In 1567 Pierre Briet and Jean Carré sought a licence to make glass after the French fashion, and to teach to English craftsmen the art of its manufacture as practised in Lorraine and Normandy. Elizabeth, always with an eye to the main chance, made no difficulty and, joining forces with a rival licencee, Becker, set up in opposition to the English glass-makers in Sussex and later at Stourbridge and Newcastle. The fact that the native workers openly confessed their inability to compete with the French craftsmen did not prevent their stirring up a strong opposition against them, which found vent in popular tumult and, in at least one instance, in a conspiracy to murder the workers, pillage their stores and destroy their furnaces. There seems little doubt, however, that their presence must have influenced the quality of English glass and given an impetus to its manufacture. So did the advent of political and religious refugees from the Low Countries and from France, and also, though, of course, to a far greater degree, the influx of French artisans in the seventeenth century after the revocation of the famous Edict of Nantes. In spite of their efforts, however, it does not appear that the importation of fine Venetian glass was in any way checked; it continued, indeed, on an extensive scale for a long time after. The most famous name in the history of Elizabethan glass manufacture is that of Jacob Verzelini, who came to London in 1575 and stayed for the remainder of his life--about thirty years. He obtained a patent giving him the monopoly of manufacturing glass after the Venetian style for twenty-one years. He set up his establishment in the hall of the Crutched Friars, where the eight Venetians had built their furnace in 1549, and there made “glass of divers sorts to drink in.” There is little doubt as to his success, although, with one possible exception, no tangible evidence of it remains. But if one may judge by the very considerable outcry that arose at this period against permitting foreigners to practise the art of glass-making to the detriment of native practitioners, he succeeded sufficiently well to arouse a strong feeling of jealousy. This was intensified by the traders who had hitherto sold imported Venetian glass, and the seamen who carried it in their vessels and who now saw their livelihood menaced.