triumph ended with mirth and gladnes.” (Holinshed, vol. iii. p.
560.)
On the proclamation of war against France, the City was ordered to
furnish a contingent of 300 men fully armed and equipped. There seems
to have been no difficulty in getting the men. The money for their
outfit was subscribed by the Companies, who raised £405, and so the men
were despatched, clad in white with St. George’s Cross and Sword, and a
rose in front and back.
In June 1516 Cardinal Wolsey addressed an admonition to the City:
they must look to the maintenance of order; there was sedition among
them; the statute of apparel was neglected; vagabonds and masterless
men made the City their resort—an instructive commentary on the
King’s ordinances of seven years before. The sedition of which Wolsey
complained was due to the intense jealousy with which the people of
London always regarded the immigration of aliens. They were always
coming in, and the freemen—the old City families—were always dying out
or going away. In 1500, and again in 1516, orders were issued for all
freemen to return with their families to the City on pain of losing
their freedom. Had they, then, already begun the custom of living in
the suburbs and going into town every morning? The case against the
foreigners is strongly put by Grafton:—
“In this season the Genowayes, Frenchmen and other straungers,
sayd and boasted themselves to be in suche favor with the king and
hys counsayle, that they set naught by the rulers of the city:
and the multitude of straungers was so great about London, that
the poore English artificers could scarce get any lyvyng: and
most of al the straungers were so prowde, that they disdayned,
mocked, and oppressed the Englishmen, which was the beginning of
the grudge. For among all other thinges there was a carpenter in
London called Wylliamson which boughte two stocke Doves in Chepe,
and as he was about to pay for them, a Frenchman tooke them out
of his hande, and sayde they were not meat for a Carpenter: well
sayde the Englisheman I have bought them, and now payde for them,
and therefore I will have them; nay sayde the Frenchman I will have
them for my Lorde the Ambassador, and so for better or worse, the
Frenchman called the Englishman knave and went away with the stock
Doves. The straungers came to the French Ambassador, and surmised
a complaint against the poore Carpenter, and the Ambassador came
to my Lord Maior, and sayde so much, that the Carpenter was sent
to prison: and yet not contented with this so complayned to the
king’s counsayle, that the king’s commaundement was layde on him.
And when syr John Baker and other worshipfull persons sued to
the Ambassador for him, he aunswered by the body of God that the
Englishe knave should loose his lyfe, for he sayde no Englisheman
should denie what the Frenchmen requyred, and other aunswere had
they none. Also a Frenchman that had slayne a man, should abjure
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