A New Licence for the Strangers in Sandwich, 1561

This article comes as a result of Professor Stewart’s lecture at Canterbury Christ Church University in November 2023 on how the strangers came to Sandwich in Elizabeth I’s reign. In his teaching as a professor of English and Comparative Literature he stumbled upon a reference in a 1581 play to the immigrants in Sandwich. Following the trail through the historiography on Elizabethan Sandwich he developed ideas about where and how the strangers had been able to settle and make a living in Sandwich primarily through the making of the New Draperies. Evidence pointed to an unremarked delay on the part of Elizabeth’s senior lawyers regarding the granting of a license for the strangers in Sandwich; negotiations were protracted, and its granting required the intervention of several authorities.

I.

The story of the settlement of foreign artisans in Sandwich in 1561 has been told often and well.[fn1] With royal permission, Sandwich accepted several hundred Protestant refugees fleeing from Catholic persecution in the Spanish-occupied Low Countries. These ‘strangers’, as they were often called, were allowed to exercise only a few occupations, most of them in the cloth-making for which their home towns were noted: the strangers’ settlement thus prompted the rise of the ‘New Draperies’ in England. Sandwich was the first town to have such a settlement in Elizabeth’s reign but was followed in short order by Norwich (1565), Maidstone, Southampton and Stamford (1567), Colchester and Dover (1571), and Canterbury (1575), as well as smaller groups in King’s Lynn, Great Yarmouth, Ipswich, Thetford, Halstead, Rye, and Winchelsea. Although the specific materials to be worked by the strangers varied locally, some of these cities and towns explicitly invoked Sandwich as the model for their own settlement.

The founding document of the settlement in Sandwich is routinely cited as an order dated 6 July 1561 from Elizabeth I to her Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, Sir Nicholas Bacon, directing him ‘cause our lettres patents to be made forthe in forme following’, addressed to ‘the mayor, jurats [aldermen], and commonaltye of the towne and porte of Sandwiche’, licensing the ‘plantinge’ of a number of ‘men of knowelege in sondry handy crafts’ in that town. Among the ‘divers speciall considerations’ prompting this decision, the document cites both ‘the helpe, repayre and amendement of our said towne and porte’ and ‘the relief of certaine strangers nowe resyding in our citie of London … belonginge to the churche of [pg1]strangers’ there. It specifies that the archbishop of Canterbury and the bishop of London should identify ‘persons mete [suitable] to inhabite’ in Sandwich. These should possess ‘the facultie of making saes, bay and other cloth, which hath not been used to be made in this our realme of Englonde, or for fishing in the seas’.[fn2] The ‘plantinge’ was to be capped at ‘the nombre of twentie, or fyve and twentie housholders’ with each household comprising ‘not above tenne or twelve persons’; they were to be allowed to ‘inhabite and take houses for their inhabitacion and to have suche and as manie servants, as shall suffice for the exercise of the said faculties there’.[fn3]

The document was first printed in 1798 by the Kent surgeon and antiquarian William Boys in his 800-page compilation of archival transcriptions and engravings, Collections for an history of Sandwich, a labour of love that was achieved only ‘at great pecuniary loss to Boys’.[fn4] (His source is not identified, but Boys’s text would seem to be identical with that of a document that is now in the Kent History and Library Centre in Maidstone.)[fn5] Edward Hasted admitted that he relied on his friend Boys’ research for the account of Sandwich in his History and topographical survey of the county of Kent (1799),[fn6] which in turn informed John Southerden Burn’s landmark 1846 history of foreign Protestant refugees.[fn7] Boys’ transcription was reprinted in the 1887-88 volume of the Proceedings of the Huguenot Society of England by Sandwich antiquarian Thomas Dorman, who reasoned that ‘I have thought it as well to make [a copy], as the work [by Boys] is one not very readily accessible to many’.[fn8] In 1897, W. Cunningham included a version in his study of Alien immigrants to England, citing both Boys’ publication and a document in the State Papers, domestic series, of Elizabeth.[fn9] The text was then included, most influentially, in the collection Tudor economic documents, originally compiled by R. W. Tawney and Eileen Power as a resource for University of London history students, then published in three volumes in 1924, and still routinely cited today. Titled ‘Settlement of alien craftsmen at Sandwich, 1561’, it sits in section VI of volume I, on ‘Alien Immigrants’. Like Cunningham, Tawney and Power cite both Boys’s book and a document in the State Papers; unlike their predecessors, however, Tawney and Power silently delete the queen’s message to Lord Keeper Bacon, so that it now appears to be a letter directly from Elizabeth to Sandwich.[fn10]

This document naturally took a prominent place in accounts of the settlement of strangers in Sandwich – but frequently in concert with another document. Francis W. Cross, for example, in his 1898 account of the stranger churches in Canterbury, cites the Sandwich experience as ‘the parent of the similar settlement at Canterbury’. He notes that ‘A warrant under the Great Seal, dated July 6, 1561, was issued’ and details its terms; he then adds,

It appears by an entry in the records at Sandwich that the authorities of the town had themselves desired and invited the placing of a refugee company in their midst, two of the Jurats being appointed on June 29, 1561, to ride to London to see Mr. Roger Manwood, their Counsel, and with him to draw up articles for the Strangers “that be mynded to come and Inhabit wthin this towne of Sandwch”.[fn11]

