One must not infer, however, from the case of the Flemings that the advent of the foreigner was always welcome, or that the outcry against him in the reign of Edward VI. was a new thing. The history of the alien in Great Britain has yet to be written, and space does not permit of its being dwelt upon to any great extent here. Yet in looking back upon the legislative enactments of the Plantagenets and early Tudor kings, which have been briefly referred to elsewhere,[3] one cannot but be struck at the way in which popular opinion--of which these acts were doubtless the outcome--wavered on this subject. The generous treatment accorded to the Flemings and other skilled foreign craftsmen who came to England from time to time contrasts strangely with the harshness with which foreigners were treated at other times. In 1155, for instance, there was an anti-foreign outcry, and many foreigners--in fact all that could be found--were first plundered of their worldly goods, and then banished from the kingdom. Later on they were allowed to return, though still compelled to suffer certain disabilities. At one time the popular prejudice against foreigners was so great that their lives and property were always in danger, and they suffered much unfair treatment. The wise policy of Edward III. removed many of these disabilities, and a special Act was passed in the reign of Richard II. by which they were relieved still more. These Acts were those rather of the king and the upper classes than of the common people, among whom the animus against the foreigner was still so strong that that bulwark of English liberty, trial by jury, was to the alien of no avail, since any charge brought against him, whether true or false, almost invariably resulted in his conviction by a British jury. To do away with this injustice the Enactment of 1430 was passed, which provided that an alien, if he so wished, might be tried by a mixed jury, of whom half were to be Englishmen and the other half foreigners. This singular Statute remained in force until 1870, when the Naturalization Act of that year abolished the privilege of the alien to claim a mixed jury. This Act also repealed all previous Acts except the now well-known Act of 6 & 7 William IV. cap. II., which provides for the registration of aliens, and to which further allusion will be made later on.