Naturalization of Aliens, are an interesting illus-
tration of the feeling. All the old objections reappear.
Men professed to fear that aliens, if naturalized, would
enrich themselves and then take their wealth out of the
country, as aliens had done in the fifteenth century; they
were jealous lest other ports should get the trade which
had been hitherto concentrated in London; they were
afraid lest the alien competition should interfere with a
profitable commission business, and they even protested
that the manufactures introduced by aliens had seriously
damaged the honest English wares. But the last of these
objections had been long since given up in the localities
chiefly concerned, and the others were no longer applic-
able in the changed commercial conditions of the times.
The regulated company which was longest maintained
was the Turkey Company; it is in connection with their
trade and factories, therefore, that we find the feeling
against aliens had the strongest hold; they were anxious
to maintain the reputation, not only of English goods, but
of the English nation, among the Turks, and they
strenuously resisted the admission of Jews to the trade, 1
or of any one who would not abide by the rules of the
factories. The contest broke out both in 1744 and 1753; 2
and it was only because of the demonstrated failure of
the company to conduct Levant trade in an enterprising
1 Macpherson, Annals, iii. 241.
2 Id., ibid., iii. 240, 293.
204
Alien Immigrants
fashion that they were at last forced to give way and
relinquish their charter. ¹
It is curious to notice that those companies, which were
most subject to complaint as monopolies, were least hostile
to the aliens. The joint-stock companies could take alien
capital and use it for the common good of an English
company, but the regulated companies were eager to
exclude aliens personally, since their business methods
and habits of life did not entirely accord with those
established in the factories. The East India Company
had from the first been empowered to grant licences to
trade, 2 and though their opposition to private trading
prevented them from availing themselves of the privileges,
there was no obstacle to prevent aliens from becoming
shareholders in the company after 1610. ³
The decline of the companies was not only the removal
of an obstacle to the trade of alien merchants, it was a
triumph for those who pointed to foreign practice as worthy
of imitation. Company trading was a peculiarly English
institution; it had no precise parallel either in Portugal,
France, or Holland. In France and Holland, indeed, there
were so-called companies, but they were rather depart-
ments of state than independent associations. The French
Levant Company was a Crown monopoly rather than a
trading association, and the government of the Dutch
1 Proceedings of the Turkey Company relative to the surrender of
their Charter (London, 1825). British Museum, G. 16259.
2 Bruce, Annals, i. 135-8.
3 S. P. Dom. James I., vol. lviii. 39.
Intercourse with the Dutch
205
1
Company ¹ was directly controlled by the several States.
Though it was advantageous to dispense with the privi-
leges assigned to these companies, it must yet be remem-
bered that the habit of associated enterprise, which was
developed by them, has stood Englishmen in good stead in
other undertakings.
42. One of the most remarkable developments of London
life in the seventeenth century was the rapid increase in
banking business. The quantities of bullion, which had
been brought from the new world, had entirely revo-
lutionized monetary conditions; and the formation of
capital and lending of capital went on in a fashion that
had been previously unknown. Banking was not yet a
separate business, but it was a profitable branch of the
trade that was carried on by the goldsmiths. But
the English goldsmiths were unable to retain it in their
own hands; 2 in 1622 the Goldsmiths Company com-
plained that there were no fewer than 184 aliens engaged
in their business.
The wardens of the Company set forth their grievances
as follows to Sir Robert Heath :-
"According to your worship's direction, we do hereby deliver
the number and names of the aliens and strangers (besides
manie others not yet discovered) using and abusing the Gold-
smiths' profession with sundrie grievances that this Companie
1 Bruce, Annals, i. 201.
2 It was alleged before the Commission on Trade in 1669, by
Mr. Titus, that a great part of the money employed in rebuild-
ing London was Dutch. (Mr. Child estimated it at no more than
£10,000.) Hist. MSS. Commission, Report viii. Appendix, p. 134,
206
Alien Immigrants
of Goldsmithes have long suffered and endured by aliens and
strangers within and neare this citie..
"By reason of theire great and increasing nomber in buying,
selling, and making, of gold and silver wares, jewells, pretious
stones, and other imployments within this cittie and suburbs,
solely and properlie belonging to the goldsmithe's profession
free of this cittie, the saide aliens and strangers do take awaye
a great parte of the lyberty and maintenance of the free gold-
smiths of this citie who are thereby exceedinglie impoverished
and disabled in their estates to beare publique charges.
"That the saide aliens and strangers in their habitations
are dispersed in manye lanes and remote places of this cittie and
suburbs, working in chambers, garrets and other secret places
where the wardens of this companie maye not have convenient
access and recourse to search, by which meanes besides the
unlymited number of servants and apprentices aliens kept by
the said aliens and strangers (in which perticuler they usurp
and enjoy more privilege than the fremen of this citie) they
make and sell manye deceitfull jewels, pearles, counterfeit stones
and other goldsmithe's wares of gold and silver, to the great
deceit of the nobilitie and people of this kingdome, it being
partlie the meanes that the use and exercise of other meane trades
are crept into the goldsmithes row in Cheape and Lombard
Street, to the great disgrace of this citie." 1
The competition was said to be so severe that the
Englishmen were much impoverished. So far as the
exercise of the manual craft was concerned, the Company
might possibly have been able to establish their position;
but it was not feasible to quote ancient ordinances which
gave their wardens any right of search into the mode of
¹ S. P. Dom. James I. (1622), cxxvii. 12. There are traces of
alien capitalists in Elizabeth's reign. Compare Erasmus Vande-
pere's scheme concerning a bank for money. Lansdowne MSS.,
xxx. 37, and the loans obtained from naturalized Dutch residents,
274. S. P. Dom. Eliz., cclxxiv. 28; cclxxv. 143; cclxxviii, 8-15,
27, 124.
Intercourse with the Dutch
207
conducting banking business; and this was the more
profitable and important affair, for their position as
moneyed men brought them into direct contact with the
politics of the times. It has been noticed above, that the
native merchants in the time of Richard II. were able to
bring pressure to bear in favour of a policy which suited
their class. It is not too much to say that the London
merchants, who had money to lend, controlled the great
constitutional changes of the seventeenth century. The
refusal by city men to lend to Charles I., except on the
joint credit of the Crown and Parliament, gave rise to the
important arrangement by which the King consented that
the Long Parliament should not be dissolved without its
own consent, and thus relinquished an important con-
stitutional power. The fact that the Parliamentary Army
had so much sympathy from the City of London was a not
unimportant element in its success; and at a later time,
the moneyed interest in London supported William III. by
founding the Bank of England, and enabled him to carry
out his policy to a successful issue. It is interesting to
notice the influence exercised by a body of men among
whom there were so many aliens; and there can be but
little doubt that, in so far as they were Dutch or French,
their sympathies would be Puritan and Whig, rather than
Royalist and Tory.
This may seem to be a matter of speculation rather than
of fact, but there is at least a high probability that the
moneyed men of alien extraction not only influenced the
general policy of the country, but aided in carrying out
some interesting administrative changes. The part which
208
Alien Immigrants
men of foreign extraction, like Violet and Fortrey,¹ took in
the paper controversies of the times, serves to show that
the alien element attempted to influence English public
opinion. It is at least probable that the wealthy men of
alien origin had a part in the remarkable fiscal changes
which characterized the seventeenth century. The tra-
ditional system of taxation had been proved inadequate
under Charles I.; the Parliamentary army and the
government of the Commonwealth were financed on new
principles, and on methods borrowed from the practice of
the Dutch. The introduction of an excise was the prin-
cipal expedient, and this was adopted and perpetuated by
the Restoration Parliament. It was in national finance
that the policy of imitating the Dutch was most observable,
and it is at least tempting to connect this important fact
with the existence of a class of wealthy men of alien
extraction, who were in close business connection with
persons in authority.
43. The position which these moneyed men of alien
origin held in the City of London enabled them to take an
active part in some of the great industrial undertakings
of the time. The most obvious instance is the work of
Cornelius Vermujden. There were large tracts of land
in England lying submerged. The most important was
the level of the Great Fennes, lying within Lincoln,
Northampton, Huntingdon, Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridge,
and the Isle of Ely, and described by Vermuyden as "a
J
1 Fortrey and Violet were descendants of alien merchants who
had settled in London before 1635. Camden Soc., vol. lxxxii.
pp. xiii. xv.
Intercourse with the Dutch
209
continent of 400,000 acres."1 Another was the district
of Hatfield Chase, in Yorkshire, subject to inundation
from the rivers Don, Ouse, and Trent, bounded by Lin-
colnshire uplands to the east, and those of Yorkshire on
the west, and comprising about 70,000 acres.
2
An attempt made to reclaim some portion of the
fens early in the reign of James I. had failed, and
Vermuÿden's aid was sought. In 1621 he had been
employed to repair breaches in the banks of the Thames.³
Five years later he entered into an agreement with
Charles I. for his first big venture, the drainage of Hat-
field Chase, and in 1628 a grant was made to him and
his heirs of a third of such land as he should succeed in
reclaiming. This enterprise was financed by Dutch
capitalists in London, Amsterdam and Dordrecht, and was
executed by the aid of workmen brought from Holland.
4
The work was carried on in spite of the determined
opposition of the fenmen. This was partly due to the
inveterate dislike of foreign labourers; and also to the re-
sentment felt towards the undertakers, as the assignees
¹ Vermuyden, Discourse touching the Drayning of the Great
Fennes, p. 2.
2 Smiles, Lives of the Engineers (1874), i. 15, 16.
³ Id., ibid., i. 19. This was by no means the first occasion
upon which foreign engineering skill had been used; see above,
p. 181, also Smiles, Engineers, ii. 16, 17. A Hollander had been
employed to work at the sluice at Romney, 1410. Hist. MSS.
Com., Report v. Appendix, p. 538, and a sluice and dam were
made by Flemish masons at Boston in 1500. (P. Thompson,
Boston, 357.) Cornelius Vanderdelft, a Brabanter, was employed
on Stepney marshes. 27 Henry VIII., c, 35.
4 Dugdale, History of Embanking and Draining, p. 144. W
C. Moer, Hug. Soc. Proc., ii. 277, 5 Dugdale, op. cit., p. 114.
P
210
Alien Immigrants
of land over which the fenmen claimed common rights.¹
The inhabitants of the manor of Epworth offered great
resistance.2 Riots and onslaughts upon the drainers were
frequent from the outset. Much of the work effected
was destroyed at intervals by the natives, who ensured
the possession of their rights by the simple and effectual
method of cutting the enbankments. On several occa-
sions the offenders were sued for the damages done.
Vermuÿden became disheartened by the continued frus-
tration of his efforts, by the disagreements which arose.
between himself and Vernatti, one of the undertakers, and
by the discontent evinced by the members of the company.
In 1633 he sold his interest in the reclaimed land to a
Frenchman, Gibbon, by whom Frenchmen were introduced
from Normandy and Picardy to co-operate with the Dutch
workmen.4 The furtherance of this project of drainage
in the Isle of Axholme met with continued obstruction
from the fenmen. Outbreaks took place frequently, and
culminated in the fierce attack of 1650-1,5 when about
eighty-two houses were ruined and the church of Sand-
toft was partially destroyed. Appeals were made by the
1 G. H. Overend, Hug. Soc. Proc., ii. p. 282. "First thirty
years of the foreign settlement in Axholme.”
2 Dugdale, op. cit., pp. 144-5.
3 S. P. Dom. Chas. I., cxiii. 38.
4 Schickler, Les Églises de Refuge en Angleterre, ii. 49.
5 Dugdale, History of Embanking and Draining, pp. 146-8. In
1643, owing to interference with the sluices, the greater part of
Hatfield Chase was again flooded; another riot took place at
Millerton; and in 1645 the undertakers complained that 74,000
acres of land had been inundated. Cf. Hug. Soc. Proc., ii. 311
sen.
Intercourse with the Dutch
21f
engineers. The sheriff was ordered to suppress the riots,
but his attempts failed. After successive petitions,
Major-General Whalley was sent in 1656 to protect the
interests of the undertakers and to promote order; but
quiet was not restored for several years.
3
The prevailing disorder had resulted in the exodus of
many of the aliens. They moved south to Whittlesea,
and eventually settled at Thorney Abbey, in Cambridge-
shire, where a church was founded about 1652.2 Here
again they had employment under Vermuyden, who was
engaged upon the reclamation of the Great Fens. The
first scheme had been floated under the patronage of the
Earl of Bedford, who secured other participants for the
enterprise. This attempt was not very successful, for
the necessary funds were not forthcoming. It was
followed by another, under the auspices of the King, who
is said to have promised to furnish the capital. The
same opposition was encountered here as in Yorkshire,
and the labour expended was thrown away by the de-
struction of drains and sluices. A final effort was made
in 1649, upon the plans laid down by Vermuÿden.5 The
undertaking progressed, and the drainage seems to have
been completed about 1652.6 Besides the work done in
the fens and at Hatfield Chase, the reclamation of Canvey
4
1 Dugdale, op. cit., 146–8.
2 G. H. Overend, in Hug. Soc. Proc., ii. 329, 330.
Vermyden, op. cit., p. 2.
4 Id ibid., and Smiles, Lives of the Engineers, i. 37–40.
5 The accompanying map shows Vermuÿden's scheme for
diverting the Mildenhall, Stoke, and Bradford Rivers, and bank-
ing up the Wen and the Ouse.
6 Smiles, Engineers, i. 43.
212
Alien Immigrants
Isle, in Essex, was undertaken by Dutchmen under
Croppenburgh, and a church was founded there before.
1641.1
44. It is not easy to assess the exact part which any
individuals may have had in the development of arts that
have long been established among us; but cases where
patents were granted to foreigners may at least be taken
as evidence that there was a prima facie case for believ-
ing that some improvement was possible, and that an
attempt was made to carry it into effect. We cannot
assume that a trade had not existed previously because
a patent in connection with it was granted at some special
date, nor need it be forgotten that many of the experi-
ments ended in failure.
Again and again during the sixteenth century attempts
were made to improve the art of dyeing as practised in
England. The scheme by Alderman Cockayne in 1608
was a disastrous failure, but in 1643 a dyehouse was
started at Bow by a Dutchman named Kepler, whose
scarlet dye soon attained a high reputation. In 1667 the
art was still further improved by Bauer," a man of Flemish
origin, and from that time onwards there was no real
necessity for the exportation of undyed cloth.
It seems that, in spite of all the immigration of weavers
which had taken place for centuries, there was still room
for improvement in this art as practised in the west of
England. Paul Methuen and William Brewer brought
¹ Burn, Hist. of the French, Walloon, Dutch and other Protestant
Refugees, p. 220.
2 Burn, op. cit., p. 259.

213
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Intercourse with the Dutch
215
over and employed some families of Dutch weavers who
were settled at Dutch Barton, near Bradford, in Wiltshire.¹
The employers were forced to bind themselves to be respon-
sible in case the families became chargeable to the
parish; but this seems to have been an unnecessary
precaution, as it was said that the district increased in
prosperity in consequence of the new departure.
4
Progress was also made under Dutch influence in the
mechanical and mining arts. The clocks which had been
previously made in England were of French design; and
Frenchmen had been brought over to work at the clock
at Nonsuch Palace under Henry VIII.,2 and there were
others during the reigns of his children.3 The names of
the clockmakers enumerated in the list in 1622 indicate a
French origin. But the term Dutch clock suggests the
fact that timepieces of this type were originally made in
Holland; they were first constructed in England, soon
after the Restoration, by a Dutchman named Fromantil.
Men were introduced during this period from Holland
and to work in the Keswick mines.5 The use of gun-
powder in mining operations is said to have been practised
first in England by German miners brought in by Prince
Rupert to Ecton, in Staffordshire."
1 W. H. Jones, in Wilts Arch. and Nat. Hist. Mag., v. 48, 49.
See also the Dutch weavers in 1675. Hist. MSS. Com. (Sir H.
Le Fleming MSS.), Report xii. Appendix vii. p. 101.
2 West. Denization Roll, 36 Henry VIII.
3 Hug. Soc. Pub., viii., Introduction, xliii.
4 S. P. Dom. James I., cxxvii. 15.
5 Bevan, British Manufacturing Industries, ii. p. 158.
• Tomlinson, Encyclopædia (1866), p. 170: sub voc. Mining.
Sub
216
Alien Immigrants
Staffordshire has become famous for its potteries. In
1688 two brothers, the Elers, came from Amsterdam, and
began the method of salt-glazing, and made their red
ware at Dimsdale and Bradwell, near Burslem, in imita-
tion of the Saxony ware of the period.¹ About twenty
years later they went to one of the suburbs of London, for
potteries already existed at Chelsea, Vauxhall, Fulham,
Battersea, and Lambeth. All the early specimens of those
stone-wares of this date are similar to that of Delft.2
Probably most of the potters were Dutchmen. One, John
Ariens van Hamme, obtained a patent in 1676 for “the art
of making tiles, porcelain, and other earthenware after the
way practised in Holland."3 At Bristol and Liverpool
Delft ware was made at this period, but there is no
evidence of foreign artizans.4 The frequent intercourse
between Holland and the eastern counties makes it pro-
bable that the Delft ware of Lowestoft and Gunton owes
its origin to the skill of Dutch workmen.5
=
Throughout the seventeenth century attention was
directed to shipping, and there was constant rivalry with
Holland in regard to the navy and marine generally, and
efforts were made to vie with them, while the success of
the Dutch fisheries was recognised, and imitation of their
methods advised. In one subsidiary branch of ship-
building help was obtained from Holland. Among other
1 Jewitt, Ceramic Art (1883), p. 76. A. H. Church, English
Earthenware (1884), p. 80.