That entry in the Sandwich records is for 29 June 1561: the warrant from the queen is dated 6 July, just a week and a day later. Taken together, these documents – with [pg2]the warrant coming only eight days after the entry in the Sandwich yearbook – have suggested a close and symbiotic relationship between the Sandwich authorities and central government. Dorothy Gardiner in her 1954 study of Sandwich affirms that ‘Within a fortnight of the Jurats’ London visit, a warrant was issued under the Great Seal for the reception of a party of Flemings’.[fn12] In her 1971 history of Sandwich, Helen C. Bentwich writes that ‘A request was made to Queen Elizabeth in 1561. Permission was granted …’.[fn13] Lionel Williams in 1974 wrote, ‘Sandwich, using Roger Manwood, its M.P. and recorder, as intermediary, secured the letters patent which authorized its settlement easily and very quickly in July 1561’.[fn14]

This account was made more specific in Joan Thirsk’s important 1978 study Economic policy and projects: the development of a consumer society in early modern England (1978), in which she describes how upon the accession of Elizabeth I initiatives to spur new industries ‘were launched on a new and much more expansive phase’. Protestant artisans from France and Holland fled to England to avoid religious persecution, and ‘[t]heir plight’, she argues, ‘played into the hands of [secretary of state Sir William] Cecil and other like-minded Commonwealthmen’, like Thomas Smith. Her first example is the Dutch settlers invited by the town council of Sandwich, in 1561, but she insists that this is primarily a governmental move, led by ‘commonwealthmen’ such as Cecil and Smith: ‘Ostensibly, the English government encouraged local authorities to take the first initiative, but … their initiatives were remarkably in tune with Cecilian wishes, and official approval was readily accorded’.[fn15] The pre-eminent historian of Sandwich, Marcel Backhouse, put further detail on this narrative, citing Thirsk and also casting Cecil as primum mobile:

When in May 1561 the Flemish colony [in Sandwich] presented their request to the local authorities for official recognition as a Stranger community, the town council immediately approached the Privy Council to that effect. Lord Burghley [sic – i.e. Sir William Cecil] therefore seized the opportunity presented by the Strangers to revive the flagging economy of Sandwich and convinced the Queen to grant permission to allow Stranger workmen to settle in the town … Persuaded by her minister the Queen acted swiftly and on 5 July 1561 she authorised the Letters Patent by which Sandwich became the home of the oldest exile community outside the capital.[fn16]

This has remained the standard account of events in 1561, repeated from historian to historian: the superb 2010 study of Sandwich by Helen Clarke, Sarah Pearson, Mavis Mate and Keith Parfitt also tells us that ‘In May 1561 a small group of Flemish families who had migrated to Sandwich from London asked for official recognition. The town council immediately approached the Privy Council, and Lord Burghley [sic], who was anxious to promote the development of new industries, convinced the queen to grant permission’.[fn17]

But that is not what happened. Even as he put the documents together in 1898, Francis W. Cross noticed a strange discrepancy: ‘The warrant, although dated July 1561, seems not to have been received before November of the same year, as it is recorded on the 17th of that month that the Mayor and the two Jurats who had previously been deputed, should again go up to London to procure the warrant ‘for the recevynge of the Flemynge strangers’.[fn18] And, indeed, the Sandwich yearbook [pg3]specifies that the letters patents were in fact not read until the following year, on 19 January 1562:

At whiche daie appeyred before the sayd maiour & Iurates the duchemen aliens before whom the Quenes Maiesties Lettres Patentes vnder her greate Seale was Redd for the admittynce & warrant of them & for theyr safe dwellyng in this sayd Towne.[fn19]

Returning to the July 1561 order, one might also question the vagueness in what is meant to be a legally binding document: the licence limits the number of households to ‘twentie or fyve and twentie housholdes’ each with ‘not above tenne or twelve persons’.[fn20] But which is it – twenty or twenty-five? ten or twelve? The potential difference here is between 200 and 300 people.

The explanation for these anomalies, I shall demonstrate in this article, is that the document dated 6 July 1561 never came into force. It was rather a draft of an intended warrant, to which the Lord Keeper, Sir Nicholas Bacon, refused to affix his seal. The letters patents were not granted until 24 December 1561 – five weeks after the Sandwich authorities made a renewed effort to secure them – and the final document was notably different from the superseded July draft. I draw on the Acta of the consistory of the Dutch Church in London to reconstruct the negotiations that led first to the superseded draft, and then to its replacement. The Acta track, in great detail, the almost daily back-and-forth of negotiations over what they term the ‘causa Sandwicensium’ (the cause of Sandwich) over the last eight months of 1561, and show that, far from being the response to a simple request from Sandwich to the Crown, or the result of a masterplan by Sir William Cecil, the planting of the strangers depends on a vast range of negotiations involving multiple parties. I then consider the differences between the draft and the final document and demonstrate the importance of those differences to a charged moment in the history of the Sandwich strangers in 1581-2.

II.

