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.
[Illustration: WILLIAM CECIL, FIRST BARON BURGHLEY (1520–1598)
From the painting by Marc Gheeraedts (?) in the National Portrait
Gallery, London.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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