2 Jewitt, Ceramic Art, p. 111.
4 Id., ibid., pp. 208, 310.
3 Id., ibid., pp. 75 and 92.
5 Id., ibid., p. 252.
• See England's Way to Win Wealth, 1614, and The Royal Fishing
Revived, 1670, in the Harleian Miscellany, iii. 395, 409.
Intercourse with the Dutch
217
reforms which the Duke of Buckingham instituted when
Lord High Admiral; by encouraging Dutchmen and others
to settle in England,' he established the manufacture of
great cables and other sorts of cordage in the navy. For
this he provided hemp and other materials, and erected
houses and yards both at Chatham and elsewhere.
Sugar seems to have been a commodity in the manufac-
ture of which new processes were introduced from abroad.
In 1622 Martin Bigger, a German, made an application
to the Clerk of the Council for a patent and monopoly for
the making of double refined sugar,2 and in 1634 certain
foreigners, known as the "Theries," proposed to make
loaves of white sugar for the first time in England.3
Besides these industrial improvements, the period of
frequent intercourse with Holland saw a great develop-
ment of household arts. Brewing was beginning to be
undertaken as a trade on a large scale, for Sebastian
Brygonne, a German, set up a new kind of furnace for
brewing under Elizabeth, and in the reign of James I.
there were Dutch brewers in London.5 Gardening, both
ornamental and for kitchen purposes, was scarcely known
in England before this time, but the formal fashion which
4
¹ S. P. Dom. Chas. I. (1633), ccxli. (86). See also S. P. Dom.
Chas. I., ccxli. (85.)
2 Ibid. Jas. I., cxxxv. (49). The art had been introduced
twenty-four years previously by Gaspar Terlin, a German.
3 Ibid. Chas. I., cclxxix. (79).
4 Ibid. Eliz., xxxvi. (40). For similar inventions in the Eliza-
bethan period, compare Acontio (S. P. Dom. Eliz., Add. ix. 39);
Stowghberghen (S. P. Foreign, Eliz. (1562), 449, 910).
5 lbid. Jas. I., xxviii. (136); Ibid. Jas. I., cxxvi. (14).
218
Alien Immigrants
was introduced from Holland has not altogether died out
t;
while the cultivation of not a few vegetables may be
dated from the same period.
Nor should the influence of the Brabant husbandry
be forgotten; it is to the early part of the seventeenth
century that we must look for the general introduction
of root crops; and though they were often very badly
cultivated, there was, at all events, something of an
advance. The knowledge of various manures and
methods of treating the soil was also introduced; as
well as the advantage which might accrue from the
cultivation of artificial grasses. But there seem to have
been comparatively few districts where these attempts
were carried beyond the stage of mere experiment.
45. Though the three kingdoms of England, Scotland,
and Ireland were all subject to the same kings in the
seventeenth century, the peoples formed three distinct
nations for economic purposes. Just as there was
jealousy of the Gascons on the part of the English.
under Edward III., so there were mutual jealousies be-
tween the English, Scotch, and Irish subjects of the
Stuart kings. Strafford's projects for the plantation of
Ireland were hampered by the fact that the English and
Scotch, who were brought over to settle, were subject to
the disabilities imposed on aliens. In a similar fashion,
the hostile measures which the English took against the
Dutch reacted on the Scotch as well. The Scotch had
little shipping, but they had found a considerable market
in the American colonies for their cloth; it was trans-
ported there in Dutch ships. The legislation which pro-
Intercourse with the Dutch
219
hibited this Dutch carrying trade was a serious blow to
the weaving industry in Scotland. It was partly with
a view of escaping from these disabilities, and founding
a factory of their own, that the ill-fated Darien Com-
pany was floated; and, so far as the English were con-
cerned, the chief ground of the desire for union was a
wish to escape from the possible injury which might
have been done by Scotch competition.
འ
There was intercourse between Scotland and Holland,
just as there was between England and Holland; the
whole thing was on a much smaller scale, but the
effects were somewhat similar in kind. At all events,
we hear of attempts to plant new industries of the
most varied kinds north of the Tweed with the assist-
ance of foreigners. Peter de Brus, a Fleming, brought
over workmen to make playing-cards in 1687, but he
failed in the enterprise.¹ In 1699 John Adam, John
Bryson, and others, induced some workmen who were
skilled in the manufacture of hardware to migrate
from England and settle near Glasgow; and four years.
later foreigners were brought in by Edinburgh mer-
chants to establish the art of making earthenware.³
Somewhat earlier there had been a series of attempts
to introduce sugar refining: a German named Zechariah
Zebs was brought over for the purpose in 1669,¹ and
in 1667 a master boiler came from Holland to find
1 Chambers, Domestic Annals (1858-61), ii. 431–2.
2 Chambers, op. cit., iii. 127.
³ Cochran Patrick, Mediæval Scotland (1892), p. 60.
4 Glasgow Arch. Soc. Trans., iv. 356.
-
220
Alien Immigrants
employment in the Wester Sugar Works.¹ These ven-
tures proved successful, and another sugar refinery
which was combined with a distillery, was started in
1701, skilled workmen from abroad being engaged to
work there. The chief impulse to Scotch industrial
development was given by intercourse with France
rather than with Holland, but its interests were closely
interconnected with those of the Dutch Republic.
Ireland, too, received some settlers. Several mer-
chants from Holland and Brabant came to the country
in the early years of the seventeenth century. De-
liberate efforts were made to introduce alien skill, first
by Strafford, with a view to establishing the linen
manufacture, and later by the Duke of Ormond, who
appears to have planted Walloons at Clonmel, Kil-
kenny, and Carrick-on-Suir, and a colony of Flemings
at Chapelizod, in Kilkenny, where sailcloth, linen, and
cordage manufactures were begun.3 But the nascent
industries of Ireland suffered terribly from the outbreak
of hostilities and revival of animosities which occurred
at the Revolution.
¹ McU₁e, History of Glasgow (1830), p. 227.
2 Chambers, op. cit., pp. 127, 128.
³ Smiles, Huguenots in England and Ireland (1889), pp. 292–294
LATER IMMIGRATIONS
VI
LATER IMMIGRATIONS
i. The Huguenots
46. Though there had been a great immigration of
French-speaking Walloons, and there were several
French congregations in England, there had been but
little immigration from France itself. A few families
had removed, but that was all; one of these little
colonies consisted of people who had lived under English
protection near Calais, at Hammes and Guisnes, and who
retired to London when Calais fell;¹ but this change
of residence was due to the fortunes of war, rather than
to any religious motive. Notice has already been made
of those who came during the earlier struggles of the
Huguenots.2
From 1629 till 1660 the Huguenots enjoyed a period
of peace and prosperity, and were by no means inclined
to emigrate. They had lost the leaders among the nobles
who had cherished political ambition in connection with
their cause, and the bourgeois and lesser gentry were
prepared to accept the toleration accorded them by the
¹ Stow, Survey (1754-5), ii. bk. v. p. 403.
2 See above, p. 156.
223
224
Alien Immigrants
Edict of Nantes, and to turn their energies into profes-
sional and trading pursuits. Colbert appreciated them
highly, and did his best to encourage them. But there
was much that was anomalous in their position. From
the beginning of his reign Louis XIV. appears to have
regarded it as discreditable that the anomaly of a
Protestant republic in the midst of a Catholic king-
dom¹ should be allowed to last indefinitely. It is not
uninstructive to compare their position with that of the
Jews in Angevin England; they had personal protec-
tion from the king, and the royal badge, the fleur de
lys, was substituted for the cross as the finial of their
temples; difficulties were put in the way of their wor-
ship and psalm-singing, and it was only tolerated on
conditions that rendered it inoffensive to the Catholic
population. There were also separate courts, or speci-
ally constituted courts, which administered justice for
this section of the population. That Louis XIV. would
have been wise to accept this anomaly many of his
advisers thought; but the very form of the Edict
showed that it was practically a treaty between King
Henry and his subjects, with temporary guarantees for
the fulfilment of the royal promises.2 Louis appears to
have resented the whole arrangement as an indignity
to the Crown, and to have deliberately endeavoured to
subvert it.
1 R. L. Poole, The History of the Huguenots of the Dispersion
(1880), p. 3.
2 Haag, La France Protestante (1816), pièce justicatives, vol. ix.
p. 251, art. 4.
Later Immigrations
225
The various steps, by which toleration was withdrawn
and facilities were afforded for undermining the here-
ditary Calvinism of the families, called forth many warn-
ings, and were the occasion of a certain amount of
emigration; but the severities of the dragonnades had
apparently answered their purpose, and Louis XIV. ap-
pears to have believed that the Huguenots were so far
suppressed, that their charter of toleration could be
withdrawn without rousing them to serious action. In
this he was entirely mistaken; though the coasts
and frontiers were carefully watched, thousands of the
Huguenots managed to evade detection, and, after ter-
rible dangers and privations, to reach some region
where they were more or less warmly welcomed.
1
The most accessible regions, and those where fugi-
tives by land were most sure of ready assistance, were
Switzerland and Holland; but the Elector Palatine
welcomed them in his dominions, and the Elector of
Brandenburg took pains to encourage them to settle
under his protection. His agents in the Netherlands
were prepared to assist French Protestant exiles to make
their way to Hamburg, and thence to any part of his
dominions; 2 while Frankfort and Cologne were other
1 Both from the sea (H. M. Baird, History of the Huguenots and
the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1895), ii. 72), and from the
treachery of false friends (Ibid., ii. 73). Tillières, who had built a
temple for the Huguenots in Holland, gave information of intend-
ing fugitives to the French authorities. Poole, History of the
Huguenots of the Dispersion (1880), 30.
2 Baird, History of the Huguenots and the Revocation of the Edict
of Nantes (1895), ii. 84.
226
Alien Immigrants
centres to which the fugitives were encouraged to come
in the first instance. The Thirty Years' War had re-
duced many parts of Germany to a condition in which
it was little better than a desert; there were large
areas of land waiting to be assigned to refugees; and
the towns which had suffered most, like Magdeburg,
were able to enter on a new period of industrial pros-
perity. Denmark also accorded them a welcome; in-
deed, the one country of Protestant Europe which was
practically closed to them was Sweden; for, though
Charles XI. offered inducements to manufacturers to
settle there,¹ he refused to give the French any facili-
ties for their own religious worship; and the Calvinists
were unwilling to adopt Lutheranism after their suffer-
ings on behalf of their special principles.
The position of affairs in England was very curious.
This country was the natural asylum for those who
escaped by sea; and the freedom, which had been already
accorded to the Walloon and Dutch Churches, would
incline many persons to look to it as the refuge they
would prefer to gain. On the other hand, the connec-
tions of Charles II. and James II. with the Crown of
France were so close that it could hardly be congenial
to either of them to thwart the policy of Louis XIV.
Sir Henry Savile, the English ambassador at Paris, had
done his best to urge the home Government to move in
the matter, and to endeavour to attract French Protes-
1 Baird, History of the Huguenots, etc., ii. 88, and Puaux, quoted
by him.
Later Immigrations
227
1
3
tants to settle in England; but no action was taken
till after the issue of the Edict of June 17th, 1681,
which lowered the age, at which the conversions of the
children of Protestant parents were accepted, from
twelve to seven years.2 This was the final act which
roused the Huguenots to endeavour to escape; and
within two months of its issue, Charles II. replied by
a proclamation, in which he expressed readiness to
grant letters of denisation to any of the distressed
Protestants who might take refuge in England. A very
considerable number, whose names are recorded, availed
themselves of this opportunity; but the proposal to pass
an Act of General Naturalization had to be dropped at
the time. Four years later, when the formal revoca-
tion took place, James II. was on the throne; and
though he could have little personal sympathy 5 with
the Protestant refugees, he was forced to take a formal
part in providing for them, by issuing briefs encourag-
ing collections in churches on their behalf. At the
moment, James was endeavouring to secure toleration
1 Savile Correspondence in Camden Soc., vol. lxxi., and Poole,
History of the Huguenots (1880), 73, 74.
2 Baird, History of the Huguenots, etc., i. 494.
³ Camden Soc., vol. lxxxii. Cooper, Lists of Foreigners, 1618–
1688, p. xviii.
4 D. C. A. Agnew, Protestant Exiles from France in the Reign
of Louis the XIVth (1886), ii. 43, 44, where the influence of the
trade corporations in the towns is noted. Poole, History of the
Huguenots (1880), 74 n.
5 His delay in issuing the briefs and his treatment of Jean
Claudé (Baird, ii. 96, 97) sufficiently indicate his real attitude in
the matter.
228
Alien Immigrants
for Romanists in England, and it was essential for him
to try to avoid any apparent complicity in the intoler-
ance of the King of France. Even his favour was not
an unmitigated boon to the refugees, as it roused the
suspicions of his subjects, and made them fancy that
the country was being flooded with disguised emis-
saries of Louis XIV.
The economic loss to France was very great, and it was
of various kinds. Many of the refugees succeeded in emi-
grating with their households and their property, though
some of them had been reduced to a temporary abjuration
of their faith in order to make good their escape.¹ The
amount of capital which was taken from France at this
time appears to have been enormous. There was also a
large emigration of skilled artisans of different sorts; and
in other cases a loss of business connection and access to
foreign markets. The emigration of artisans and mariners
was noted early, and eager efforts were made by the
French ambassador to secure their return;³ the proof of
the reality of the other causes of decay came out fully
and clearly in the reports of trade, which were sent from
various provinces about fifteen years after the Revo-
cation.
4
47. The proportion of Huguenots to Catholics in France
was apparently not more than one in ten, but they were
1 Poole, History of the Huguenots, 31.
2 Id., ibid., 170. Macpherson, Annals of Commerce, ii. 616–7.
Macaulay, History of England (1858), ii. 51. Agnew, Protes-
tant Exiles from France (1886), ii. 17.
4 Baird, History of the Huguenots, ii. 77.
Later Immigrations
229
distributed chiefly in three centres-Languedoc and
Guienne, Poitou and Saintonge, and Normandy and
Picardy. For those who escaped by sea, England was
physically the nearest refuge, and the tradition of English
influence, as it survived in Guienne, would not make the
island less attractive. It appears that something like
seventeen,¹ out of every twenty who took to the sea
landed in England. Traces of them can be found all
along the south coast, at points where Walloon Churches
had been already organized, and in other ports as well.
Congregations existed or were formed at Bristol, Bideford,
Barnstaple, Plymouth and Stonehouse, Dartmouth, and
Exeter, the region which lay most conveniently for inter-
course with Rochelle and the south-west of France. Many
landed at Southampton; and others found a temporary
resting-place at Winchelsea, Rye, Faversham, Dover,
Sandwich, Yarmouth, or Greenwich. Coming as they
did from maritime regions, many of them might be glad
to stay on the coast and devote themselves to maritime
occupations, but not a few moved on to industrial centres
at Norwich or Ipswich, Canterbury or London. Some
refugees from Poitou settled at Thorpe-le-Soken, in Essex,3
2
1 Baird, History of the Huguenots, ii. 93.
2 Poole, History of the Huguenots, 88 f., also 87. There seems to
have been a Huguenot church at Bedford, see "Sommes envoyés
aux Églises françoises," in "Estat de la Distribution de la
accordée par la Reine aux pauvres Protestants
refugiez en Angleterre l'an 1705." Brit. Mus., 491, K. 5; p. h.
26. Also a settlement of about twenty-one people at Windsor.
Hug. Soc. Proceed., v. 310.
somme
8 Poole, History of the Huguenots, ii. p. 96,
230
Alien Immigrants
others went to Bolton. This is the first of the waves of
immigration of which it is possible to attempt a numerical
estimate; the best authorities seem to think that about
80,000 landed in England and Ireland. Though some
subsequently moved on, for the most part to America,³ it
is probable that some 40,000 remained. There can be
no doubt that both from the character, wealth, and skill
of the refugees, as well as from their numbers, the move-
ment which began in 1685, and increased after the
Revolution of 1689, was far more important than the
immigration of any other decade.
The general feeling of indignation excited on the sub-
ject was most startling; it overpowered the jealousy
which was not extinct in the trade corporations, and
1 History of Lancashire. Baines (Harland), i. 548.
It is per-
haps worth noting, as suggestive, that Birmingham greatly
increased in numbers and prosperity at the period of the immi-
gration [R. K. Dent, Old and New Birmingham (1879), sec. i. p. 60].