The Dutch Church in London was initially founded during the reign of Edward VI. After a group of ‘Germans and other strangers’ was granted the use of the nave of the onetime Augustinian priory known as the Austin Friars in London’s Broad Street ward, under the leadership of the Polish émigré Jan Łaski (Johannes à Lasco), a royal charter and letters patents in 1550 allowed them to establish a ‘stranger church’. The rule of Mary Tudor in 1553 to 1558 forced most of its leaders into exile, but the accession of Elizabeth gave the church a second chance. Run by an elected consistory of five ministers, twelve elders and fourteen deacons, and now under the supervision of the bishop of London, Edmund Grindal, its activities were meticulously recorded in the Acta that survive today in the London Archives.[fn21]

The Acta reveal that our story does not start with the Sandwich authorities sending a delegation to London in late June 1561. By May 1561, one of the London church elders was already in Sandwich: he was Jan Utenhove, a major figure in the Reformed church who had translated the New Testament into Dutch and who would publish an influential Dutch translation of the Psalms in London in 1566.[fn22] [pg4]Utenhove reported back to London on 11 May that the people of Sandwich were pleading with the magistrate to obtain a church there for the strangers.[fn23] Two days later, Utenhove was quoted as saying that two hundred houses were going to be available for the Dutch there, a rather optimistic hope, and that the workers will be ‘say-makers, bay-makers, weavers and cloth-weavers and fishers and the other brethren underneath’, presumably as servants and apprentices.[fn24] Over the next month, these plans seem to have been formalized, and on 24 June, the London consistory welcomed ‘one with the Sandwich conditions’.[fn25]

But the negotiations start in earnest on 2 July; the consistory minutes become quite breathless as advances and setbacks are reported back, almost by the hour. On that day, a messenger came to Utenhove’s house telling him that the Sandwich men were arriving and that he should go to the house of a certain English lawyer; he then went to the house of Pieter Deleen (Petrus Delaenus), then to Gerard Matt’s, two other prominent figures in the Dutch Church.[fn26] These three men, along with Francis Boll, Pieter Basser, and Thomas Thomas, met with the representatives from Sandwich at the house of the English lawyer, near St Paul’s Cathedral.[fn27] The Acta attempt to render the lawyer’s name variously as ‘Emanhod’, ‘Emahod’, and ‘Manuhod’, but the lawyer is clearly Roger Manwood of the Inner Temple. Despite the wording of the entry, which pits the Dutchmen ‘ab vna parte’ (on one side) and the Sandwich men ‘ab altera parte’ (on the other side), with Manwood in the middle, Manwood was in fact firmly in the Sandwich camp, being the town’s recorder and most recent MP.[fn28] Indeed, the Sandwich yearbook makes the arrangement explicit: ‘it was ordered and decreed that John Tysarr and John Gilbert, jurates, shall ride to London unto Mr. Roger Manwood, and they with hym to have auctoritie to drawe certen articles and thereupon to conclude with certen Strangers that be mynded to come and inhabit within this towne of Sandwich’.[fn29] Together, the Dutchmen and the Englishmen worked through the conditions of the proposed settlement, by which some Dutch brethren would be able to live well and work freely in Sandwich, within the framework of the country’s laws; it was agreed that the Dutchmen would return the following day while Manwood composed the written document to be presented to the queen.[fn30] By the end of that day, the Dutch Church consistory had decided that a petition should be presented to the queen by the two Sandwich envoys (‘and Manwood’ is added in the manuscript), and Thomas Thomas, with the Dutch Church joining them;[fn31] Thomas was dispatched to Manwood to see if he had written anything[fn32] (Fig. 1).

[fg]jpg|Fig. 1 Sir Roger Manwood, by George Perfect Harding – National Portrait Gallery: NPG 475, Public Domain.|Image[/fg]

The next day, 4 July, the elders met again to consult further about the conditions of the Dutch migration, although nothing was concluded.[fn33] On the morning of 6 July, a letter was composed to the bishop of London, Edmund Grindal, asking him to write to secretary of state Sir William Cecil on behalf of the Sandwich cause;[fn34] in the afternoon, a letter (in English) from Grindal to Cecil was read out, on the command of the bishop.[fn35] And on 8 July, a packed room heard that the petition has been successful;[fn36] the conditions were read out; and it was agreed that they should publicize the fact among the brethren to boost morale.[fn37] There’s a real confidence at this point: while the letters patents would state that the strangers should be skilled in the making of says and bays, the smaller weave cloths that were not previously practiced in England, and the art of fishing,[fn38] the minutes of 8 July add: ‘Let these [minutes] remain secret. Under the pretext of these four [pg5] [categories], permission was granted by the Sandwich magistrate to mix in other workers’.[fn39] The following day, anticipating the arrival of a group from Sandwich, the Dutch worked on certain conditions to be proposed to them (collated by Adrian van Doren, and put into English by Thomas Thomas).[fn40] On Thursday 10 July, the Sandwich envoys themselves appeared at Austin Friars, and proved themselves willing to negotiate to reach mutually acceptable conditions.[fn41]

And then on the following Sunday, 13 July, the blow came. Antonius Asche and Antonius Capella returned with news from the bishop of London. There was no hope right now of obtaining the great seal for those intending to go to Sandwich, but Grindal stressed that there was no problem – the Lord Keeper merely said the licence had to be redrafted in a different style, and suggested that this could happen around Michaelmas (29 September), at the start of the next legal term.[fn42] That evening, the Sandwich envoys came to the temple, bearing the same news: like the good lawyer he was, the Lord Keeper had said that the wording was not firm enough, and that he wanted to satisfy ‘both us and them’ (‘ut nobis et illis’), as the church minutes put it.[fn43]

