A View of the House of Peers, Queen Elizabeth on the Throne, the Commons attending.
Taken from a Painted Print in the Cottonian Library.
The Knights of Shires & Burgesses (as they call them) which constitute ye lower house of Parliament presenting their Speaker.
We have seen repeated proofs that the City was never friendly towards foreigners. At this time there were many causes beside the old trade jealousy why the people should view strangers with an unfriendly eye. During the last reign the City swarmed with Spaniards; from the very first day of this long reign until the very last, Spain never ceased plotting, conspiring, and carrying on war with the Queen and the new Religion. In the foreign merchants’ houses the conspirators found a refuge. There were, again, thousands of immigrants from Flanders or Spain, flying from religious persecution; and though many of the people settled down to steady industry, there were many who were by no means the virtuous, law-abiding persons, such as the present age would expect of Huguenots.
From time to time, partly in order to allay the jealousy and terror of the people, partly for the sake of getting at the facts, there was a numbering of the strangers. Thus, in 1567, such a numbering showed 45 Scots; 428 French; 45 Spaniards and Portuguese; 140 Italians; 2030 Dutch; 44 Burgundians; two Danes; and one Liégeois: in all 2735 persons. In 1580 another census of aliens was taken; wherein it was shown that there were 2302 Dutch; 1838 French; 116 Italians; 1542 English born of foreign parents; of other nations not specified 447; and of persons not certified 217: in all 6462. In 1593 a third census showed 5259 strangers in London. These figures are not without interest. In the first year we find a large number of Dutch; they are fugitives. In the next we find that the whole number of strangers has more than doubled: there has been a large accession of Huguenots; in the third census the numbers have gone down a little. In our time a great outcry has been raised over the invasion of the Town by 50,000 Polish Jews; that means a proportion of one in a hundred. In 1560 there were 6500 for a population of, say, 120,000, which means one in twenty (approximately). Now, one in twenty is a large fraction out of the general population.
At one time the hatred of the Apprentices grew so irrepressible that a conspiracy like that of Evil May Day was formed among the Apprentices, with the design of murdering all the foreigners. The conspiracy was happily discovered, and the conspirators laid by the heels in Newgate. A Petition to the Queen against the grievous encroachments of aliens will be found in [Appendix III.]
WILLIAM CECIL, FIRST BARON BURGHLEY (1520–1598)
From the painting by Marc Gheeraedts (?) in the National Portrait Gallery, London.
The domestic history of Elizabeth’s reign is crammed full of hangings, burnings, and the executions of traitors, with all the barbarity of that punishment. There are so many, that in order to make this remarkable shedding of blood intelligible, I have compiled a list of the executions mentioned by Holinshed and Stow during one part of her reign. The list will be found in [Appendix X.], (Executions, 1563–1586). This list, which principally concerns London and is apparently incomplete, even within its narrow limits shows that between the years 1563 and 1586, there were in all 64 executions at which 228 persons suffered. Of these, seventy-one were rebels hanged on two occasions; seventeen were executed for murder; three for military offences; twelve for counterfeiting, clipping, or debasing the coinage; two for counterfeiting the Queen’s signature; twenty-nine were pirates; two were executed for witchcraft or conjuring; twelve for robbery; one for adultery; three for heresy, and seventy-six for high treason. Among the traitors were Dr. John Storey; Edmund Campion; William Parry; the Babington conspirators; the Charnock conspirators; and many Roman Catholic priests. There can be no doubt that the priests who came over with secret designs for the conversion of the country constituted a real and ever-present danger; if anything could justify the barbarities committed upon them when they were caught these conspiracies were enough. That the people at large did not condemn these barbarities is proved by the fact that there was no feeling of sympathy for the sufferers; that the common opinion was that for treason no punishment could be too severe; and that the country after Elizabeth’s reign was concluded was far more Protestant than at the beginning. The conspiracies and secret goings in and out of Catholic priests came to an end in the reign of James, for the best of all reasons, viz. that there was no one left with whom a priest could conspire or whom he could convert. Two women were burned for poisoning their husbands—a most dreadful offence, and one which called for the direst terrors of the law; one woman was burned for witchcraft; another was only hanged for the same offence—but such differences in sentences are not unknown at the present day. One more point occurs. Were the last dying speeches correctly reported? If so, since they are always so moving, and sometimes so eloquent, why did they elicit no response of sympathy or indignation among the bystanders? When Thomas Appletree was to be hanged for firing a gun accidentally into the Queen’s barge (see [p. 389]), the people wept, and the culprit wept, but the justice of the sentence was not questioned. Now in the Marian Persecution the people looked on indignant and sympathetic, being restrained from demonstrations by force and fear. Whether the dying speeches are correctly reported or invented, matters very little. They show one thing, that there was no unmanly terror observed at the last moment: every one, guilty or innocent, mounted the ladder with an intrepid countenance. Death has no terrors either for the arch-conspirator Storey, or for the pirate hanged at Execution Dock.
The privileges granted to the foreign merchants of the Steelyard and the Hanseatic League were finally withdrawn by Queen Elizabeth.
This withdrawal had been in preparation for nearly two hundred years. In the time of Henry IV. English merchants began to trade in the Baltic and with Norway and other parts. This aroused the jealousy of the Hanseatic League, which seized upon several of the English ships. Complaints were laid before the King, who withdrew such of the privileges enjoyed by the League as interfered with the carrying on of trade by his own merchants. He also granted a charter to the merchants trading to the Eastlands. This charter was renewed and enlarged by Edward IV. In the first and second of Philip and Mary a charter was granted to the Russia Company—we have seen how the first Russian Ambassador came to England in the reign of Mary. This Company obtained a confirmation of their charter under Queen Elizabeth. Now, although our people enjoyed many more privileges than of old, yet the Hanseatic League still had the advantage over them by means of their well-regulated Societies and their privileges, insomuch that when the Queen wanted hemp, pitch, tar, powder, and other munitions of war, she had to buy them of the foreign merchants at their own price. The Queen, therefore, began to encourage her own people to become merchants: she assisted them to form companies; she gave them Charters; she withdrew all the privileges from the Hansa. Not the least of the debt which England owes to this great Queen is her wisdom in the encouragement of foreign trade.