Though allowance must be made for this increase by the fact
that Birmingham, as a corporate town [R. K. Dent, Old and New
Birmingham, pp. 52, 53], (and as such exempt from the operation
of the Five Mile and other Acts), offered attractions to Dis-
senters, yet the growth of the population and of the number of
Nonconformists [Archæological Transactions of Birmingham and
Midland Institute for 1870, p. 24] may in part have been due
to an influx of foreigners. Certain new trades, dating from this
period, in the town may have been brought from abroad. The
toy trade began under Charles II. [Lewis, Topographical Diction-
ary (7th Edit.), i. 259], and the gun foundry in the reign of
William III. [R. K. Dent, Making of Birmingham (1894), p. 47.
Goodman, in Birmingham and Hardware District, edit. Timmins,
p. 381].
2 Poole, Hist. of the Huguenots, 169. His estimate is accepted
by Baird, ii. 99.
3 Also to Germany. Poole, Ibid., 107,
Later Immigrations
231
the religious suspicion which was awakened in other
quarters. It can be most easily measured by the response.
to the briefs for collections in church. Although, many of
the refugees were well provided with money on their arrival,
there were many who were in destitute circumstances.
Those who were not merchants, but were drawn from the
landed gentry or the professional classes, were without
any means of support, and for their benefit generous
collections were made on five separate occasions. The
first was in 1681; 1 another appeal, which is commonly
said to have resulted in contributions of £40,000 to
£50,000, was made in 1686,2 under James II.; the third
was issued in January, 1688; 3 it was followed by
another in 1694;4 and a final collection seems to have
occurred in 1699.5 Even this liberal outburst of private
charity was inadequate to the claims on it, and it was
supplemented by payments from the Privy Purse, and
subsequently by parliamentary grants. In 1696 a sum of
6
Compare
Jaay
1 Wyndham A. Bewes, Church Briefs (1896), p. 208.
2 Bewes, Ibid., p. 291. Evelyn, Diary, April 25, 1686. On the
whole subject see Mr. W. A. Shaw's article in the Huguenot Society
Proceedings, v. 346.
3 Bewes, Ibid., p. 212, and p. 291, quoting Evelyn, Diary, April
5, 1688.
4 Id., ibid., pp. 214, 295.
Povey, in Growth of Industry
6 W. A. Shaw, op. cit., p. 351.
7 They petitioned Parliament in 1689 (Commons Journal, x. 88,
15 April), and the Crown in 1692, and it was through pressure
put on Parliament by the Crown that their case was taken up
(Parl. Report, 1840, xxiii. p. 55, printed pagination, 215).
Mention is also made of a letter on their behalf to Crown from
King of Prussia at the end of Anne's reign.
5 Id., ibid., p. 296.
and Commerce, ii. 179, note 3.
232
Alien Immigrants
1
3
£12,000 was voted as an annual grant for the distressed
French Protestants, besides £3,000 for their ministers ;
but the administration had difficulty in fulfilling the good
intentions of Parliament in any year. The payments were
dropped in the year of William's death,2 and subsequently
by Harley, but were afterwards resumed, though under
Walpole the grant was paid on a diminished scale of
£8,591.4 The method of distribution has been described by
Misson.5 "The sums of money that have been collected for
the poor French refugees in England, partly by brief, partly
by Act of Parliament, and partly by the mere goodness and
liberality of the King and of the late Queen of happy and
glorious memory, have always been deposited in the hands
of four or five noblemen, who have referred the division
and administration thereof to a chosen set of men, picked
out from among the refugees themselves; these being
more likely to know the necessities and cases of their
countrymen than Englishmen possibly could be. These
gentlemen are called the French Committee, or, in respect
of the Great Commissioners, the Little Committee. That
they may not be liable to suspicion, the choice is made out
of persons not only of known merit and probity, but of
¹ See Parl. Hist., v. p. 995; and Journal of House of Commons,
xi. 519, 527, 535, 538. Boyer, Hist. Will. III. (1703), vol. iii. 16.
2 Shaw, op. cit., quoting Treasury Papers, vol. lxxxiii. 11.
3 Shaw, op. cit., quoting Treasury Papers, vol. ccxi. 7.
4 Shaw, op. cit., quoting Warrant Book, Geo. I. (14 June, 1726).
Had it not been for the émigrés of the Revolution it would pro-
bably have died out much earlier. Cf. Agnew, Protestant Exiles
from France (1886), ii. 42.
5 Memoirs and Observations (1719), p. 41.
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good substance. Nothing can be more laudable than the
charity, equity, moderation, compassion, fidelity, and
diligence with which these gentlemen acquit themselves.
of the painful and difficult task which their goodness.
induced them to accept.
It is impossible to ex-
press the sentiments of acknowledgment, esteem, and love
which all the poor, and all the refugees in general, have
in their hearts for these good and pious administrators.”
-
As an act of national charity this payment has a very
different character from the ordinary provision for the
poor; that was intended for the relief of the poor labourer,
this was rather meant for the benefit of those who had
been never trained to manual labour at all.
It was
evidently supposed that, if they were organized in colonies,
the more successful persons would soon be able to relieve
the needs of other members of their communities, as the
Walloons were responsible for their own poor. Part of the
money which was collected by means of the briefs was
devoted to building churches; three were provided in
London, and twelve in the provinces, though the numbers
of those who arrived in London, and in other towns
respectively, hardly justified this division of the bounty.1
•
1 Stow, Survey (1854-5), ii. bk. 5, p. 407. "The state of the
poor French Protestant refugees, anno 1687, was this: Their
numbers that were relieved by a Brief that year were 15,500
persons: whereof 13,500 were in and about London, and 3,000 in
several seaport towns. Of these there were 140 families of per-
sons of quality; 183 ministers with their families; 144 families
of lawyers, physicians, merchants, and citizens; the rest arti-
ficers, husbandmen, etc. And considerable numbers of them
were still at that time coming over. The collection that was
234
Alien Immigrants
From whatever cause, it is clear that they concentrated
more and more in London, till Spitalfields became a
thickly populated district, in which the French language
was generally used. The weavers there led a life
that offers a striking contrast to the lot of the East
End population of the present day. Their plots in
Sanderson's Gardens were well cultivated, and gay with
tulips and dahlias; others of them were great pigeon
fanciers, while some devoted themselves keenly to scien-
tific pursuits botanical, mathematical, astronomical,
and historical. In the earlier years of the eighteenth
century, under the aegis of protective legislation, they
enjoyed extraordinary material prosperity, and the
problem of poverty did not press upon them at all. The
charities, of which their churches were the centres, and
the hospital which was founded for the sick, would seem
to have met their requirements, and the contribution
from the Civil List assisted them in maintaining their
pastors and the impoverished gentry among them.
48. The collections and parliamentary grants provided
all that was necessary for the immediate wants and the
religious organization of these refugees. With regard
to their chief industries there was no need for any special
organization.
made for them in London and other parts of the nation in the
abovesaid year, 1687, amounted to £40,000, paid into The Chamber
of London; and not long after £20,000 more was paid in. Fifteen
French churches or convenient places for the worship of God
were erected by means of this collection-viz., three in London
and twelve in the several counties: besides those great numbers
before mentioned relieved thereby."
Later Immigrations
235
2
The times had changed since the days of the Walloon
immigration, and regulation by means of companies was
no longer looked on with much approval. The chief new
development was the silk manufacture. A very large
number of the workers in this industry had deserted
the Huguenot district about Tours; Lyons, the other
centre of this industry, was in Catholic territory, and
did not suffer to the same extent.¹ In connection with
this trade a company was formed, but it was not a
company of the old type; a grant was made in 1692
in favour of certain Huguenots for the exclusive manu-
facture of lustrings and a la mode silks, and this,
the Royal Lustring Company, was fostered under Wil-
liam III. and Queen Anne,3 by protective Acts against
the importation of these fabrics. The London company
of silk-weavers had ceased to be of practical account
some seventeen years before the Revocation. It had
been found that they had used their power injudiciously,
and an Act of Parliament set aside some of their
rules, including a limitation on apprentices. The manu-
facture in London was, therefore, without restriction,
because without regulation; while at Canterbury the
company erected by Charles II. may have been less com-
placent.5 To whatever cause the change may have been.
-
<<
1 Charmetant, Les anciennes Corporations de la soierie à Lyons,
in La Réforme Sociale et la Centenaire de la Révolution (1890), p. 448.
2 Macpherson, Annals of Commerce, ii. 651.
3 7 & 8 William III., c. 36. 3 & 4 Anne, c. 12. 6 Anne, c. 3.
4 19 & 20, c. ii. c. xi.
5 Hasted, Kent, iv. 421.
236
Alien Immigrants
due, it is clear that during the last decade of the seven-
teenth and first of the eighteenth centuries, the silk
manufacture migrated rapidly from Canterbury to Lon-
don, and flourished at the latter centre.
In the course of a few years, however, we find it grow-
ing up in other districts, and it is not in all cases easy
to trace the reasons for these developments. The change
was apparently due in some cases to the invention of
machinery which could be worked to advantage by water-
power. After one attempt had failed, Thomas Lombe,
of Derby, went to Italy in 1715 and secured men to come
and set up a mill for throwing silk; one of the men
whom he introduced attempted the same thing at Stock-
port.¹ In some cases facility for obtaining the materials
may have determined the movement of the weaving; but
it also seems to have been taken up in a district where
woollen weaving had been practised, but was ceasing to
flourish. This was certainly the case with the silk manu-
factures of Halstead, Coggeshall, Braintree and other
districts in Essex; it appears also to be true of Taunton
and the West of England.3 The Norwich silk manufac-
2
-
1 Noble, History of Derby (1829), i. 247, ii. 423. The process of
throwing silk is the conversion of the raw material into three
forms for the use of the weaver. (i.) Into "singles," or threads
of raw silk twisted together. (ii.) Into "tram," which consists
of singles twisted together. (iii.) Into "organzine," or the warp
threads.
2 Parliamentary Reports, 1840, xxiii.: 143 (printed pagination,
302-3); 129 (printed pagination, 289); 200 (printed pagination,
360); Hansard (N. S.), x. p. 781.
3 Cf. Hansard, Commons Debates (N. S.), 1824, x. p. 733, 804.
Parliamentary Reports, 1840, xxiii. 252 (printed pagination, 412).
Later Immigrations
237
ture was of a different type, and consisted of goods made
of a mixture of silk and wool; it appears, however, to
have been established after the woollen manufacture had
suffered at least a temporary check.¹ In Ireland the silk
industry was established by a refugee at Lisburn,² and in
Scotland it was attempted by settlers at Moultrie's Hill,
near Edinburgh. In the beginning of the eighteenth
century the ribbon trade was started in Coventry. Its
promoter was an Englishman; but the use of numerous
French technical terms in the processes of the manu-
facture 5 indicate the nationality of the workpeople by
whose skill it was established.
4
3
C
6
Another branch of the silk industry, the making of
mohair and silk buttons, centred at Macclesfield, in the
latter half of the seventeenth century. It continued to
flourish there until the fashion of wearing metal buttons,
adopted during the Georgian era, led to the decline of
this special trade, and its supersession by the weaving of
silk in the town.
1 Clarendon, Rebellion, VI. clxxxiii.
2 Ulster Journal of Archæology, i. 293.
3 Poole, Hist. of the Huguenots, p. 94; Smiles, Huguenots in
England and Ireland (1889), 277.
4 Coventry trades in Birmingham and Midland Hardware Dis-
trict, Timmins (1866), p. 181. Possibly the watch trade, which
began at the same period, had the same origin. Lewis, Topo-
graphical Dictionary (7th edit.), i. 705.
5 Birmingham and Midland Hardware District (edited by Tim-
mins), p. 181.
• History of Macclesfield (1817), Corry, p. 55. The large buttons
of the time of Anne and George I. were spoken of as a French
foppery. See Fairholt, History of Costume (1846), p. 357.
238
Alien Immigrants
1
The trade thus introduced by French immigrants was
a typical example of the manufactures which had been
habitually fostered in France; it was intended, not to
work up native materials, but to avoid the necessity of
purchasing foreign goods. It was to some extent an
exotic, and was encouraged by heavy protective duties.
Not only did the State support it by warding off foreign
competition, but also by the internal regulations which
were laid down in the Spitalfields Acts in 1773. There
had been a period of great distress in the trade,¹ and by
the Act of 1773 the magistrates were empowered to fix
wages for London and an area of sixty miles round about.²
When the protection was removed in 1824,³ it was
thought necessary to remove the regulation also; the con-
troversy at the time was curious, as the opinion in the
non-regulated districts was much less hostile to free com-
petition than in the regulated. It was one of the last
trades in which the practice of authoritatively laying
down rates of wages survived as a practical thing; but
this special arrangement was not called into being till
eighty years after the immigration, and cannot be traced
to the refugees themselves.
The progress of the silk manufacture may be almost
taken as characteristic of the methods of encouraging
industry which prevailed in the eighteenth century;
1 Annual Register, 1765, p. 41.
2 Parliamentary Reports, 1840, xxiii. 199 (printed page, 359).
³ The repeal of the Spitalfields Acts was unsuccessfully
attempted in 1823; it was carried out as an
reduction in the duties on foreign silks in 1824.
incident in the
Hansard, N. S.
Later Immigrations
239
parliamentary assistance was given by means of protec-
tive legislation, and temporary patents for improvements
were granted to individuals; in so far as companies were
formed, they rather existed for the purpose of carrying
on the trade on a large scale, with all improvements that
could be heard of, than as exclusive corporations which
could exercise powers that were intended to be regulative
and easily became restrictive.
49. Another textile industry which was introduced at
this time differed greatly in character from the silk
manufacture; the making of sailcloth was exactly the
sort of trade which English-unlike French-policy
sought to foster. All trades which were in any way
subsidiary to the development of maritime power were
greatly coveted; and before the law of 1681, Sir Henry
Savile was writing from Paris, urging that the oppor-
tunity of attracting Huguenot manufactures from Picardy
and Artois should not be lost. After the passing of that
measure, he reported that M. Bonhomme, of Paris, was
about to transfer his manufactory to England, and before
many years had passed a considerable trade had grown
up at Ipswich; capital for starting the enterprise in 1681
had been provided by the elders of the Walloon Church
in Threadneedle Street.¹ Like other branches of the
linen trade, however, it never took kindly to English soil,2
1 Ulster Journal of Archæology, iv. 206.
2 Calico-printing, which took root more readily, was also of
Huguenot introduction. It was first set up at Richmond in
1690, and the art was afterwards practised at Bromley Hall, in
240
Alien Immigrants
1
2
and more encouragement was given to those who prose-
cuted it in Ireland and in Scotland. In neither of
these countries was the trade satisfactorily established
till long subsequently to the Revocation. The Irish
Parliament had been making considerable efforts to foster
the linen manufacture, especially after the repression.
of the woollen trade in 1696, and they were cordially
willing to welcome foreign Protestants; but little
success attended their efforts until they obtained royal
patronage and secured the services of Louis Crommelin.
He was a Frenchman from Picardy, who had settled in
Holland, and he was enabled to bring over an industrial
colony of Frenchmen from Holland and to settle at
Lisburn.3 This was the foundation of the success of the
North of Ireland linen manufacture; and a few years
later he also organized the manufacture of sailcloth at
Waterford; there were other sailcloth factories at Cork
Essex. Burn, Hist. of French, Walloon, Dutch, and other Protestant
Refugees, p. 259.
1 This had been done under Charles II., as early as 1665 (17
and 18 Charles II. c. 9). This Act was repealed 1705, and
another passed in the same year for the improvement of the
hemp and flaxen manufactures. In 1695-6 the English Parlia-
ment passed an Act to encourage the linen manufacture of
Ireland. 7 and 8 William and Mary, c. 39.
2 Growth of English Industry and Commerce (1892), ii. 302. Acts
were passed by the Irish Parliament for the encouragement of
the settlement of Protestant strangers in 14 and 15 Charles
II. c. 13, and 4 William and Mary, c. 2.
Documents in Ap-
3 Ulster Journal of Archæology, i. 211.
pendix.
4 Ulster Journal of Archæology, iv. 206.
Later Immigrations
241
and Rathkaile,¹ and the trade continued to receive support
from Government for many years.?
The story of the trade in Scotland is very similar;
linen manufacture existed there and received much Par-
liamentary encouragement before the Union, and from
the fund, which became available at that time for the
promotion of Scotch industries. But it was not till
1729 that the real development began; in that year
Nicholas d'Assauville, and fifteen compatriots from
Picardy, settled in the burgh of Broughton, between
Edinburgh and Leith; and they were successful in
giving it a considerable impetus. The Huguenots at
Moultrie's Hill abandoned the manufacture of silk for
that of linen; and foreign linen-weavers, who may have
been French refugees, are said to have settled at Drums-
heugh.3 From Edinburgh the trade spread west to
Glasgow and the district around, through the medium
of the French settlers who were sent to instruct the
weavers.4
-
1 Irish Commons Journals, 4 October, 1721.
2 Other colonies of refugees were founded at Dublin, Dundalk,
Cork and Kilkenny. Ulster Journal of Archaeology, i. 211. There
appear to have been a few settlers at Belfast. Ibid., ix. 142.