Despite this apparent setback, however, arrangements continue. Only two days later, the consistory heard a letter, drawn up by recent arrival Jacob de Buyzere (Jacobus Bucerus), to be sent to the Flemish brethren, urging them not to send over anyone whose genuine faith and good living were not vouched for.[fn44] By 27 July, the Sandwich cause is firmly back on the agenda, and the questions that are being asked are all about detail: Who will vouch for the settlers, when the ministers who know them are overseas? What is the discipline in the Sandwich church? Who [pg6]will be our minister there? There was a call for de Buyzere to be appointed,[fn45] a demand that was not appreciated by the church elders.[fn46] To de Buyzere, this seemed a heavy burden to assume, since there was as yet no established church in Sandwich.[fn47] But on 31 July, as a group of brethren (with Joannes Camphin as spokesman) were about to depart for Sandwich, de Buyzere agreed to serve.[fn48]

It may have been the arrival of this group that prompted a letter, dated 4 August 1561, in which the mayor and jurats of Sandwich write to ‘our Lovynge ffrendes & Faythefull Brethren in Chryste the minister & elders in the duche churche’ to ask them to vouch for the ‘good & quyet behaveyour & conversacion’ of those they plan to send to their town: they should be ‘suche Approved men & knowen by your experience to be of suche honeste & quiet conversacion as you would Answere for And Also of such Abilytie to sett aworke euerye howseholder accordynge to facultie lymitted & prescribed’. It appears from the phrasing of the letter’s opening that, the Lord Keeper’s delay notwithstanding, they consider the licence a done deal: ‘Whereas the quenes maiestie hathe of late lycenced certen of your countryemen strangers to come to Inhibite [sic] within this towne & porte of Sandwich bryngynge with them the lorde Archebishopp of canterbury & the lorde bysshopp of London theyr lettres for theyr Admission’.[fn49] The same confidence seems to have been felt by interested parties on the other side of the Channel. On 10 August, the consistory discussed a missive from the church in Hondschoote, the cloth-making town (now in northern France) where many of those who settled in Sandwich originated. The letter is full of logistical questions: about taxes on wool they wish to bring with them, about how to certify the bona fides of the people that are coming over (by household, rather than by individual), and so on.[fn50]

After some deliberation about how best to move forward,[fn51] on 25 August, Pieter Deleen and Jan Utenhove went to Grindal, and with him took a boat to Lambeth Palace, the residence of the archbishop of Canterbury, Matthew Parker. From Parker they obtained a letter granting a place among the people of Sandwich to the Dutch strangers of the London Dutch church engaged in certain trades, under the testimony of the archbishop of Canterbury, the bishop of London, and the ministers of the London Dutch Church; Parker pronounced himself satisfied, if Grindal, Deleen and Utenhove vouched for the strangers.[fn52]

There is ample evidence of a Dutch presence in Sandwich before the letters patents were issued – both members of the London Dutch Church, and others. On 26 August, letters ‘sent from Sandwich’ were read out from Gerard Matt,[fn53] who reported that Joannes Broctuers had preached there three times that week, and that eleven families had arrived from Flanders, whom he wished should come to London to make their profession of faith.[fn54] Adrian van Doren reported to the consistory on 2 September that Francis Boll and some others wished it to be put on record in the Acta that, although they had allowed themselves to be named as masters in the Sandwich document, they did not want to deprive others of that prerogative – this presumably relates to a new draft of the letters patents, in which (see below) six men, including Boll, were singled out by name.[fn55] On 23 September, Pieter Deleen gave an account of how humanely he was received in Sandwich, by the mayor, ministers, and both the English and the Dutch, and how happily the church of the strangers seemed to exist there. He reported that the Sandwich brethren had presented evidence of their faith, countersigned by the [pg7]bishop of London, but Deleen had told about twenty brethren that they needed to come to London to made a public protestation of the faith.[fn56] (These brethren duly arrived in London the following week, to start making their public profession of faith – a process which continued over several weeks).[fn57] By the end of September the preacher-elect Jacob de Buyzere had ridden to Sandwich. He arrived to find that the aforementioned Gerard Matt had moved into the house he intended to live in; while Matt moved out, de Buyzere was accused by some of having forced him to do so. It took a meeting of the brethren to smooth over the ruffled feathers on both sides.[fn58] But the anecdote suggests that there was by late September a sizeable Dutch contingent in Sandwich.

On 9 October, the Dutch Church heard a discourse by Jan Utenhove on the Sandwich cause. He proposed forging a stronger link with the mayor of Sandwich through two members of the London consistory, a scheme to be reviewed annually.[fn59] Two days later, the mayor of Sandwich visited Deleen at home, suggesting that the brethren take Utenhove’s letters to the bishop of London; he would come to the Church the following Tuesday to hear Grindal’s answer, before the Dutch Church appointed representatives to go to Lord Keeper Bacon.[fn60] It is not clear what came of these plans, however; by mid-November, the paperwork had still not appeared. It was at this point, on 17 November, as previously mentioned, the Sandwich council decided ‘to make sute agayne’ to the queen and the Privy Council for the ‘warrant to be obtained under the Great Seale of Inglond for the receyvynge of the Flemynges Strangers to inhabit this sayd towne’. Once again John Tysar and John Gilbert were charged with riding to London, and this time granted the power to bestow gifts on any man to further the suit.[fn61]

