It will thus be seen that during this reign the City furnished over
6000 fully equipped soldiers for active service; that it raised at
an hour’s notice, on two separate occasions, 1000 men ready for
immediate service; that it raised a force of Trained Bands 3000
strong; that on occasion it could increase this number to 10,000;
that it could fit out for sea a fleet of twenty or thirty ships.
I do not think that the expenditure of the City on these military
services has ever been published, but it must have been very great.
A corresponding expenditure at the present time would be enormous;
it would be expressed in many millions. This simple fact both proves
and illustrates the tried loyalty of the City. The time, however, had
gone by when the Londoners could, and did, send out an army capable
of deposing one king and setting up another. That power and that
spirit died with the accession of the Tudors. In the beginning of
Elizabeth’s reign the citizens even prayed to be excused the practice
of arms even as a volunteer force, seeing that “the most parte of
those our apprentices and handy craftesmen who continually are kept at
work; who also, if they should have that libertie to be trayned and
drawn from their workes in these matters, wolde thereby fall into such
idleness and insolency that many would never be reduced agayne into any
good order or service.”
[Illustration: _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
y^e 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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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