3 A. W. C. Hallen, in Huguenot Society Proceedings (1887), ii.
175, 176. The Dunfermline manufacture was an offshoot from
this centre.
R
+ Agnew, Protestant Exiles from France (1886), ii. p. 520. In
the eighteenth century several manufactures in Scotland were
developed by alien skill. Certain Paisley merchants induced a
Frenchman and his wife to come from Lisle to start thread and
lace-making in Renfrew, in 1710 (G. Crawfurd, History of the
Shire of Renfrew, 1782, p. 17). Dutch linen-weavers were brought
over to Glasgow in 1725 (J. Gibson, History of Glasgow, 1777, p.
1
242
Alien Immigrants
It is hard to say what success had attended the various
experiments in paper-making which date from Tudor
times; but there can be little doubt that the chief de-
velopment of the industry in this country was due to the
French refugees. The manufacture was carried on in
different parts of France, but Angouleme was the most
celebrated centre in Europe for the production.¹ Mills
were planted about this time in various parts of Britain;
at South Stoneham by Gerald de Vaux; at Laver-
stoke, in Hampshire, by the Portals; 2 and on the Darent,
in Kent. Certain members of a company of white paper-
makers, who asked for a charter of incorporation in 1686,
bore foreign names. A mill was established at Colinton
and another at Cathcart, near Glasgow, by Nicolas de
Champs; 5 and French workmen began the manufacture
of blue and grey paper of a superior quality at Dalry
Mills, near Edinburgh. This venture does not appear to
have prospered, and in 1693 Nicolas Dupin sought and
obtained permission to establish a new process for making
fine paper.
6
7
243), and in 1732 a workman from Holland began the tape
manufacture (Ibid, p. 241). About forty Frenchwomen were
introduced by a Glasgow merchant for the weaving of fine yarn
in 1768 (Glasgow, Past and Present, 1851, iii. 318). There appears
also to have been a French potter in Glasgow in 1779 (Ibid.,
iii. 505-6).
1 Levasseur, Classes ouvrières (1859), ii. 276, note 4.
2 Hug. Soc. Proc., iii. 70.
³ Smiles, Huguenots in England and Ireland (1889), 272.
4 Hug. Soc. Proc., iii. 349.
5 Picture of Glasgow and Stranger's Guide (1812), p. 198. Cham-
bers' Journal, December 9, 1848.
6 Cochran Patrick, Mediæval Scotland, p. 61. 7 lbid., p. 62.
Later Immigrations
243
The art of making sheets of plate glass in England is
said to owe its introduction to a Frenchman, Abraham
Thevenart; and in Scotland his compatriot, Le Blanc,
one of the workmen employed at Aitchison's Haven in
1697, instructed his fellow-workmen in glass-polishing.¹
Rope-making was carried on in Leith by a Huguenot; 2
while another refugee, Paul Martin, introduced the manu-
facture of lancets and other surgical instruments into
Edinburgh, and was admitted as a member of the corpora-
tion of Hammermen in that city.³
C
The Huguenots who attached themselves to the Walloon
colony at Wandsworth were chiefly drawn from Caude-
bec, a town of Normandy which had been a centre for
furriers and the manufacture of felt and beaver hats. The
transference of the industry was so complete that, as is
commonly said, the hats of the Roman cardinals were all
manufactured by these refugees, until a trade intrigue
was successful in restoring the secret to France about
1730.4
50. If intercourse with Holland had paved the way for
the landing of William, the Huguenot immigration con-
tributed in no small degree to the success of the Revolu-
1 Cochran Patrick, Medieval Scotland, p. 59.
2 Agnew, Protestant Exiles from France (1886), i. 259.
3 Colston, Incorporated Trades (1891), p. 15.
4 In the middle of the eighteenth century a French hatter,
Matthieu, returned to his native country and set up a large
factory for hats in Paris, thus restoring the secret of the manu-
facture which had been carried out of France by the Huguenot
exiles. Weiss, History of the French Protestant Refugees (trans.
Hardman, 1854), p. 259,
244
Alien Immigrants
tion and the subsequent settlement of the affairs of the
realm. The cause of the Huguenots was intimately con-
nected with that of William III.; not till he issued his
declarations did they feel really at home in the land of
their adoption; it was only after the battle of the
Boyne that they ventured in any numbers to Ireland.
He was their protector, and they were heartily attached
to his cause. The very flower of his army was drawn
from the refugees.
"Heureusement," wrote Michelet, "l'armée de Guillaume
était ferme. Elle était précisement forte par cet élément
calviniste qu'il repudiait en Angleterre, je veux dire par
nos hugenots, les frères des puritains.
Je ne crois
nullement que la grande Angleterre, avec toutes ses gloires,
son ainesse dans la liberté, n'avoue pas noblement, la part
que nos Français eurent à sa delivrance.
"Tels quels, presentons-les ici. Les chefs du genie et
de l'artillerie sont Cambon et Goulon. Les trois aides-de-
camp de Guillaume sont aussi des français. Trois regi-
ments d'infantrie, en tout, deux mille deux cent cinquante
hommes, très redoutable troupe, pleine de vieux soldats
de Turenne, de gentilshommes et d'officiers, qui dans cette
guerre sainte trouvaient bon d'être soldats. Ajoutez un
escadron français de cavalerie.
“Bien plus, presque toute l'armée était française par
ses cadres. Guillaume y avait dispersé dans tous les
<label
1 The Huguenot refugees were said to have contributed about
£2,000,000 sterling towards the expenses of revolution settlement.
See the argument in favour of the General Naturalization Act,
1709, Parl, Hist., vi. 782, 783,

THE MARQUIS OF RUVIGNY, EARL OF GALWAY.
Later Immigrations
245
corps, comme un ferment d'honneur et de bravoure, sept
cent trente six de nos officiers. Ces gens-là, maintenant
n'ayant rien sur la terre nul foyer que la place qu'om-
brageait le drapeau d'Orange seraient morts trente fois.
plutot que de ne le pas tenir ferme. Sous eux les soldats
achetés, les mercenaires ne purent que marcher droit.” 1
Prominent among the Huguenot officers in William's
army were Schomberg, the Marquis of Ruvigny, Earl of
Galway, and Ligonier, who was eventually appointed Field
Marshal and Commander-in-chief." Men of Dutch and
Walloon extraction helped to finance the Revolution and
supported the policy of the new Government, but the brunt
of the actual fighting was borne by French refugees.3
The immigration of such a large number of men of deep
religious principle could not but have a marked effect
on the religious history of the country. It has been
already pointed out that the very existence of the
Walloon congregations had reconciled a larger propor-
tion of Englishmen to the belief that the State might
wisely make an exception in regard to the principle of
insisting on conformity to the Established Church, and
that there was no political danger in permitting the
1 Michelet, Histoire de France (1877), xv. 374.
2 T. M. Maguire, in Hug. Soc. Proc., iv. 322, 324, 326. It is
estimated that in 1698 there were 4,288 Huguenots in the English
army. Ibid., 324.
3 On the reduction of Ireland not a few of the leading officers
with their soldiers settled in Ireland. The principal colony was
that at Portarlington, where the Earl of Galway was established
(Ulster Journal of Archæology, iii. 64 seq.), but there was also a
group of officers who settled at Youghal. Ibid., ii. 223. Some of
246
Alien Immigrants
existence of foreign Churches within the realm. The
arrival of the Huguenots struck another blow at the prin-
ciple of the State establishment of national religion; for
it brought about the concurrent endowment and establish-
ment of different forms of Christian worship and religious
discipline. The moneys collected in the established
churches were devoted in part to the erecting of places.
of worship for the Huguenots, and public funds were
assigned to the maintenance of their pastors. This policy
of concurrent endowment was also carried out in Ireland,
where the Presbyterians of Ulster obtained a regium
donum; and it must have rendered the King and Queen
more ready to accept the policy of establishing Presby-
terianism in Scotland, at a time when the considerations
of expediency were very difficult to balance. The policy
of regarding every Protestant communion alike as a
religio licita was ultimately embodied in the general
act of naturalization, when the point was conceded, after
some debate, of accepting aliens who were willing to
communicate, not in the Church of England, but in any
Protestant sect.
The decision thus taken had important political con-
sequences; after it was taken, only one Christian com-
munity remained against the members of which it was
possible to urge that their existence was a political
danger; while at the same time the persecution which
the Huguenots had received abroad tended to strengthen
the Danes, who came over six or seven thousand strong and
were quartered in Yorkshire, expressed a determination not to
return. Diary of Abraham de la Pryme (Surtees Soc.), p. 16.
Later Immigrations
247
the English prejudice against Papists. The treatment to
which Romanists were exposed in England had been
alleged in France as an excuse for the increasing rigour
to which the Huguenots were subjected by Louis XIV.;
and the advent of the refugees brought no disposition
to remove the disabilities of Papists in this country.
More than a century was to elapse before the Romanists
could secure their emancipation; and in the intervening
period every effort was made in Ireland, by means of penal
laws, to imitate the policy which Louis XIV. had tried
with so much apparent success. The boasted religious
toleration of Locke and the Whig statesmen did not
extend beyond the limits which had been practically
forced upon them by the Walloon and Huguenot refugees.
The narrow range within which this principle was
accepted, becomes more apparent when we turn to Scot-
land; in the northern kingdom there had been no refugee
Churches formed, and it was still possible to maintain the
principle of establishing a national religion in a very
strict sense.1 The non-juring attitude adopted by many
of the Episcopalian clergy gave an excuse for treating
the prelatists as disloyal to the new order of things, and
for bringing severe pressure to bear on those who adhered
to liturgical worship and Episcopal ordination. Episco-
palians in Scotland have lived down this suspicion, but
they still suffer from the prejudice which it engendered.
1 The Scotch Act of 1695, which prohibited baptism by the
Episcopal clergy, was repealed by an Act of the United Kingdom
in 1711. This served as a charter of toleration to the Episco-
palians.
248
Alien Immigrants
There was a parallel change within the English Church,
which can be traced to the same cause. Those who were
thoroughly loyal to the principles of the English Church
disliked the latitude, which was viewed as expedient in
the interests of the State, and they were in their turn
tabooed by persons in authority. Zeal and enthusiasm of
any kind found little encouragement; indeed, it almost
ceased to be respectable. At the very time when England
was coming into the front rank of nations, not only in
Europe, but in the world, the State as a State was
becoming content with more or less kindly patronage of
the Church, and was ceasing to take an active part either
in maintaining or propagating her doctrine and dis-
cipline.
These indirect effects on the religious conditions of
England, Scotland, and Ireland alike, were out of all pro-
portion to the number of the refugees who professed to
maintain separatist congregations; from the first, the
great mass of the refugees had conformed to the Church
of England,¹ or had been merged among the remnant of
Presbyterianism. More than one of the congregations,
though retaining the French language in its services,
preferred to adopt the Prayer-Book and orders of the
Church of England, and, despite occasional reinforcements
from abroad, they have, with two important exceptions,
ceased to exist.
2
While the religious influence of the refugees may, on
1 Burnet, quoted by Agnew, ii. 74.
2 Several of the leading Unitarian families in England are of
Huguenot descent-e.g. Martineaus, Chamberlains.
Later Immigrations
249
the whole, be said to have been indirect, it is not easy to
exaggerate the importance of their direct contribution to
other sides of English life and thought. It was the pecu-
liar feature of this immigration that so many of those who
sought an asylum in this country were educated men;
and they have at least, through their descendants, left
their mark on every department of English literature and
science.
ii. The Palatines.
51. On the passing of the General Act of Naturalisation ¹
it seemed that the long-standing jealousy of alien immi-
grants had come to an end. The Act indeed insisted
that those who took advantage of its provisions must
be Protestants; but the prosperity of the colonies of
Frenchmen in England seemed to show that many of
the fears, which their coming had inspired, were ground-
less. Not only were they not a burden to the community,
but they had done an immense amount to increase our
industry at the expense of that of France. It seemed as
if we could not welcome too many such people to our
shores. There had been an extraordinary revolution in
public opinion during the two preceding centuries; in the
time of Richard III. and Henry VII. the prejudice against
alien artisans was rampant, and, on the whole, triumphant ;
in the time of Queen Anne it hardly made itself heard,
and failed to make itself felt.
But the favourable opinion thus formed was at least
1 7 Anne, c. 5.
250
Alien Immigrants
premature; the Walloon and the Huguenot artisans were
an undoubted gain to the nation, but others, who were
just as much objects of pity, were by no means an acquisi-
tion. The passing of the Act for a General Naturalization
was the signal for a large incursion of destitute aliens;
they began to flock to this country in crowds from the
Palatinate. The incident is not unimportant, though it
has been almost forgotten; it led to the repeal of the
Act which had been recently passed, but it failed to
modify the public sentiment. Nations may learn by
experience, but only, it would seem, by long-continued
experience, and not by single incidents.2
1
The episode was a curious sequel to the story of Hugue-
not immigration, and was indeed intimately connected with.
¹ 10 Anne, c. 9. Compare Lecky, England in the Eighteenth
Century, i. 50.
2 Mr. Nugent, in advocating the Bill for the Naturalizing of
Foreign Protestants (1718), urged the benefits which had accrued,
and would accrue, from the immigration of skilled artisans, the
habits of frugality which they would inculcate in Englishmen,
and the necessity of giving naturalization to them, in that
while workmen were the very class whom it was most desirable
to attract to England, they were also those who could not afford
the expense of private naturalization Acts. But the promoter
of the Bill before the House realized that the memory of the
Palatine incursion would prejudice the measure, and added: "I
do not desire that we should run into such an extravagant fit of
charity as we ran into in the year 1708, when we not only passed
a Bill for the General Naturalization of Foreign Protestants, but
put ourselves to a great expense in bringing over a great num-
ber of poor Palatines who could not bear the cost of transporting
themselves; and who, when they arrived, were found to have
neither industry nor ingenuity." The Bill was dropped. Parl.
Hist., vol. xiv. pp. 134–146.
Later Immigrations
251
affairs in France.
The Elector Palatine had sheltered not
a few of Louis XIV's emigrant subjects; and Louis had
revenged himself by ravaging a territory which lay so
readily exposed to his attack. The French colony was
completely broken up, and its remnants were received at
Erlangen and other German towns; while some of them
made their way to England. But the troubles of the
unhappy area, which had sheltered them, were not at an
end; the Palatinate was devastated again by Louis in
1693,2
2 and the German inhabitants were themselves
reduced to a desperate plight.³ The offer of ready naturali-
zation in England seems to have been the last determining
cause, and crowds of them started to obtain a settlement
in our country.
This incursion of masses of destitute Germans was felt
as a serious grievance in S. Olave's, Southwark, and other
parishes where they were housed; it was a somewhat
mysterious affair, and even a parliamentary enquiry did
not completely unravel the inner history of the matter.
This was perhaps partly due to the partisan spirit in
which the investigation was conducted. The Tories were
anxious to utilize the incident to throw blame on Sunder-
land,5 and professed to be anxious to unmask a scheme for
crowding the land with Dissenters and thus attacking the
Church.
1 Poole, Hist. of the Huguenots, 130.
2 Macaulay, History of England (1858), iv. 430.
3 Five years later, Huguenot refugees were forbidden by the
Elector Palatine to settle in his territory. Poole, Huguenots, 130.
5 Ibid., vi. p. 1000
4 Parl. Hist., vi. 999.
252
Alien Immigrants
It appears that a Lutheran minister, with forty-one
persons, had been the precursors of the movement; they
had arrived in 1708, and had been forwarded at the
Queen's expense to New York. In the following year a
"Golden Book" had been freely circulated among the
Elector Palatine's subjects; it contained a picture of
Queen Anne, and had gilt letters on the title-page: it
chiefly consisted of a recommendation of Carolina as a
field for emigration, and indicated England as the point
of departure. The ravages of the French, coupled with
the mischief done to their vineyards by a hard winter,
rendered large numbers willing to go to the English
plantations; they came in crowds down the Rhine to
Rotterdam, whence English agents forwarded them to
England, so that in June, 1709, it was estimated that 10,000
had arrived. Efforts were made to check the further
ingress, but these were frustrated by a Quaker of Rotter-
dam and a mysterious "gentleman with a servant that
came over in the packet boat," and distributed printed.
tickets among the Palatines at Brill; an additional 3,000
had arrived before October.1 Meanwhile the efforts of the
commissioners, who had been appointed to settle these
men in any useful employment, were not very successful;
the Palatines were agriculturists, and the towns would
have none of them. Certain weavers among them settled
at Bolton; 2 others were employed by the corporation of
1 See the Report in the Commons Journal, xvi. 597, 598.
2 History of Lancashire, Baines (Harland), i. 548.
Later Immigrations
253
1
Liverpool, ¹ others by the Queen. Many were despatched
to New York; projects for sending them to the West
Indies and the Scilly Isles, and Ireland, or planting them
on royal forests in England, were mooted; but little was
done; and some of those who had gone to Ireland ³ were
compelled to return to Southwark. A camp was formed
on Blackheath; and as winter came on, many of them
were housed in the Archbishop's granaries at Lambeth,
and, under very insanitary conditions, in the warehouses
in Southwark. It is a miserable story, and the expense,
which was charged to the public purse, amounted to
£135,775 18s. Od., while about £21,000 was raised for
the same purpose by briefs in churches. The settle-
ments, which had a partial success, were those which had
been planted in Limerick and Kerry; but even in these
cases the success seemed to be almost as much due to the
terms on which the land was leased as to any special
characteristics among the settlers.5 In its economic
aspects the whole affair serves to bring out the fact that
while the immigration of skilled labourers may be an
immense advantage to a country, there is at least a grave
difficulty in turning the labour of unskilled men to imme-
diate account.