Ten days later, the mayor and jurats arrived in London for the express purpose of gaining the seal: Pieter Deleen accordingly wrote to Grindal to ask him to write to the Lord Keeper to obtain it. The Sandwich envoys again impressed on the consistory that they should not send anyone to Sandwich without certification of their good faith and their artisanal skill.[fn62] It was decided on 30 November that Deleen should write to the ministers of the Sandwich Dutch Church in the name of the London Dutch Church,[fn63] which he did on 2 December, informing them that the mayor of Sandwich had appeared in their consistory and was not a little anxious (‘non parum sollicitum’) about those who had joined them without being skilled workers in the arts specified by the queen.[fn64] This concern may have been prompted by the census of the 25 householders who would be moving to the town, along with their dependents, prepared on 28 November 1561 by de Buyzere.[fn65] A separate hand in English calculated the make-up of this initial population. Married men and women – a hundred and fourscore, 180. Widowers – three. Widows – six. Bachelors between the ages of 18 and 30 – 22. Maidens and servants – 17. Children between the ages of one week and eighteen years – 178. The total was therefore 406 men, women, and children. The license was for 25 households of up to 12 people, totalling 300 people, so even the initial influx would overshoot targets by over a third. And the English hand on the census also notes that out of those 406, only eight were ‘masters in the facultie of making of bayes and seys’, while ‘all the rest be servants vnto them’, the minister excepted.[fn66]

A final push to get the seal affixed was bolstered by Roger Manwood, author of the rejected draft, who wrote to the Sandwich authorities on 27 November. Having [pg8]learned that the mayor, Richard Porredge, planned to present half a dozen cushions to Secretary Cecil, he opined that ‘we thyncke yt good that one dossen be with all diligent speede be made In redynes’, at a price of six shillings and eightpence each; he helpfully sent a sketch of Cecil’s arms ‘to be sett In them’. Speed was of the essence: ‘yf yt wer possible to haue them ready in Christmas weke against new yeres day yt wold do well [,] praying you to Cause the makers to lay all thynges apayce for helpe thereof’. By the time he came to write a postscript, he had changed his mind, and upped his demands: ‘we thynck yt best for our half dossen Cusshens to be of more valu. with faier borderes. yf ye thyncke yt so thoughe they Cost xs [ten shillings] pece’.[fn67]

On 4 December, a servant of the mayor of Sandwich (probably John Tysar) came to the Dutch Church with a plea for them to intervene with the bishop of London in the matter of obtaining the queen’s seal, to ask him to write to Secretary Cecil.[fn68] The next day Deleen and van Doren went to Grindal, who responded that there was no need to write to Cecil, since he had often dealt with him before in letters and in person, and that Cecil was completely devoted to advancing the cause of Sandwich.[fn69] This rare mention of Cecil highlights the fact that Cecil’s role in the negotiations has been minimal – and here, at a moment when he might become personally involved, Grindal rules out the possibility. As secretary of state, he is certainly an important figure whom the Dutch Church and the Sandwich council need to have on their side, but the impetus in these negotiations is not from Cecil himself. The minutes from 8 July 1561 include a stray sentence that may be significant in gauging Cecil’s investment: in discussion of the Sandwich project, there is talk ‘de loco quodam Stampfort’, ‘of a certain place named Stamford’, mention of which is made by Secretary Cecil himself.[fn70] Cecil’s only noted intervention during the Sandwich negotiations is to suggest that something similar might be done for Stamford, the Lincolnshire town where the Cecils had lived since William’s grandfather’s day. It would be another five years before solid plans were drawn up for the planting of strangers in Stamford.[fn71]

Still without a licence, on 22 December the town authorities forged ahead, setting the rates for the sealing of the bays and says that the Dutch would make: fourpence for ‘every fine piece of cloth’, and twopence for ‘every other piece of bays and sayes’.[fn72] On New Year’s Eve, the mayor and jurats sent a letter to Cecil with the first tangible evidence of the strangers’ work, six arras cushions (Porredge’s suggested number) decorated with the Cecil arms (Manwood’s suggested embroidery):

We haue sent vnto your honor thes vj cusshens of Arras the ffyrste woorke therof of the strangers within this towne. And allthoughe they ar not so good as we wyshe, yet we beseche your honor to accept them in good parte as the fyrst ffrutes of our pore good willes, moste humbly besechyng you to vouchsafe to contynewe your honors great goodness and ffavour towards vs, for the which we all be most bounden to praye for your honor.[fn73]

So, by December 1561, the strangers were working in Sandwich. On 8 January 1562, ‘the flemynges strangers of this Towne’ asked the mayor and jurats for a place and day ‘for sale of their yarne’, and they were allocated Wednesday morning ‘within the cornemarkett Crosse’.[fn74] And then, finally, on 19 January 1562 ‘the [pg9]duchemen alyens’ appeared before the mayor and jurats for the reading of ‘the Quenes maiesties Lettres Patentes vnder her greate Seale’ – the seal had finally been affixed to the letters patents. At the same time, they were handed a bill to cover the cost of the negotiations: fifty pounds, of which the strangers agreed to pay twenty pounds in two instalments. That entry also notes that ‘yt was grauntyd vnto the seyd duchemen the coppie of the sayd Quenes Maiesties Lettres patentes aforesayd with them to remayne’: this would explain why the final letters patents did not survive in the Sandwich archives.[fn75]

III.

The records of the Sandwich council and the Dutch Church in London together provide some parameters for tracking the letters patents that were finally issued. A terminus a quo is provided by the Sandwich book entry for 17 November 1561, when the authorities vowed to make another concerted effort to obtain the warrant; the terminus ad quem is set by the reading out of the letters patents in Sandwich’s guildhall on 19 January 1562. And indeed, a copy of the text of the licence is preserved among the patent rolls at the National Archives, dated 24 December 1561 (see Appendix). A brief summary was included in a printed calendar of the patent rolls in 1948,76 but appears to have attracted no attention (Fig. 2).

