The allusions to London and to City customs in Shakespeare are numerous, but not, as a rule, instructive. That is to say, he speaks of streets and places which we know from other sources. The Tower, the Bridge, Smithfield, Fish Street, St. Magnus Corner, the Savoy, the Tower Royal (King Richard’s Palace), Westminster Hall, Eastcheap, Bankside, the Temple, Cheapside, London Stone, Baynard’s Castle, Blackfriars, Paris Garden, are mentioned with the familiarity of one who lived in the City and knew all the streets intimately. It is pleasant to find them playing their parts in the immortal plays, but, as I said above, they teach us nothing.
In 1568, to escape the cruelties of Alva, a vast number of Flemings came across the sea and were received hospitably. In order to prevent their arrival proving an injury to the crafts of London, they were scattered about, finding homes in Norwich, Colchester, Maidstone, Sandwich, and Southampton, as well as in London. In the next generation they appear to have been completely merged in the English population, and the custom, common among persons of foreign descent, of anglicising their names has made it very difficult to discover the Flemish origin of a family. The earlier Flemish settlers in England were regarded with hatred. It would seem that another colony of Flemings came over before this immigration in the year 1568; they were settled in Suffolk. In 1594 a good many Portuguese came over as retainers to Don Antonio, and settled here. Among them was the Balthazar who became confectioner to King James and founded almshouses at Tottenham. There were Italians, probably connected with the Italian trade, for the “Lombardi,” the Pope’s men, were gone; they had a service at the Mercers’ Chapel every Sunday. There were also a great many “Dutch,” among whom were numbered the Flemings. Thus, in 1567, a census was taken of “foreigners” in London. There were found to be 4851 altogether, of whom 3838 were Dutch, and 720 French. A few years later the French Ambassador reports that there were 13,700 strangers in London, of whom a third were going to be turned out.
Of the hatred and suspicion entertained towards foreigners by Londoners we have many proofs. “They scoff and laugh at foreigners,” says the Duke of Wurtemberg, “and, moreover, one dares not oppose them, else the street boys and apprentices collect together in immense crowds and strike to the right and left unmercifully without regard to person.” Isaac Casaubon in James the First’s reign complained that he had never been so badly treated as by the people of London: they threw stones at his windows; they pelted his children and himself with stones. The Venetian Ambassador of 1497 testifies to the same effect; in 1557 his successor says that it is impossible to live in London on account of the insolence with which foreigners are treated.
At the same time it must be remembered that there were quarters assigned to foreigners, and that the people must have been accustomed to see these residents going about the streets. Perhaps they were only insolent to foreign nobles, and those whose dress and language were not familiar to them. The Hanse merchants had their house beside Dowgate, Petty Almaigne; the Flemings had theirs on the east side of the Bridge, Petty Flanders: the French had a place in Bishopsgate Ward called Petty France. It was in Petty Flanders that certain Jews resided under the guise of Flemings, just as in the fourteenth century they passed themselves off as Lombards. The Flemings built the Exchange: it was designed after the Antwerp Bourse, by a Fleming; the workmen were specially brought over, and appear to have been unmolested.
W Knight delt.
Js. Basire sculp.
INTERIOR VIEW OF QUEEN ELIZABETH’S BATH
From Archæologia.
In February 1831 there was swept away, with all the buildings in the place called the King’s Mews, where Trafalgar Square now is, a small building called Queen Elizabeth’s Bath. It was a square building of fine brick. It was certainly a Bath, and had a groined roof ascribed by Mr. William Knight who sketched it to the fifteenth century. It was an interesting building of which nothing seems known. Nobody has noticed it except a writer in Archæologia (vol. xxv.), who gives a plan and drawing of the curious place. Like the Sanctuary at Westminster it would have been entirely forgotten but for the hand of a single antiquary, who rescued it from oblivion at the last moment.