4
2
1 Hist. MSS. Commission Report, viii. p. 47.
2 Poole, Hist. of the Huguenots, p. 99.
3 Others who remained suffered severely. State Papers (Trea-
sury), vol. clxxxviii. 7.
4 Commons Journal, xvi. 597-8. It appears that £19,838 11s. 1d.
had been expended from this fund.
5 Lecky, England in the Eighteenth Century, ii. 343.
254
Alien Immigrants
iii. The Emigrés.
52. At the end of the eighteenth century England once
again became a refuge; this time for the victims of
political, not religious, strife.
On the 5th of May, 1789, the States-General met, and
from the day of their meeting signs were not wanting of
the determined advance of the Tiers État to power; but,
though many men foresaw that a revolution was inevi-
table, none anticipated the rapidity with which events
would move, till the country was startled by the riot
which culminated in the storming of the Bastille. Face
to face with this evidence of revolution, Louis XVI.
had to choose between an attempt to quell the revolt by
force and acquiescence in the work of the revolutionary
leaders. The King's submission, and the concessions
which he made, gave an impetus to the Royalist emigra-
tion, which began immediately.1 This exodus continued
steadily during the years which followed. The Comte
d'Artois, having first sought Turin, settled at Coblentz in
1791, where he began to negotiate with foreign powers for
the restoration of the French monarchy; while the Prince
of Condé, with the Duke of Bourbon, gathered together
regiments of emigrants at Worms, and endeavoured to
compass the same end by more patriotic means, in invoking
the aid of the counter revolutionists within France, rather
than that of designing allies without.2
The first exodus had been that of the Royalists; it was
¹ Martin, Histoire de France, depuis 1789 (1878), i. 61-63.
2 Morse Stephens, French Revolution (1891), ii. 33–35,
Later Immigrations
255
succeeded by that of several members of the Constitution-
alist party in the autumn of 1789. The renunciation of
feudal rights and the abolition of privileges on the initia-
tive of the nobility, followed by the limitation of the legis-
lative power of the Crown to a suspensive veto, failed to
satisfy the people; and the king roused them by calling
troops to Versailles. The events which resulted on the
5th and 6th October and the removal of Louis XVI. from
Versailles to the Tuileries, led to an augmentation in the
number of fugitives.¹
The autumn of 1789 was marked by the commencement
of proceedings which eventually gave rise to another class
of refugees. Ecclesiastical endowments were confiscated.
This was followed by the civil constitution of the clergy
in July, 1790, and the imposition upon them, in Novem-
ber, of the oath of fealty to the nation, the law and the
king. A year later all non-juring priests were declared
to have forfeited their revenues, and were to be imprisoned
if they raised dissensions in their districts. The clerical
émigrés, who left the country in consequence of this
procedure, formed a numerous body.
1 Martin, Histoire de France, depuis 1789, i. 91–97.
2 Dyer, Modern Europe, iv. 365, 369.
-
But during the years 1790-1 events in France induced
further flight among the nobility and the upholders of
the monarchy. The failure of the king to make good his
escape in June, 1791, and the acceptance of the Consti-
tution as drawn up by the Constituent Assembly alien-
ated other royalists, who were encouraged by the brothers
256
Alien Immigrants
of Louis XVI., Monsieur and the Comte d'Artois, to join
them at Coblentz. On the opening of the Legislative
Assembly the émigré question was discussed; and while,
as has been said, a decree was issued against clerics, loss
of life and property was the lot appointed for all émigrés
who should have failed to return to France by January
1st, 1792.¹ In 1792 the trend of affairs rendered emi-
gration still more desirable for many, and they found
safety in flight. These were the causes which occasioned
emigration.
دو
53. It is unnecessary to enter here into the reception
of the émigrés at European Courts, or to detail the help
afforded by the different rulers; the attitude of England
was unlike that of other countries. Pitt, at the head
of affairs, had one persistent aim-the preservation of
peace. England was exhausted by the drain of the
American war, and he wished to recoup the country's
strength. Since he held that the restoration of strong
monarchy in France was necessary to the peace of Europe,
Pitt was desirous to forward the cause of the royalists;
but his method was not that of armed intervention. He
looked to the exertions of the émigrés and their allies
without, and of the royalists who remained in France.
The Government was unwilling to espouse the cause of
those Frenchmen who had come to England, and there
was also a certain reluctance on the part of the authorities
to receive persons who might prove to be holders of re-
volutionary tenets cloaking themselves under the guise of
1 Dyer, Modern Europe, iv. 380, 383, 384,
Later Immigrations
257
royalist émigrés. Realizing this danger, they guarded
against the contingency by passing the Alien Bill of
1793.¹ Aliens were required to assign a good reason for
their presence in England, to register themselves, and to
produce their passports when called upon; if neces-
sary, they could be expelled from the country. Under
this Act, Talleyrand was obliged to depart to America in
1793.2
The English people shared to some extent the suspicions
of the Government with regard to the Frenchmen. One
journal advocated that Frenchmen should be restrained
from meeting together in greater numbers than five at a
time; and it pointed out the risk of harbouring certain
French dancing-masters, "the veriest Jacobins in exist-
ence." 3
Despite this lurking dread, however, much
public sympathy was aroused for the émigrés; their
circumstances were calculated to excite compassion. All
of them were poor; many had endured great hardships.
The Comtesse de Saisseval crossed the Channel in winter
in a small boat and begged vainly for a lodging at
Dover; 4 the Duc de Liancourt had been hunted from
Rouen to Abbeville, and thence to a coast village; after
three days spent in hiding, he escaped to England;5
1 33 Geo. iii. c. 4.
2 Talleyrand Memoirs, edited by the Duc de Broglie (trans-
lation, London, 1891), vol. i. 173. Talleyrand says that he was
expelled in order to prove that the Alien Act was no dead letter.
3 The Times, Feb. 15th, 1793. Quoted by John Ashton, Old
Times (1885), p. 277.
4 Forneron, Histoire Générale des Émigrés (1884), ii. p. 44.
5 Diary of Madame d'Arblay (1842), v. 346, 347.
S
258
Alien Immigrants
Chateaubriand nearly starved in London.¹
a few examples of a condition which was general.
54. A colony was formed at Staines by the royalist
families of Harcourt, Beauvau, FitzJames, and Mortemart,
and other émigrés settled at Petersham and Richmond.³
Juniper Hall, near Dorking, was chiefly the centre for
the gathering of Constitutionalists. Among the residents
there were the Marquise de la Châtre, M. de Narbonne,
M. de Montmorency, Theodore Lambeth, the Marquis de
Jaucourt, Lally Tollendal, Madame de Staël, and Talley-
rand.4
Madame de Broglie settled for a short time at
West Humble, and the Duc de Liancourt lived in a small
house near Bury.5 The county of Norfolk was said to be
filled with "little revolutionary societies " in the autumn
of 1792.6 Sir William and Lady Jerningham welcomed
émigrés to their home, both at Cossey, in Norfolk, and
in London. Immigrants in large numbers arrived on
the south coast and went on to London; in one week
170 landed at Brighton, and nearly 1,300 at Eastbourne,
most of whom were poverty-stricken priests.8 Beggars
These are
2
¹ Chateaubriand, Mémoires d'outre tombe (1849), iii. pp. 169–181.
2 Forneron, Histoire Générale des Émigrés, i. p. 215.
3 Dutens, Mémoires (1806), ii. 276, 277. Letters of Horace
Walpole (1891), ix. 350.
4 Diary of Madame d'Arblay, v. pp. 340, 394, 402.
5 Ibid., v. pp. 340, 343, 356.
6 Ibid., v. p. 372.
'Jerningham Letters, edited by Egerton Castle (1896), i. pp.
88, 91, 95. Among those mentioned in these letters as refuged
in England are Mme. de Chatillon, the Archbishop of Narbonne,
Mme. de Rothes. The Comte d'Artois was living at Holyrood
in 1797. Madame de Gontaut, Mémoires (1891), 69.
8 St. James' Chronicle, Sept. 12th, 1792.
Later Immigrations
259
of all sorts are said to have availed themselves of the
pity prevalent in England and to have come in numbers.
It was estimated that in 1792 there were more than
40,000 men, women, and children of French birth in
England;¹ two-thirds of these were of low rank.
The immigrants were not wanting in the quality of
self help. The Marquis de Montazet earned his living by
cleaning windows; and Chevalier Anselme became a
waiter; 2 M. Gautier de Brécy catalogued books, and the
Marquis de Chavannes sold coals; others taught various
arts. Many joined the lace-makers of Buckingham,
Bedford, and the neighbouring counties.4 But public
interest showed itself in tangible form; some 700 priests
were welcomed and supported at Winchester, where they
remained for four years, and then moved on to Reading
and other towns.5 A great many refugee clerics were
employed to make tapestry by the Marchioness of Buck-
ingham, and several ladies of rank sold artificial flow-
ers and embroideries under her patronage.7 Public
meetings were held in London to raise money for the
émigrés,8 and a committee was formed to seek out neces-
6
1 St. James' Chronicle, Sept. 13th, 1792. Quoted by J. Ashton,
Old Times (1885), 15.
2 Voyages des Émigrés Français, par. L. M. H. (1799), i. 69, 70.
3 Forneron, Histoire Générale des Emigrés, ii. 48, 49.
4 Annual Register, 1794. Chronicle, p. 21.
5 Milner, History of Winchester, ii. 167-9. About 8,000 priests
came to England; sixty were located at Berwick. Lubersac,
Journal historique et religieux de l'émigration (1802), 13, 41.
7 Ibid., ii. 49.
6 Forneron, op. cit., ii. 55.
8 St. James' Chronicle, Sept. 13th, 1792.
260
Alien Immigrants
sitous cases, while Lady Sheffield cared for the sick among
them.1 At this juncture, as on other occasions, the
English reputation for hospitality was maintained.
Two observations may be made as to the outcome of
this invasion. It has had little apparent result on the
material welfare of the kingdom, and at the time it must
have been a tax on the country; but it did not produce a
distaste for the alien immigrant. This point comes out
clearly in the discussion on the Alien Bill in 1824.2 In
the intervening period England had been a refuge for
political fugitives. While advocating the retention of
certain restrictions on aliens resident in this country, as
safeguards against political plots, the supporters of the
measure expressed satisfaction that this country was still
an asylum. This, though a sincere expression of sym-
pathy, was slight as compared with the cordiality for
strangers which found expression in the terms in which
the opponents of the measure denounced some of the
provisions of the Bill. Any conditions attaching to immi-
gration were, in their opinion, a sign of pandering to
tyrants abroad. When such a measure was stigmatised
as an odious Act, which would disgrace the country, and
one which would lend apparent sanction to oppressions,
it is clear that the English sympathy for fugitive
strangers had come to be deeply rooted and widely spread.
1 Forneron, op. cit., ii. 53.
2 Hansard (N.S.), x. 1332, seq.
CONCLUSION
VII
CONCLUSION
55. It is not easy to summarise the results of the
varied influences which have been traced in the preceding
pages. There is least difficulty in gauging them in re-
gard to the industrial arts; it is clear that for the whole
of our textile manufactures, for our shipping, for number-
less improvements in mining, in the hardware trades and
in agriculture, and for everything connected with the
organization of business, we are deeply indebted to the
alien immigrants. Their influence on other sides of life
is less easy to assess and trace; but it is none the less
real. It may suffice to say that all through the Middle
Ages our isolated country was behind the rest of Europe
in many ways, and that it has been through the agency
of immigrants that we have been brought into contact
with higher civilizations, and thus been enabled to learn
from them.
It would seem that nations, like individuals, differ from
one another in the methods by which they can most con-
veniently learn; one man takes in ideas by the from
eye
books, while another only understands what he hears
verbally. There are nations which can perhaps appro-
263
264
Alien Immigrants
priate schemes presented to them on paper, or imitate
what is described to them by travellers, but English-
men do not take in new ideas readily. The revival of
learning had but little interest for Englishmen; the
doctrines of Calvin did not appeal to them. It was only
when practical exposition was given to new ideas, by men
and colonies planted among us, that the stolid English-
men could apprehend or adopt new methods or concep-
tions.
ma
When we consider how much we have gained from
aliens, we cannot but admire the calm sense of superiority
which Englishmen have always exhibited towards their
teachers. The insular contempt for the alien was re-
marked on by a Venetian ambassador long ago.
"The
English are great lovers of themselves and of every-
thing belonging to them; they think that there are
no other men than themselves, and no other world but
England; and whenever they see a handsome foreigner,
they say that 'he looks like an Englishman,' and that
'it is a pity that he should not be an Englishman ';
and when they partake of any delicacy with a foreigner
they ask him whether such a thing is made in their
country?" 1 Englishman had a well-established reputa-
tion for conceit in this sixteenth century. An English
traveller has recorded a conversation which he held with
some Italians on this point when travelling in Italy.
'Yea, but what meaneth it,' said they, 'that your
¹ Italian Relation of England, translated by A. Sneyd.
Camden Society, vol. xxxvii. p. 21.
Conclusion
265
nation supporteth no strangers, as by daily proof it is
right well seen? When an outlandish man passeth by,
you call him whoreson knave, dog, and the like. This
seemeth unto us a very barbarous part.' 'I shall tell
you why,' said I; 'in times past, our nation hath
practised as little abroad in strange countries as any
nation of the world, and the commodities of our country
are so great that the ignorant persons, seeing strangers
resort unto them for traffic and, as it is true, for
gain, imagined they came, not to buy their commodi-
ties, but to rob them, and that they who so used to
traffic for lack of living in their own countries applied
the merchandise of England as of necessity. But at this
day it is all otherwise, for like as your merchants do
practise in England, so our merchants do now traffic
abroad, and by travel have attained such knowledge of
civility that I warrant you those strangers who now
repair into England are as well received, and seen, and as
much made of as in any other kingdom of all Europe,
especially in the Prince's Court, and among the nobles,
where surely hath evermore been seen all honour and
courtesy.'" 1 With all the modification that has taken
place in opinion, there is very little change in the senti-
ment, half of pity and half of contempt, with which the
alien immigrant is discussed to-day.
There is a general impression in the present day, when
the alien question has once more become prominent in the
Metropolis, that the matter may be treated as a res
1 W. Thomas, The Pilgrim (edited Froude), p. 6.
266
Alien Immigrants
judicata, and that, despite local jealousies, the advantages
to the community as a whole, which accrue from per-
mitting the immigration of aliens are established beyond
dispute by the experience of the past. Personally I
cannot feel that this opinion is justified. "History never
repeats itself," and the experience of the past never enables
us to predict with certainty the precise effect of some
single factor in the future. Even when the experience of
the past is looked at closely, it seems to me to be sus-
ceptible of another interpretation; it is at least arguable
that we have already received most of the boons- which
alien influence has been able to confer upon us.
The con-
tinental countries were once more advanced in political
and industrial life of every kind; we had much to learn
from them. There are departments of life, such as educa-
tion, in which we do not come up to their standard, though
some people may think that our own educational methods
have been well adapted to the genius of our people; but
there is no other side of social or political life in which
we are obviously behindhand. At all events we have not
much to gain from imitating the institutions of the Polish
Jews.
In so far as industrial arts are concerned, this is abun-
dantly true, but there is also another point to be con-
sidered. So long as manual dexterity was the chief
factor in the production of goods, new arts could only be
transferred and planted by the migration of persons who
had the special skill that was requisite. But since the
era of invention began, and since machine production has
been substituted for manual labour in so many directions,
S
Conclusion
267
it is by the introduction of the newest machines, rather
than by bringing skilled workmen, that an industry is
maintained. For purposes of foreign competition manual
skill is of far less importance than formerly; it was only
those who had special skill, whose advent was an un-
doubted boon in bygone times; the unskilled labourer
was a burden long ago, and it is not clear that he is a
benefit now.