[fg]png|Fig. 2 Image of a copy of the text of the licence which is preserved among the patent rolls at the National Archives, dated 24 December 1561. Reproduced with permission of The National Archives TNA, C66/981, m. 36d.|Image[/fg]

A comparison of this December text with Manwood’s July draft is revealing. The first two sentences are the same. But thereafter, the licence is rewritten wholesale, and the final result is over three times the length of the draft. It is indeed in a different style, as Sir Nicholas Bacon had insisted: the text is now full of the listing and repetitions endemic to legal documents. Most importantly, the wording is certainly firmer. While the draft refers to ‘certen strangers’, this version [pg10]specifies that they are ‘duchemen alyens’ and names six of them: Francis Boll, Garret Matt, Peter Aell, John Hussecke, William de Husseer and Francis de Rade; Boll, Matt and de Husseer were early exports to Sandwich, and it may well be that all six were in the first group to leave London for Kent. While the draft mentions ‘the churche of strangers in our said citie of London’, now it specifies ‘the duche churche of straungers’. Instead of the draft’s strange dithering over numbers (20 or 25 households? 10 or 12 per household?), the licence opts for the higher number. Now the strangers must be ‘alyens born not denyzens’, that is, those born overseas and not naturalized as English. They must be approved not only by the archbishop of Canterbury and the bishop of London, as in the draft, but also by the warden of the Cinque Ports. The letters specify that the strangers can have both Dutch and English servants. While the draft let strangers ‘take houses’, the revised version specifies that any ‘dwelling howse shoppe messuage or tenement with thappertenances’ could be leased to the strangers for seven years or less, as they were to English tenants. And with an eye to the future, not apparent in the draft, it was recorded that if any of the Dutchmen ‘shall fortune to dye or otherwise to departe’, then others could be admitted in their place.[fn77] Whereas the draft claimed that this licence would overrule any statute that said anything to the contrary, this version named the two statutes that did.

As Lionel Williams wrote in 1974, ‘Most of the principles governing the establishment of all the provincial settlements are contained in the letters patent granted to Sandwich: the promotion of economic revival, the relief of immigrant pressure on London, the establishment of new-drapery making, the permission granted to the settlers to rent property and to dwell and work in the town, and a maximum permitted settlement number’.[fn78] It seems that this document was tweaked only minimally to serve other towns and cities. A privy council response to petitions from Southampton in May 1567 ends with the message that ‘finally they shall haue such priuileges graunted to the town of Southampton as the town of Sandwich for strangers hathe’.[fn79] Responding to orders from Cecil regarding a planned settlement in Maidstone, on 21 July 1567 Serjeant Nicholas Barham and Thomas Wotton drew up and forwarded to him ‘a boke drawen vearie little differing from her maiesties letters pattentes heretofore graunted in the like case to the maior Iurattes and comminaltie of Sandwiche’.[fn80] The letters patents issued to Norwich are clearly based sentence by sentence on the Sandwich document, albeit providing for thirty households of ten persons each from ‘the Lowe countries of flanders’ and a wider range of occupations: ‘makynge of bayes, arras, saies, tapestry, mockados, Stamens, Carsy, and such other owtelandishe commodities as hath not bene vsed to be made within this owr realme of inglond’.[fn81] Of all the changes, the most significant was the added requirement that the strangers be ‘alyens born not denyzens’. The importance of this clause was made clear in 1581 and 1582, when the Sandwich authorities attempted to force out of town a number of the more powerful strangers. On 21 July, the mayor and jurats issued ‘A decree prohibiting Strangers to exercise any other trade then is limmited to them, in the Queenes Majesties Letters patents to them graunted’.[fn82] The decree took the conversation right back to this original licence:

Whereas at the first comming of the Strangers into this Towne, about the first yeere [pg11]of the Queenes Majesties reigne that now is [sic – it was the fourth year], it was by the Lordes of her Maiesties most honorable Privie Counsell ordered, and by us assented unto, that the said Strangers should be received into this Towne, there to use such trades as Englishmen did not at that time use, and not to use any trade or occupation then used by any the then Inhabitantes of the said towne: Whereunto the said Strangers willingly assented.

Now, the decree alleged, some strangers, acting on ‘a greedie desire to inrich them selues, and to encroach all manner of trades into their owne hands’, had broken the agreement: they had ‘procured them selues to be made dennisons’, and now ‘keepe open shoppe, as Mercers, Grocers, Tailors, Chandelors, Shomakers &c. and all other trades and occupations used by the English Inhabitantes’, thus impoverishing the English and ruining the town.[fn83] An alien could take on some of the privileges of a native subject through a parliamentary Act of Naturalization, or via a Letter of Denization acquired by royal grant, both of which in practice were bought for hefty sums of money, hence that sarcastic ‘procured them selues to be made dennisons’. As Jane Andrewes and Michael Zell have written, during the 1570s some Dutch strangers were declared denizens; in 1575, eighteen Dutch men from Dover claiming to be denizens tried to set up shop in Sandwich, with letters patent from the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports; Sandwich, however, forbad them to do so.[fn84]