At the risk of appearing to be the victim of the
haughty spirit in which Englishmen have in all ages
depreciated aliens, I would yet urge that the alleged
benefit of the immigration of any particular aliens in the
present day should be discussed on its merits, and on
them alone. In former times it could be generally stated
what precise gift the Flemings, or Walloons, or Hugue-
nots brought with them; and we may fairly ask of any
new-comers in the present day, what it is that they are
able to do better than we can ourselves? Unless this
question can be clearly answered, there is not the same
industrial justification for the admission of aliens as there
was; that there may be advantages, in the elements of
blood or character which they introduce, is true enough;
though even if advantages cannot be specified, there ought
to be hesitation on the part of a nation with a history
like ours, in changing from welcoming aliens to refusing
to admit them.
56. Just because the debt we owe to the alien immi-
grants in the past is so great, and affects so many sides of
life, it may be worth while to note some of the factors in
our progress which are our own, or at least, which were
268
Alien Immigrants
not obviously borrowed from other shores; there are
important elements and characteristic features which we
may in a way fairly claim as our very own.
It is hardly possible to overrate the important bearing
which the physical character of our country has had on
our history. It is perhaps most obvious in the economic
and industrial sides of our story, but it has had constitu-
tional and political importance as well. Our insular
position has freed us from the dangers of foreign inva-
sion; England was saved from the burden of militarism,
in various forms, from which France has continually
suffered. Our position in the world, and our seaboard, has
enabled us to obtain, not merely world-wide commerce,
but a world-wide empire. The easy internal communica-
tions over the greater part of England have facilitated
the growth of a single kingdom and rendered representa-
tive institutions more easy to work. To say that the
greatness of England is due to her physical advantages
would be an exaggeration, but to say that physical condi-
tions have determined the direction in which her children
were destined to attain a great place in the world
is true enough. The alien may have helped us to
benefit by these physical conditions, but he did not be-
stow them.
We may fairly say, too, that Englishmen did not
borrow from aliens that which no aliens had attained.
In the early development of national unity and of national
policy, England stands alone among the nations of Europe.¹
1 The importance of this element in the progress of England
1
Conclusion
269
*
With the one exception of London, her cities did not rival
the great municipalities of continental Europe; but the
towns and their interests were in consequence less severed
from rural life. The rise of nationality in England is
long anterior to the similar changes in France, or Italy,
or Germany; and the elements of a definite system of
economic policy can be traced as early as the time of
Richard II.
If, as befitted a maritime realm, navigation and com-
merce were in the forefront, industry was never forgotten
and agriculture was carefully fostered. The agricultural
legislation of England seems to be almost wholly special
to this country, not merely because it was not obviously
borrowed from other lands, but because it has found few,
if any, imitators.
Even the elements which were introduced from abroad
have been sometimes transformed till they came to be
practically new. The first capitalist companies, like the
Grocers, were in all probability closely connected in their
origin with the types of organization common among the
Italian merchants whom they superseded; and yet three
centuries later the system of company-trading had deve-
loped into a peculiarly English institution. The oppor-
tunity it gave for men to associate for common enterprise
was very important. The companies came to be monopolies,
and interposed a check to the energy of individuals; but
it is none the less true that they had formed the nurseries
THERE ARE
and retrogression of Germany is fully brought out by Ehren-
berg, Hamburg und England (1896), pp. 12, 35.
270
Alien Immigrants
of individual enterprise at an earlier time. The need for
individual self-reliance and energy, the power of associa-
tion for common objects, were both called into play in the
earlier history of the Merchant Companies; these qualities
have stood English traders in good stead; and the forms
of trading organization, which were early developed and
which were common in England in the eighteenth
century, have given the greatest possible facilities for
utilising capital in business.
The isolation of our country and the character of our
people have been so marked, that we have been able to
receive all sorts of strangers from abroad and to assimilate
them; they have not remained as separate elements, or
only for a brief period, as the duration of cities and com-
munities goes; they have been absorbed into our national
life. The powers and skill aliens brought us, and the
institutions they planted, have grown with our growth
and have long since ceased to betray their origin; with all
our prejudices, we have been ready to adopt and adapt
what experience showed us was practically advantageous.
Nor is it altogether fanciful to say that the attitude
we have assumed, toward the aliens who visited our shores,
has its counterpart in the line we are apt to take in
dealing with alien races, who have come under our rule.
The haughty pity, which the free Englishman has always
felt for the oppressed, is curiously blended with the
assumption that others should be ready to adopt at once
what we have proved by experience to be good for our-
selves. None the less is it true that England, which has
been the refuge of the oppressed in the past, has come
Conclusion
271
to be the mother of free states throughout the world, and
the guardian of peoples who, though yet in tutelage,
are learning under her guidance to live their own lives
in a better way.
INDEX
ABBEYS, St. Peter's, Ghent, 20;
St. Denys, 20; Paisley, 32;
Evesham, 56.
ABBEVILLE, 257.
ABERDEEN, 39.
ABERDEEN University, 11.
AcoNTIO, Giacopo, 181, 217.
ADAM, John, 219.
AGRICULTURE, 23, 269.
AGRICULTURISTS, 61, 252.
AITCHISON'S Haven, 243.
A'LASCO, John, 147.
ALFRED, King, 5.
ALIENS, first, 4; cultivate land,
22; military character of, 35,
195; financial dealings of, 69,
hostility to, 87, 138; super-
vision of, 93; taxes on, 97, 98,
176; ordered to depart, 141;
support their own poor, 161 ;
appoint officials to keep
order, 162; have their own
registers, 171; in London,
144.
ALIEN Bills, 257, 260.
ALNWICK, 27.
ALNWICK Castle, 32.
ALUM, 202.
ALVA, Duke of, 150, 193.
AMERICA, Danes in, 6.
AMERICA, discovery of, 121;
mentioned, 218, 230
with, 256.
war
AMSTERDAM, 209, 216.
ANABAPTISTS, 148, 188.
ANDREAS, Jaspar, 177.
ANGEVINS, 26.
ANGLES, 3, 5, 19.
ANGOULÊME, 242.
ANNANDALE, 33.
ANNE, Queen, 231, 235, 237, 249,
252, 253.
ANSELME, Chevalier, 259.
ANTWERP, 79, 97, 179, 180.
APOTHECARIES' vessels, manu-
273
facture of, 177.
APPLEBY Castle, 25.
APPRENTICESHIP, 158, 164.
ARABS, 62.
ARCANA, a cannon founder, 142,
ARIANS, 148.
ARMADA, the, 159, 181.
ARMOURERS, 142.
ARMY, English, Huguenots in,
245.
ARTIFICERS, 118, 119, 184, 185;
French, 233.
ARTIFICIAL Flower-makers,
259.
Artisans, 18, 35, 37, 160, 250.
ARTOIS, 155, 239.
ARUNDEL, 27.
ASSIZE of bread and of cloth, 49.
AUGSBURG, 122, 123, 124.
AUGUSTINE, S., 4.
AUGUSTINIAN Friars, 77.
AUGUSTUS, Emperor of Rome, 53.
AULNAGERS, 104, 180.
AUSTIN Friars, Dutch church
at, 147, 149, 155.
AVOIR-DU-POIs system, 62, 113.
AXHOLME, Isle of, 172, 210.
AYLESBURY, 178.
AYR, 184.
AYRSHIRE, 33, 46.
BAILIFFS, 23.
BAKERS, 47, 165.
BALLIOL, Bernard de, 32.
T
274
Index
BALTIC Provinces, 139.
BANK of England, 207.
BANKERS, 77, 82; Flemish, 77;
Italian, 84.
BANKING, 205, 207.
BARCLAY family, 34.
Bardi, the, 75, 76, 79, 84, 85,
195.
Barnard Castle, 32.
BARNSTAPLE, 154, 229.
BARONS, 23, 44, 72.
BASINGHALL Ward, London,
167.
BASKET-MAKERS, 143.
BASTILLE, the, 254.
BATTERSEA, 216.
BATTERY works, 179.
BATTLE of the Boyne, 243.
BATTLE of Crecy, 78.
BATTLE of Largs, 26.
BATTLE of the Standard, 25, 31,
32.
BAUER, a Flemish dyer, 212.
BAWDE, Peter, 142.
BAY and Say trade, 162, 184.
BAY-MAKERS, 171.
BEAUVAU family, 259.
BECKU, a Dutch glazier, 177.
BEDFORD, 229, 259.
BEDFORD, Earl of, 211.
Bedfordshire, 178.
BELFAST, 241.
BENEDICTINES, 20, 45.
BERTIE, Francis, 179.
BERWICK, 26, 39, 40, 259.
BERWICKSHIRE, 32, 33.
BEVERLEY, 38.
BIDEFORD, 229.
BIGGER, Martin, 217.
BIGOD, Hugh, 25.
BIRMINGHAM, 230.
BISCHOF, a refugee, 184.
BISHOP of St. Andrew's, Robert,
40.
BLACK Abbey, Colchester, 189.
BLACK Death, the, 91.
BLACKFRIARS, 142, 144.
BLACKHEATH, 253.
BLACK Sea, Danes as merchants
in, 6.
BLACKSMITHS, 165.
BLACKWELL Hall, 92, 167.
BLANKET, Thomas, 107, 108,
112.
BLANKETS, manufacture of, 140.
BOCCHERELLI, an Italian ware-
houseman, 84.
BOLTON, 124, 230, 252.
BONHOMME, M., a manufac-
turer, 239.
BONVIS, Anthony, 121.
BOOKBINDERS, 143.
BOONEN, William, 148.
BOURBON, Duke of, 254.
Bow, 212.
BOWYER, Sir T., 142.
Brabant, 78, 150, 155, 209, 218,
220.
BRABANTERS, 133.
BRADFORD, Wilts, 212.
BRADFORD, Yorks, 115.
BRADLEY, Humphrey, 181.
BRADWELL, Staffordshire, 216.
BRAINTREE, 236.
Brandenburg, Elector of, 225.
BRASS manufacture, 179.
BRÉCY, M. Gautier de, 259.
BREMBRE, Nicholas, 84.
BRETONS, 21.
BREWER, William, 212.
BREWERS, 165; Dutch, 217.
BRIGHTON, 258.
BRILL, Port of, 252.
BRISTOL, 91, 92, 107, 108, 121,
122, 179, 216, 229.
BRITTANY, 122.
BROGLIE, Duc de, 257.
BROGLIE, Madame de, 258.
BROMLEY Hall, 239.
BROUGHTON, 241.
BRUCE, Robert, 33.
BRUGES, 87.
BRUIS, Robert de, see Bruce.
BRUS, Peter de, 219.
BRYGONNE, Sebastian, 217.
BRYSON, John, 219.
BUCKINGHAM, 178, 259.
BUCKINGHAM, Duke of, 217.
BUCKINGHAM, Marchioness of,
259.
Index
275
BUCKINGHAMSHIRE, 178.
BUILDERS, 56.
BULLION, 60, 61, 85, 202, 205.
BURGESSES, 50.
BURGHLEY, Lord Treasurer,
166; see Cecil.
BURGUNDIANS, 18.
BURSLEM, 216.
BURY, 25, 258.
BUTTON-MAKERS, 143.
BUTTONS, manufacture of, 237;
metal, 237.
CABLES, manufacture of, 217.
CABOT, John, 121.
CADE, William, 60.
CAEN, 28, 57, 143.
CAERMARTHEN, 27.
CAERPHILLY, 57.
CALAIS, 81, 87, 94, 202, 223.
CALAMINE stone, 179.
Caledonia, 29, 46.
CALICO-PRINTING, 239.
CALVIN, John, 264.
CALVINISTS, 146.
CAMBON, Colonel, 244.
CAMBRIDGE, 24, 115, 116.
CAMBRIDGESHIRE, 208, 211.
CANTERBURY, 151, 155, 160, 162,
169, 171, 177, 229, 235, 236.
CANTERBURY, Archbishops of,
162.
CANUTE, 5.
CANVAS manufacture, 179.
CANVEY Island, 211.
CAORSINE usurers, 60, 73.
CAPITALISTS, 111.
CAPITATION taxes, 97.
Capitulare Aquis-granense, 54.
CARDINALS' hats, 243.
CARLISLE, 26, 27.
CAROLINA, 252.
CARPENTERS, 43.
CARRÉ, a glazier, 177.
CARRICK-ON-SUIR, 220.
CARRIERS, 160.
CASTLES, Wooden, 27; destroyed,
28; number in England, 28.
CATALONIANS, 98.
CATHCART, nr. Glasgow, 242.
CAUDEBEC, 243.
CAXTON, William, 143.
CECIL, William, Lord Burleigh,
152, 155, 178.
CEDRIC, 5.
CHALMERS, George, 29, 46.
CHAMPS, Nicholas de, 242.
CHANNEL Isles, the 98, 121, 152.
CHAPELIZOD, 220.
CHARLES I., King of England,
56, 167, 207, 208, 209.
CHARLES II., of England, 169,
194, 226, 227, 235, 239, 240.
CHARLES V., of Spain, 147, 150.
CHARLES XI., of Sweden, 226.
CHATEAUBRIAND, 258.
CHATHAM, 217.
CHATILLON, Madame de, 258.
CHÂTRE, Marquise de la, 258.
CHAVANNES, Marquis de, 259.
CHELSEA, 216.
CHEPSTOW, 27.
CHERITON, Walter, 80.
CHESTER, 26, 28, 151.
CHICHESTER, 27.
CHURCHES dedicated to Danish
saints, 6.
CISTERCIANS, 45, 57.
CLARE, 27.
CLARK, Mr. Hyde, 55.
CLAUDE, Jean, 227.
CLEMENT VII., Pope, 140.
CLERKS, 30.
CLEVES, 150.
CLOCKS, French, 215; Dutch,215.
CLOCKMAKERS, 116, 175.
CLOGS, introduction of, 116.
CLONMEL, 220.
CLOTH manufacture, 81, 96,
108, 110, 151, 159, 160, 162,
166, 198; export of, 133; dye-
ing and dressing of, 200.
CLOTH trade, 115, 183.
CLOTHIERS, 110, 113.
CLOTHWORKERS, 184.
CLUNIAC Monastery, 32.
CLYDE, the, 26.
CLYDESDALE, 33.
COACHES introduced, 149.
COBLENTZ, 254, 256.
COCKAYNE, Alderman, 212.
276
Index
COGGESHALL, 236.
COLBERT, Jean Baptiste, 221.
COLCHESTER, 70, 153, 161, 169,
177, 189.
COLINTON, 242.
COLNE, river, 115.
COLOGNE, 118, 225.
COLVILLE family, 34.
CONDE, Prince of, 254.
CONDUCT, Reginald, 80.
CONVENTICLES, 189.
COMBE Castle, Wilts, 110.
COMMISSIONS On Aliens, 174, 175,
176, 184.
COMMONWEALTH, the, 199, 208.
COMPANIES of trades, 165.
COMPANIES, city, 168; Drapers,
113; Goldsmiths, 205; Grocers,
84, 269; Levant, 198, 204;
Livery, 84; Lustring, 235;
Mercers, 84; Merchant Ad-
venturers, 200; Pepperers, 84;
Weavers, 166, 173;
173; men-
tioned, 173, 201, 269.
COOPERS, 124, 165, 175.
COPPER, 122.
COPPER-FOUNDERS, 120.
COPPER-MINING, 179.
CORDAGE, manufacture of, 217,
220.
CORDWAINERY, 125, 169.
CORDWAINERS' Company, 166.
CORK, 240, 241; county, 245.
CORNWALL, 122.
CORSINI, Philip, 202.
COSSEY, Norfolk, 258.
COTTON manufacture, 180.
COVENTRY, 115, 237.
CRAFT gilds, 48, 132, 187; see
GILDS.
CRANBROOK, Kent, 106.
CRAWFORD Muir, 185.
CRAWFORD Muir mine, 134.
CROMMELIN, Louis, 240.
CROMWELL, Oliver, 21, 188, 195.
CROMWELL, Thomas, 141.
CROPPENBURGH, a Dutch engi-
neer, 212.
CROYS, 122.
CRUSADES, 55, 69.
CUMBERLAND, 123.
CUMYN family, 33; Richard,
Chancellor of William the
Lion, 33; John, 33.
CUNNINGHAM, Ayrshire, 33.
CUTLERS, 175; Flemish, 179.
CUTLERY, 179.
DALRY Mills, Edinburgh, 242.
DANCING-MASTERS, French, 257.
DANELAGH, the, 6, 52.
DANES, 4, 5, 6, 19, 246.
DARENT, river, 242.
DARIEN Company, 219.
DARTMOUTH, 229.
D'ARTOIS, Comte, 254, 256, 258.
D'ASSAUVILLE, Nicholas, 241.
DAVID I., King of Scotland, 29,
31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 46.
DEACONS of crafts, 131.
DELFT, 116, 216.
DEMETRIUS, a wire-maker, 179.
DENMARK, 19, 226.
DERBY, 236.
DEVONSHIRE, 108, 121, 178.
Dialogus de Scaccario, 51.
DIEPPE, 156.
DIMSDALE, Staffordshire, 216.
DINANT, 120.
Discourse of the Commonweal,
125, 127.
Discourse of Humphrey Brad-
ley, 181.
DODINGSTON, 46.
DOMESDAY Book, 22, 24, 36, 52,
54.
DOMESTIC arts, 43.
DON, river, 209.
DONALD Bane, King, 31, 33.
DORDRECHT, 79.
DORKING, 258.
DORSET, 121.
DOUAY, 38.
DOVER, 27, 153, 180, 229, 257.
DRAINERS, 172, 210.
DRAINING Works, 181.
DRAPERS, 90, 92, 113, 160.
DRAPERY, 151, 159, 160, 167, 177.
DROGO of Bruere, 38.
DRUMSHEUGH, 241.
DUBLIN, 186, 241.
Index
277
DUNDALK, 241.
DUNDEE, 184.
DUNFERMLINE, 115, 241.
DUNFERMLINE Abbey, 48.
DUNFERMLINE, Earl of, 12.
DUPIN, Nicholas, 242.
DURHAM, 26, 27, 32.
DUTCH Barton, Wilts, 212.
DUTCHMEN, 134, 143, 148, 161,
172, 176, 179, 195, 218.
DUTCH capitalists, 209.
DUTCH churches, 147, 153, 154,
157, 212, 226.
DUTCH financiers, 245.
DUTCH printers, 182.
DUTCH potters, 216.
DUTCH ships, 219.
DUTCH weavers, 241.
DYERS, 38, 39, 58, 106, 115, 151,
175, 179, 212; scarlet dye,
212.
ECTON, Staffordshire, 215.
EARTHENWARE, manufacture of,
219.
EASTBOURNE, 258.
EASTERLINGS, 39.
EAST India Company, 196, 198,
199, 204.
EDGAR ATHELING, 19.
EDICT of Nantes, 193, 227;
Revocation of, 231, 235, 240;
see Nantes.
EDINBURGH, 29, 36, 130, 183, 184,
219, 241, 242; Privy Council
and, 185; Canongate, 36, 184,
Castle of Maidens, 36; Flem-
ingate, 38; Moultries' Hill,
237, 241.
EDMUNDSTON, 46.
EDWARD the Confessor, 3, 4, 7,
19, 20, 51, 52, 54, 194.
EDWARD I., 37, 58, 73, 74, 87,
88, 104, 116, 195.
EDWARD II., 74, 129, 195.
EDWARD III., 20, 75, 78, 80, 81,
82, 85, 86, 90, 100, 101, 116,
131, 163, 195, 218.
EDWARD IV., 99, 107, 109.
EDWARD VI., 146, 147, 177.
ELECTOR Palatine, the, 225, 251.
ELERS, the brothers, 216.
ELPHINSTONE, Bishop, 11.
ELY, 23.
ELY, Isle of, 208.
ELIZABETH, Queen, 48, 147, 148,
149, 154, 156, 166, 167, 188,
201, 217.
ELIZABETHAN Poor Law, 186.
EMBROIDERERS, 143, 259.
EMIGRÉS, the, 256.
EMMA, Queen, wife of Ethelred,
9, 30.
EMPLOYMENT, statute of, 95.
ENGELBERT, 181.
ENGINEERS, 181, 195, 209.
Engineering works, 180.
ENGLAND, an asylum, 139, 226.
ENGLAND, Norman, 157; Eliza-
bethan, 157.
ENGLISH law, 68.
EPISCOPALIANS, 247.
EPWORTH, 210.
ERLANGEN, 251.
ESHER, 179.
ESSEX, 24, 33, 153, 212, 229, 236,
240.
ETHELRED the Unready, King
of England, 19, 30.
EVIL May Day, 128, 140.
EXETER, 229.
FACTORIES, 197.
FAIRS, 41, 91.
FALAISE, 28.
FARMERS, 18.
FARNHAM, 27.
FASTOLFE, Sir John, 110.
FAVERSHAM, 229.
FELT-MAKERS, 143.
FENS, the, 208, 209, 211; drain-
ing of, 13, 195; map of, 213.
FEUDAL Proprietors, 35.
FIDDLERS, 12.
FINANCE, 59, 69 seq., 208, 245.
FISHERIES, 150, 183; Dutch, 216.
FISHERMEN, 154.
FITZJAMES family, 257.
FIVE Mile Act, 230.
FLANDERS, 49, 66, 101, 116, 150,
155; see Low Countries.
FLAX manufacture, 240.
278
Index
FLEET, 21.
FLEMINGS, 18, 19, 21, 25, 26, 39,
77, 87, 115, 116, 129, 154, 155,
157, 182, 183, 184, 220, 267.
FLEMISH merchants, 39.
FLEMPTON, Suffolk, 22.
FLORENCE, 75, 82, 117.
FLORENTINE merchants, 75.
FORFARSHIRE, 33.
FORTREY, Samuel, 208.
FRANCE, 121, 138, 143, 152, 181,
193, 220, 223, 243, 247, 219,
254, 255; industrial loss to,
228; manufactures in, 238.
FRANCIGENE, 19, 21, 22.
FRANCUS, see Francigenæ.
FRANKFURT, 146, 225.
FRASERS, 34.
FREEMAN, Professor, 20.
FRENCH aliens, 29, 154, 156,
176; architecture, 12.
FRENCH churches, 141, 150, 153,
157, 234.
FRENCH fishermen, 154.
FRENCH law, 11.
FRENCH lawyers, 233.
FRENCH merchants, 233.
FRENCH physicians, 233.
FRENCH refugees, 195, 241, 212.
FRENCH royalists, 257.
FRENCH Settlers, 36.
FRIENDLY Societies, 186, 187.
FRITH gilds, see Gilds.
FROMANTIL, a clockmaker, 215.
FUGGERS, the, 80.
FULHAM, 216.
FULLER, Thomas, 106, 109.
FULLERS, 38, 47, 58, 106, 115, 184.
FULLING mills, 115, 171.
FURRIERS, 243.
FYVIE Castle, 12.
GALLEY-TILES,manufacture,177.
GALLOWAY, 33.
GALWAY, the Earl of, 245.
GARDENERS, 177, 217.
GASCON merchants, 129, 218.
GASCONY, 66, 86, 87, 88, 90, 98,
101.
GEORGE I., King of England,
237.
GENEBELLI, an engineer, 181.
GENOESE aliens, 94, 95, 121.
GERALDINE family, 34.
GERMANS, 116, 123, 134, 147, 148.
179, 181, 215, 217, 219, 251,
GERMAN church, 149, 150.
GERMANY, 49, 94, 118, 138, 193,
215, 225, 269.
GERRARD, Sir Giles, Attorney-
General, 159.
GHENT, 20.
GHERBORD, 26.
GIBBON, a French engineer, 210.
GIFFARD family, 34.
GILDS, 37, 38, 39, 41, 47, 48, 58,
104, 182, 194; craft-gilds,
111, 130; women's gilds, 117;
"compositions," 132.
GLAMMIS Castle, 12.
GLASGOW, 130, 219, 241.
GLASS manufacture, 177.
GLASS engraving, 177.
GLASS polishing, 243.
GLASTONBURY, 145.
GLAZIERS, 143, 165.
GLENCAIRN, Earls of, 33.
GLOVERS, 169.
GODWIN, Earl, 19.
Golden Book, the, 252.
GOLD mining, 185.
GOLDSMITHS, 29, 134, 175, 205,
206.
GOLDSMITHS' Company, 205.
GORDONS, 34.
GOSPATRICK, Earl, 30.
GOTHS, 62.
GOULON, 244.
GOWER, Glamorganshire, 26.
GRAVESEND, 181.
GREAT Marlow, 178.
GRECIAN, a, 154.
GREENLAND, 6.
GREENWICH, 229.
GREGORY XI., Pope, 86.
GRINDAL, Edmund, bishop of
London, 148, 152, 188.
GROCERS, 41, 84, 89.
GROCERS' Company, 84, 269.
GROOT HEERE, Peter, 185.
GUELDERS, 144.
Index
279
GUILDFORD, 107, 108.
GUIENNE, 88, 98, 229.
GUINES, 223.
GUN foundry, 230.
GUNNERS, 142.
GUNTON, 216.
HAINAULT, 155.
HALSTEAD, 153, 236.
HAMBURG, 201, 225.
HAMME, John Ariens van, 216,
223.
Corporation of,
HAMMERMEN,
243.
HAMMES, 223.
HAMPSHIRE, 242.
HANSARDS, 39, 92, 94, 97, 98, 99,
118.
HANSEATIC League, 201.
HARBOURS, Construction of, 13.
HARCOURT family, 258.
HARLEY, Robert, first Earl of
Oxford, 232.
HAROLD, King of England, 21.
HARWICH, 153.
HASTINGS, battle of, 21.
HATFIELD Chase, 195, 209, 210,
211.
HATS, felt, introduced, 143;
straw, 144.
HAT-MAKERS, 143, 243.
HAVERFORDWEST, 26.
HEATH, Sir Robert, Recorder of
London, 176, 205.
HECHSTETTER, Daniel, 123.
HECHSTETTER, Joachim, 122.
HEMP manufacture, 240.
HENRY I., King of England, 19,
26, 28, 33, 37, 47, 58.
HENRY II., 25, 26, 28, 55, 58, 59.
HENRY III., 61, 71, 72, 73, 75, 87,
102, 116.
HENRY IV., of France, 181,224.
HENRY V., of England, 154.
HENRY VI.,
98, 155.
HENRY VII.,
125, 249.
HENRY VIII.,
37, 125,
126, 140, 141, 143, 177, 215.
HERESY, proceeded against,
""
140.
HERLE, William, 175, 176.
""
""
HERTFORDSHIRE, 24.
HESSE, 139.
HEYNE, William, 110, 111.
HIDES, 52, 101.
HOLLAND, 12, 13, 193, 194, 209,
216, 220, 225, 240, 242, 243;
companies in, 204.
HOLYROOD, 258.
HONITON, 178.
HORNE, Robert, bishop of Win-
chester, 152.
HOSTELERS, 92, 93.
HOSTMEN, 65, 92, 163.
HOUSEHOLD, the, an educational
institution, 44.
HUGUENOTS, 155, 156, 157, 183,
223, 225, 227, 228, 241, 243,
244, 246, 267.
HUGUENOT refugees, 251.
HUGH of Avranches, 27.
HULL, 80, 169.
HUMPHREY, W., 124, 179.
HUNDRED Years' War, 91, 95.
HUNTINGDON, Earl of, see David,
King of Scotland.
HUNTINGDON, county of, 208.
HUSBANDMEN, French, 233.
HUSBANDRY, 218.
ICELAND, 6.
IMMIGRANTS, economic influence
of, 68; French, 229 seq.; see
Aliens.
IMMIGRATION, causes of, 10.
INDUSTRIAL Arts, 8, 56, 100.
INNKEEPERS, 92.
Inquisitio Cantabrigiensis, 23.
Iona, 45.
IPSWICH, 153, 176, 229, 239.
IRELAND, 21, 34, 98, 185, 195, 218,
220, 230, 237, 240, 243, 245,
246, 247, 248, 253.
IRISH Parliament, 240.
IRK, river, 115.
IRON trade, 12.
IRONWORKS, 142.
ISELBERT, Master of the Masons'
School, 57.
ITALIANS, 116, 181, 264.
ITALIAN churches, 142, 150.
ITALIAN merchants, 72.
280
Index
ITALY, 60, 118, 236; imports
English wool, 75.
JAMES I., King of England, 48,
129, 131, 132, 167, 171, 173,
183, 199, 200, 209, 217.
JAMES II., 226, 227, 231.
JAMES V., of Scotland, 134.
JANSSEN, Jacob, 177.
JAUCOURT, Marquis de, 258.
JERNINGHAM, Sir William, 258.
JERNINGHAM, Lady, 258.
JEWELLERS, 143.
Jews, 39, 60, 69, 71, 74, 195, 203;
first arrival of, 36; expul-
sion of, 37, 70; pledged as
security, 72.
Joпn, King of England, 25, 61.
JOHN XXII., Pope, 85.
JOINERS, 165.
JUNIPER Hall, near Dorking,
258.
JURORS, 23, 24.
JUSTINIAN, 53.
JUTES, 3, 5, 19.
KEMP, John, 105, 106, 112.
KENDAL, 108.
KENT, 181, 242.
KEPLER, a Dutch dyer, 212.
KERRY, 253.
KESWICK, 123, 178, 185, 215.
KETT, Robert, 151.
KILKENNY, 220, 241.
KNIGHTS Hospitallers, 75.
KNIGHTON, Henry of, 18.
KNIVES, 180.
KUNDELFINGER, J., 123.
LABOUR, Supply of, 23.
LACE-MAKERS, 177, 241, 259.
LAMBETH, 216, 253.
LAMBETH, Theodore, 258.
LANCASHIRE, 116.
LANCASTER, 169.
LANDS, payment in, 21; grants
of, 35; assessed by hides, 52.
LANGLOIS, Nicholas, 183.
LANGUEDOC, 229.
Largs, 26.
LAUD, Archbishop, 172, 173, 188.
LAVERSTOKE, 242.
LAWYERS, French, 233.
LEATHER-DREssers, 175.
LE BLANC, a glass polisher, 243.
LE CARON, an armourer, 142,
LEEDS, 115.
LEICESTER, 70, 71.
LEITH, 241, 243.
LEVANT, the, 6, 118, 196, 203.
LEVANT Company, 198, 204.
LEWES, 27.
LEWISHAM, 20.
LEYDEN, 184.
LIANCOURT, Duc de, 257, 258.
Libelle of Englyshe Polycye, the,
93, 96, 99.
Liber Censualis, 52; see Domes-
day Book.
LIÈGE, 179.
LIÈGE, Jacques de, 180.
LIGONIER, Field Marshal, 245.
Lillebonne, 156.
LIMERICK, 253.
LINCOLN, 38, 70.
LINCOLNSHIRE, Parts of Holland,
181.
LINCOLN'S Inn, 167.
LINDSAY family, 33.
LINEN manufacture, 220, 239,
240, 241.
LINEN weavers, 116, 177.
LINLITHGOW, 46.
LISBURN, 237, 240,
LISLE, 241.
LITURGY, the English, 146.
LIVERPOOL, 169, 216, 252.
LIVERY Companies, 84.
LLANDAFF, 57.
LOCKE, John, 247.
LOGAN, 122.
LOLLARDS, 137.
LOMBARDS, 69, 73, 74, 75, 76, 98,
118, 129.
LOMBE, Thomas. 236.
LONDON, citizens of, 163, 203;
city of, 168, 208; suburbs,
167, 216; rebuilding of, 1667,
205; merchants, 207; Italian
merchants expelled from, 99;
churches, 155; Basinghall
Ward, 167; the Bishopsgate,
39; Candlewick Street, 84;
Index
281
Farringdon Without, 155,
156; Lombard Street, 206;
Salisbury Court, 142; St.
Martin's College, 144;
Threadneedle Street, 239;
mentioned, 37, 38, 57, 70, 82,
92, 94, 107, 144, 147, 153, 159,
162, 165, 174, 217, 229, 233,
258.
LONG Parliament, the, 207.
LORRAINE, 177.
LOTHIANS, the, 33.
LOUIS XIV. of France, 224, 225,
226, 228, 247, 251.
LOUIS XVI., of France, 254, 256.
Louvain, 77.
Low Countries, 19, 24, 87, 94,
138, 143, 150, 154, 159, 178,
198; see
also Netherlands,
and Flanders.
LOWESTOFT, 107, 216.
LUCCA, 75, 117.
LUNDIE family, 34.
LUSTRING, 235; Royal Lustring
Company, 235.
LUTHERANS, 252.
LUXEMBERG, 155.
LYNN, 106, 153.
LYONS, 235.
MACHINERY introduced, 168.
MAGDEBURG, 226.
MAIDSTONE, 152, 162, 177.
MAINE, 28.
MAINERD, Provost of Berwick,
40.
MALCOLM CANMORE, King of
169, 180;
Scotland, 30, 31.
MALMESBURY, 171.
MANCHESTER, 115,
Christ's College, 180.
MARGARET, Queen of Scotland,
30, 45.
MARLBOROUGH, 38.
MARTIN, Paul, 243.
MARY, Queen of England, 146,
147, 149.
MARY of Guise, 133.
MASONS, 57, 209; French, 134.
MATHILDA, Queen, 35.
MATTHIEU, a hatter, 243.
MAUD, or Matilda, wife of
Henry I., of England, 31.
MAULE family, 34.
MAXWELL family, 34.
MAYORALTY, institution of, 50.
MELROSE, 12.
MENZIES family, 34.
MERCENARIES, foreign, 24, 25,
28, 29, 40, 66.
MERCERS, 41, 84.
MERCHANT Adventurers, Com-
pany of, 198, 199, 200, 201.
MERCHANT Companies, 270.
MERCHANTS, English,
197;
French, 233; Flemish, 129
Gascon, 88, 89, 90; Italian,
99, 119, 129; mentioned, 30
35, 39, 40, 42.
MERCIA, 52.
METHUEN, Paul, 212.
MICHELET, French author, 244.
MIDDLE Ages, 11, 65, 263.