Now the Sandwich authorities clamped down, asserting that ‘no person, denizon or Stranger, not beeing a freeman of this Towne’ could ‘keepe any open or outward Shoppe, or inwardly or outwardly tell or vtter by retaile any wares or marchandizes’ after ‘the feast of St Bartholomew next’ (24 August), after which nobody, ‘Denison or Stranger borne’, shall ‘use any trade with in this towne, other then making of Bayes, Sayes, Tapestry, Laces, and ffishing, and other trades limmitted to be used in their Letters Patentes, and such other trades as the English Inhabitantes before the said Letters Patentes made, used not’. The penalty was set as a fine of forty shillings for every week, ‘[t]o be levied by distresse’ (confiscation of goods), and to ‘suffer imprisonment’ until they would ‘enter into bond’ not to break this decree.[fn85] Many strangers instantly applied for an advertised special license, that could circumvent this law, but by mid-August only twenty-two had been granted.[fn86]

The strangers petitioned the Privy Council, pointing out that ‘diuers of them haue ben made denisones and so by force of her maiesties lettres patentes of naturalizacion pretended to enioy like liberties and freedome as other subiectes of this realme doe or ought to doe’,[fn87] and alleging that the mayor ‘hathe violently entred into some of their howses and taken awaye certen quantities of wares to a good value to aunswer the pretended forfeyctyres made by culler of the said decree’. The Privy Council’s initial response favoured the denizen-strangers. The Councillors did ‘not a little marvaile not knowing by what authoritye the said Mayour and the reste maie laufullye make and execute any suche decree tending so muche to the preiudyce of those poore banished straungers’, and on 6 December charged the Warden of the Cinque Ports, Lord Cobham, to examine the mayor and jurats ‘by what warraunt and authoritie they have made and executed so seveare a decree vppon the said straungers’. If the town’s charter did not cover their action, then Cobham should ‘require them to revoke their said decree and to suffer the [pg12]said straungers to lyve and enioye suche libertie for the making and sale of their wares and commodyties whatsoever within the said towne as heretofore hath bene permitted vnto them’, and to restore the wares and merchaundizes ‘violentlie taken’ from them. If they refused to do so, then Cobham was ‘to take bondes of the said Mayour and the reste for their appearence … forthwith before their llordships’.[fn88] The Privy Council would allow only the original letters patents as justification for the actions of the mayor and jurats.

Cobham’s invitation only exacerbated the situation: the mayor told the bearer of the message that the strangers ‘should fare the wourse for complayninge’ and then ‘presently imprisonnede one of the denisonnes’.[fn89] When the Sandwich contingent did meet with Cobham, they told him their main grudge was that, by exercising multiple occupations, five or six of the strangers were engrossing multiple commodities, operating at markets throughout a thirty-mile radius.[fn90] But others reported a very different motive behind the authorities’ actions: a few Englishmen, who had the best housing, ‘for gayne do lett and sell them rather to Straingers, and privily mainteyne their suit against their own countrymen’.[fn91] When Cobham’s interview failed to make any headway,[fn92] the mayor and jurats were duly summoned before the Privy Council, who heard ‘the matter of both sides’ on 30 March 1582 at Sandwich.[fn93]

Returning to the letters patent of 24 December 1561, the councillors adjudged that ‘they take yt that her Majesties meaninge both was and is that suche strangers as should be by the authority of the said Letters Patentes suffred to reside within the said towne of Sandwiche should be only aliens’, that is, not denizens. But, willing to show ‘tolleration’, they decreed that ‘soche of them as are denisens, and at present do use facultyes and trades specified in the Letters Patentes and none other, and also soche of them as have ben admitted to the freedom of the town, or are brewers, joyners or artificers of other mistries not prohibited herafter, may nevertheless remayne untill soche time as further order shalbe taken, so as they shall behave themselves honestly and dutifully as they ought to do’. Any stranger- denizens who were practicing other trades were henceforth forbidden; those in Sandwich should by next Whit Sunday withdraw themselves and their families from Sandwich, keeping at least eight miles’ distance, after selling off any ‘wares, housholde stuff, or other things’ they currently possessed; and strangers who were not members of the church should be commanded to depart.

The letters patents were also used to admonish the Sandwich authorities, who needed ‘to be more diligent and carfull in the observacion therof then heretofore with their families now resident in the said towne exceedeth the rate assigned unto them in her Majesties Letters Patentes’. The mayor and jurats were therefore ‘charged not to admit hereafter anie more strangers, aliens, to inhabite within the said towne, unless it shalbe for the supplyinge and furnishinge of the number specified in the Letters Patentes by suche others as shalbe signified unto the said Maiour and Jurates to be meete persones by the Lord Archbishoppe of Canterburie or Lord Bishopp of London or Lord Warden of the Five Portes, accordinge to the tenour of the said graunt’. The wording of the original letters patents was also to be observed in the question of occupations: yes to making says, bays, and cloth or tapestry ‘as hathe not ben heretofore vsed to be made in this realme’, and to fishing, but strangers might ‘not be Retailours or Shopkepers, and especiallie not [pg13]vse the misteries of Tailours, Shomakers, Coblers Coopers masons or Bricklayers Bakers Blacksmithes Shipwrightes and Cowekepers’.[fn94]

The Privy Council judgement is striking in its repeated reliance on the wording of the letters patents of December 1561. And it bears repeating that the situation could not have arisen in the same way if Manwood’s July draft had come into operation. The Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, not mentioned in that draft, would possibly not have been involved; and without the addition of the ‘not denizens’ clause, Sandwich would not have had a case against its over-reaching strangers.

IV.