MIDDLEBURGH, Holland, 129
MILITARY Colonies, 25, 26.
MILITARY engineering, 28.
MILITARY fortresses, 46.
MILLERTON, 210.
MINERS, 116; Dutch, 122, 215
English, 123; French, 134;
German, 122, 215.
MINES, tin, 122; lead, 122; iron,
122; gold, 123, 185; silver,
123; copper, 123; royal, 123.
MINISTERS, 233.
MINT, the, 116, 123, 124.
MISSON, Francis, author, 232.
MOMMER, a wire drawer, 179.
MONASTERIES, 32, 45; used for
industrial purposes, 144.
MONEY, 8, 51, 59, 76.
MONEY-LENDErs, 59.
MONTAZET, Marquis de, 259.
MONTGOMERIE family, 34.
MONTMORENCY, M. de, 258.
MORTEMART family, 258.
MOULIN, Pierre du, 183.
MURANO, 177.
MURRAY, John, monument to,
12.
MUTHILL, 181.
282
Index
NAMUR, 155.
NANTES, Edict of, revocation,
138, 139, 224; see Edict.
NARBONNE, Archbishop of, 258.
NARBONNE, M. de, 258.
NARVA, 199.
NATURALIZATION of Aliens, 183,
203, 227, 244, 249, 250.
NAVIGATION Acts, 128, 202.
NAVY, the English, 217.
NEEDLE-MAKING, 177, 179.
Netherlands, 149, 152, 155, 193,
225; see Low Countries and
Flanders.
NEWBURY, 151.
NEWCASTLE, 27, 93, 94, 180.
NEWPORT Pagnel, 178.
NEw York, 252, 253.
NONJURORS, 255.
NONSUCH Palace, 215.
Norfolk, 106, 108, 112, 181, 208,
258.
NORHAM, 27.
NORMAN Conquest, 3, 9, 10, 17,
131, 195.
NORMANDY, 19, 50, 51, 142, 210,
229, 243; castles in, 27, 28.
NORMANS, the first aliens, 4, 7;
their influence, 19; architec-
ture, 56; barons, 23, 44, 72,
195; laws, 3, 51; mentioned,
5, 18, 21, 30.
NORTHAMPTON, 178; county of,
208.
NORTHUMBERLAND, 29, 30.
NORTHUMBRIA, 26.
NORWICH, 22, 25, 36, 70, 106,
151, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163,
167, 169, 173, 177, 184, 229,
236.
NOTTINGHAM, 36.
NUGENT, Robert, M.P., 250.
OLIPHANT family, 34.
ORDERIC, 42.
ORDNANCE, manufacture of, 141.
ORMISTON, 46.
ORMOND, Duke of, 220.
OSWESTRY, 32.
OUSE, river, 209.
PAISLEY, 241.
PALATINES, the, 249, 250, 252.
PAPAL power, growth of, 61.
PAPAL taxation, 78.
PAPER manufacture, 127, 179,
242;
paper-makers,
185;
paper-mills, 242.
PAPISTS, 247.
PARCHMENT making, 177.
PARIS, 49, 226, 243.
PARMA, Duchess of, 150.
PEASANTS' Revolt, the, 106.
PELHAM's ironworks, 142.
PEMBROKE, 27.
PEPPERERS Company, 84.
PERRIN Sands, Cornwall, 122.
PERTH, 29, 115, 184.
PERUZZI, the, 75, 79.
PETERBOROUGH Chronicler, 5.
PETERSHAM, 258.
PEXWELL, William, 122.
PHILIP I., King of Spain, 149,
150, 154.
PHYSICIANS, French, 233.
PICARDS, 18, 21.
PICARDY, 210, 229, 239, 240, 241.
PICKERING, Yorks, 151.
PIPE Rolls, 51, 59.
PITT, William, 256.
PLASSE, Mrs. Dingham van der,
148.
PLASTERERS, 166.
PLATE-GLASS makers, 243.
PLAYING-CARDs, 219.
PLUMSTEAD Marshes, 181.
PLYMOUTH, 229.
POITOU, 229.
POLAND, 12.
POLE de la, see William de la
Pole.
POLISH Jews, 266.
POLISH refugees, 147.
POLITICAL refugees, 260.
Poor, Bishop, 57.
POPE Clement VII., 140.
POPERINGHE, 103.
PORTALS, papermakers, 242.
PORTARLINGTON, 245.
PORTUGAL, 95, 202, 204.
POTTERS, 177, 216, 242.
POUCH-MAKERS, 165.
Index
283
POYNTER, 181.
PRAYER-BOOK, the, 146, 189, 248.
PRESBYTERIANS, 246, 248.
PRESTON, 169.
PRIESTS, 23, 259; French, 258.
PRINTERS, 143, 177, 182.
PRIVY Council, 146.
PRIVY Purse, 231.
PRUSSIA, King of, 231.
PRUSSIANS, 98.
PRYNNE, William, 173.
PULLICI, the, 129.
PULTENEY, John, mayor
mayor of
London, 84.
RALPH de Diceto, 28.
RATHKAILE, 241.
RECKONING, mode of, 61.
REFORMATION, the, 65, 121, 137.
REFUGEES, relief of, 231, 232,
233, 234; religious refugees,
137; provide for their poor,
186.
REMBERTINI family, 129.
RENFREWSHIRE, 33.
RENFREW, 241.
RESSH, Richard, 107.
RESTORATION, the, 189, 208, 215.
REVOCATION Of Edict of Nantes,
see Edict.
REVOLUTION, French, 232, 254.
REVOLUTION of 1689, the, 187,
194, 196, 220, 230, 243, 245.
RHINE, the, 252.
RIBBON trade, the, 143, 237.
RICHARD I., King of England,
55.
RICHARD II., King of England,
82, 85, 89, 129, 163, 207, 269.
RICHARD III., 99, 118, 249.
RICHARD Of Cornwall, 72, 116.
RICHILDA, Countess, 35.
RICHMOND, 91, 179, 239, 258.
ROAD menders, 183.
ROBERT, King of Scotland, 27.
ROBERT, Bishop of St. Andrews,
40.
ROCHE, Eustacius, 185.
ROCHELLE, 57, 159, 229.
ROCHESTER, 27.
ROGER, Earl, 27.
ROLLO family, 34.
ROMAN Britain, 9.
ROMAN Catholics, 188.
ROMANS, 54; law,
law, 11;
sionaries, 4.
ROMNEY, 209.
ROPE-MAKING, 243.
Ross, 26.
ROTHES, Madame de, 258.
ROTTERDAM, 252.
ROUEN, 36, 49, 143, 156, 195
257.
mis-
ROXBURGHSHIRE, 34.
RUPERT, Prince, 215.
RUSSIA, 199.
RUTHERGLEN, 130.
RUVIGNY, Henry, 245.
RYE, 153, 156, 157, 229.
SADDLERS, 29, 43.
SAILCLOTH, manufacture of, 220,
239, 240.
SAINT Andrews, 12, 29, 40.
SAINT Anthony, Threadneedle
Street, 155.
SAINT Brice's Day, 5.
SAINT DENYS, 20.
SAINT Hersie, 122.
SAINT Just, 122.
SAINT Lawrence, Candlewick
Street, 84.
SAINTONGE, 229; Mason's school
at, 57.
SAISSEVAL, Comtesse de, 257.
SALISBURY, 57, 152.
SALTWORKS, 20, 92, 179, 185.
SALT Glazing, 216.
SALTPETRE Works, 142, 179.
SALVO, John de, 120.
SANCTUARIES, 144.
SANDERSON'S Gardens, Spital-
fields, 234.
Sandtoft, 172, 210.
SANDWICH, 150, 151, 153, 157,
161, 162, 163, 169, 177, 229.
SANTIAGO, 62.
SAVILE, Sir Henry, 226, 239.
SAXONS, 3, 19.
SAXONY Ware, 216.
Scalachronica, the, 25.
SCANDINAVIA, 19.
284
Index
SCHOMBERG, General, 245.
SCILLY Isles, 253.
SCOTLAND, 11, 29, 30, 31, 45, 67,
185, 218, 237, 240, 241, 243,
246, 248; laws of, 11; archi-
tects in, 12; clans, 34; muni-
cipal life in, 129; industrial
life in, 130, 131; church of,
183.
Scor and lot, 19.
SCRIVENERS, 165.
SEARCHERS, 93, 184.
SEEND, Wilts, 121.
SERGES, manufacture of, 151,
184.
SERVANTS, alien, 174.
SETON family, 34.
SHEARMEN, 113, 115, 116.
SHEEP-FARMING, 57.
SHEFFIELD, 179.
SHERIFFS of the Shires, 23.
SHIPBUILDING, 216.
SHOEMAKERS, 43, 121, 160, 166,
169; Flemish, 141; French,
133.
SHOTLEY Bridge, 180.
SHEFFIELD, Lady, 260.
SHREWSBURY, 22, 27, 36, 41, 124,
180.
SHREWSBURY, Roger, Earl of, 32.
SHUTZ, Christopher, 124.
SIDNEY, Sir Henry, 186.
SIENA, 75.
SILK, importation of, 117, 118;
manufacture, 235, 236, 238,
241; silk throwing, 236.
SILK Weavers, 143, 166, 169, 177;
silkwomen, 117; 118.
SILVER, importation of, 121.
SIMON DE MOntfort, 71.
SINCLAIR Of Rosslyn, 34.
SKINS, trade in, 88.
SKINNERS, 169.
SMITHFIELD, 148.
SMITHS, 43.
SNETTISHAM, 106.
SOAP, 179.
SOно, 167.
SOLDIERS, 18, 23, 24, 25, 26.
SOMERSET, 145, 147.
SOMERSET, Edward, 1st Duke of,
141.
SOUTHAMPTON, 94, 95, 121, 124,
152, 159, 160, 169.
SOUTH Stoneham, 242.
SOUTHWARK, 24, 77, 142, 149, 174,
253; St. Olave's, 251.
SPAIN, 57, 193, 202.
SPANIARDS, merchants, 62, 143,
147.
SPINNING, 121.
SPITALFIELDS, 234.
SPITALFIELDS Act, 238.
SPYNILE, Anthony, 120.
STAËL, Madame de, 258.
STAINES, 258.
STAFFORDSHIRE, 215, 216.
STAMFORD, 153, 155, 162, 179.
STAPLE, the, 80, 81, 87, 129.
STARCHING linen, art of, 148,
149.
STEELYARD, 39, 118.
STEPHEN, King of England, 24,
28, 32.
STEPNEY Marshes, 219.
STEWART, see Stuart.
STEWARTON, 46.
STOCKPORT, 236.
STONEHOUSE, 229.
STONY Stratford, 178.
Stourbridge, 177.
STRAFFORD, Earl of, 218, 220.
STRASBURG, 145.
STRONGBOW, W., 34.
STUART family, 32, 33, 218.
SUFFOLK, 22, 208.
SUGAR, manufacture of, 217;
refining, 219, 220.
SUGAR-BOILER, 219.
SUNDERLAND, Earl of, 251.
SURGEONS, 165.
SURGICAL instrument maker,
243.
SURREY, 107, 179.
SUSSEX, 107, 181.
SWEDEN, 12, 226.
SWITZERLAND, 225.
SWORDS, near Dublin, 186.
TAILORS, 124; French, 141.
TALLAGE, 103.
2
Index
285
TAPESTRY makers, 143, 259.
TALLEYRAND, 257, 258.
TAUNTON, 236.
TAXATION, 52, 55, 59, 98, 208.
TEASELS used for dressing
cloth, 57; export of, pro-
hibited, 58.
TEMPLARS, 74.
TENBY, 26, 27.
TERLIN, Gaspar, 217.
TEXTILE Trades, 29.
THAMES, 209.
"THERIES, the," 217.
THEVENART, Abraham, 213.
THIRTY Years' War, 225.
THORNEY Abbey, 172, 211.
THORPE-LE-SOKEN, 229.
THREAD manufacture, 152, 177,
241.
THURLAND, Master of the
Savoy, 123.
TILLIÈRES, 225.
TINTERN, 179.
TIN trade, 101.
TIPPER, William, 163, 164.
TITUS, Silas, M.P., 205.
TOLLENDAL, Lally, 258.
TOUKER, William, 110.
TOUKER, Huchecock, 110.
TOUKER, Thomas, 110.
TOURS, 117, 235.
Towns, growth of, 46.
Toy trade, 230.
TRADERS, see Merchants.
TRADES, favour to introducers
of new, 174; returns of, 176.
TRADES Unions, 186, 187.
TRENT, 181.
TRENT, river, 209.
TREWORTHY, 122.
TUILERIES, the, 254.
TURENNE, Marshal, 214.
TURIN, 254.
TURKS, 154, 203.
TURKEY Company, 196, 197,
203.
ULSTATT, Daniel, 123.
UNEMPLOYED, the, in Tudor
times, 138.
UNITARIANS, 248.
UTENHOVE, Jan, Dutch minister,
188.
VANDEPERE, Erasmus, 206.
VANDERDELFT, Cornelius, 209.
VAUTROLLIER, Thomas, a prin-
ter, 183.
VAUX, Gerald de, 242.
VAUXHALL, 216.
VENETIAN traders, 95, 96, 100,
264.
VERMUIDEN, Cornelius, 208, 209,
210.
VERNATTI, 210.
VERSAILLES, 255.
VERSELYNE, a Venetian, 177.
VICTUALLERs, 160.
VIKINGS, 26.
VILLAINS, 23.
VINTNERS, 89, 90.
VIOLET, Thomas, 208.
Vos, Cornelius de, 124.
VOSBERGI, Caspar, 179.
WAITER, 259.
WALCHER of Lorraine, 26.
WALENSE family, see Wallace.
WALK mills, see Fulling mills.
WALES, 98; castles in, 27, 28.
WALLACE, William, 33.
WALLOONS, 146, 151, 152, 155,
157, 161, 194, 220, 223, 233,
235, 243, 247, 250, 257;
churches, 226, 229, 239; fin-
anciers, 245.
WALLINGFORD, 27.
WANDSWORTH, 153, 243.
WALPOLE, Robert, Earl of Or-
ford, 232.
WATCH Trade, 237.
WATERFORD, 240.
WATERWORKS for London, 181.
WALTER of Cheriton, 80.
WALTER the Fuller, 160.
WARNEBALD, 33.
WARS of the Roses, 66.
WEAVERS, 35, 37, 38, 39, 47, 158,
183, 184, 187, 212, 215, 234,
241, 252; Company of, 166,
173; London, 108; Dutch,
151; from Zealand, 106; from
Brabant, 107; Flemish, ban-
286
Index
ished, 103; immigration to
Scotland, 132, 219; super-
vision of, 105; walkers, 133;
litsters, 133; Walloon, 145
see Linen, and Silk.
WEIGHT, measure of, 62.
WENLOCK monastery, 32.
WESSEX, Kings of, 4, 6, 52.
WESTER Sugar works, Glas-
gow, 220.
WEST Humble, 258.
WEST Indies, 253.
WESTMINSTER, 144, 149, 168.
WESTMINSTER Abbey, architect
of, 12.
WHALLEY, Major-General, 211.
WHIGS, 188.
WHITE Tower of London, 27.
WHITTAWERs, 169.
WHITTLESEA, 211.
WIGAN, 169.
WIGHT, Isle of, 124.
WILLIAM the Conqueror, 5, 17,
18, 19, 21, 23, 25, 26, 27, 36,
52, 194, 196.
WILLIAM III., of England, 194,
207, 230, 232, 235, 240, 243,
244, 245.
WILLIAM the Lion, of Scotland,
25, 29, 32, 33.
WILLIAM of Malmesbury, 26.
WILLIAM and Mary, 240; see
WILLIAM III.
pain. Ca
WILLIAM of Montecute, 84.
WILLIAM de la Pole, 80, 82, 83,
84, 85.
WILLIAM Rufus, 26, 27, 36.
WILLIAM of Wyrcester, 110.
WILLIAM of Ypres, 25.
WILTSHIRE, 24, 212.
WINCHELSEA, 156, 229.
WINCHESTER, 32, 38, 39, 91, 118,
152, 259.
WINDSOR, 229.
WINE, Import of, 88, 90, 92.
WIRE-DRAWING, 179.
WITNEY, Oxfordshire, 140.
WOOL, trade in, 87, 88, 102, 130,
160, 199; export prohibited,
58; exported to Italy, 75; to
Flanders, 79; papal revenue
paid in, 60; staple, the, 80,
81, 87; exported, 96, 159.
WOOLSTAPLERS, 81, 85.
WORCESTER, cloth trade of, in
1497, 113, 115, 125.
WORCESTERSHIRE, 177.
WORMS, 254.
WYBARN's ironworks, 142.
YARMOUTH, 93, 107, 153, 154,
176, 229.
YORK, 27, 70, 107.
YORKSHIRE, 23, 33, 209, 211, 246.
YOUGHAL, 245.
YPRES, 38, 103.
ZEBS, Zechariah, 219.
Butler & Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works, Frome, and London.

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