In conclusion, the document accepted since the late eighteenth century as the text of the letters patent for the settlement of strangers in Sandwich in 1561 has been misunderstood. While fully intended to serve as that warrant, it was never approved by the Lord Keeper. Instead, as the Acta of the Dutch Church of London demonstrate, there were lengthy negotiations before a replacement document was issued on 24 December 1561 (and only made fully public on 19 January 1562). The evidence of the Acta reveals just how many players had something at stake in the planting of strangers in Sandwich. Whereas historians have suggested this was a neat transaction between the Crown and a local town council, orchestrated by Sir William Cecil and signed and sealed within a fortnight, the Acta suggest something much more complex, a rolling negotiation involving the Crown, Privy Council, the secretary of state, the Lord Keeper, the archbishop of Canterbury, the bishop of London, the warden of the Cinque Ports, the strangers already arriving in Sandwich, their home church in Hondschoote – and above all the Dutch Church in London and the authorities in Sandwich. While it is impossible to generalize from a single case study, the experience of Sandwich in 1561 suggests the need to look beyond the machinations of central government to understand what might be at stake in this unprecedented planting of immigrants in the early years of Elizabeth’s reign.

Appendix

Letters patent for the town of Sandwich, 24 December 1561. TNA, C66/981 m. 36 d.

Regina &c

To all our Iustices offycers mynysters & subiectes whatsoeuer gretinge knowe ye that for diuers especiall consideracions vs mouinge as well for the helpe repayre and amendemente of our Towne and porte of Sandwiche in our countie of Kente by plantinge in the same men of knowleage in sondrie handye craftes as also for the relife & conuenient placinge of certen douchmen alyens nowe residinge within our Citie of london beinge verie skilfull therein belonginge to the duche churche of straungers in our saide citie of of [sic] london We of our espiciall grace certen knowlege & mere mocione haue licensed geuene and graunted & by theise presentes for vs our heires & successors do lycence giue & graunt full power libertie and aucthoritie vnto our welbeloued the mayor Iurattes & comenaltie of our Towne & porte of Sandwiche aforesaide in our said countie of Kente & to ther successors [pg14] & vnto fraunces Boll Garret matte Peter Aell John hussucke William de husseer & ffraunces de Rade & to such other in the Whoall the nomber of xxvti duche men Alyens borne not denyzens belonginge to the said duche churche of alyens in our citie of london as by the moste reuerende father in god tharchbishoppe of Caunterbery diocezan of sandwiche afforesaide & by the reuerende father in god the Bishoppe of london & the warden of our Cinque portes vnder there seales are or shalbe signified vnto the said mayor Iurattes & comynaltie to be meete to be inhabitinge within our Towne of Sandwich aforesaide that aswell the said mayor Iurattes & cominaltie & there successors & euerie particuler person of them all also that the saide ffraunces Boll Garret matte Peter Aell Ihon hussecke william de husseer & ffraunces de Rade & the reste of the saide xxv douchmen alyens & euerie of them & in defaulte of euerie or any of them suche as in forme hereafter spe[c]ified shall succede them shall & maye lawfully haue enioye & vse all & euerie benefite comoditie thinge and thinges which hereafter in theis presented are expressed limyted appoynted or spe[c]ified that is to saye ffirste that the said mayor Iurattes & comenaltie may receave allowe & permitte to be inhabitinge within our said Towne and Porte of Sandewiche aforesaide the said ffraunces Boll Garret matt Peter Aell Iohn hussecke William de husseer & ffraunces de Rade & the residewe of the said xxv douche men alyens wyth there seruauntes and famylies beinge douch people or englishe and that the said mayor Iurattes & comynaltie & ther successors & euerie particuler persone of them may graunte sell or lette farme for time of seuen yeres or vnder to euery or anye of the said xxv douch men aliens for to dwell & inhabyte in euerie or any dwelling howse shoppe messuage or tenemente with thappertenances within the said Towne & porte in all ample maner as thei may do vnto anye of [sic] leiges or subiectes naturallie borne wythin this our Realme of Englande and yf any of the saide xxv duche mene alyens before mencion [sic] shall fortune to dye or otherwise to departe & leaue his or there inhabitinge within the said Towne or porte of Sandwiche that then from tyme to tyme in steede of euerie suche one so diinge or departinge or leauinge inhabitinge there they the said mayor Iurattes & comynaltie maye lawfully and safely as afforesaid receaue allowe & admitte to inhabite within the said Towne & porte of Sandwiche suche one other douchmen alien & his famelye as by the said archbisshoppe byshoppe & warden of our said cinque portes for the time beinge vnder there seales shalbe signified vnto the said maior Iurattes & comynaltie to be meete there to inhabyte & also lawfullie & safelye as aforesaide may graunte or sell & lett to ferme any dwelling howse shoppe messuage tenemente within the said Towne & porte of Sandwiche to euerie suche douche man alyen informe aforesaide hereafter to be signified and that the said mayor Iurattes & comynaltye shall & may lawfullye doe & execute the premisses from tyme to tyme wythout any contempte offence or displeasure of vs our heires or successors & wythout any forfayture payne penaltie or other losse or damage to be incurred forfeyte or susteaned the seuerall estatutes or actes of parliamente made in the firste yere of the reigne of kinge Richarde the third or in the xxxij yere of the reigne of our moste noble & dere father kinge Henrie theight or any other whatsoeuer acte estatute lawe custome proclamacione ordinaunce prohibicion restrente or other thinge whatsoeuer to the contrarie in any wise notwithstandinge and further that the said ffraunces Boll Garret matt Peter Aell Iohn hussecke William de husseer & ffraunces de Rade & the reste of the said xxv [pg15]douchmen alyens with ther seruauntes not exidinge [i.e. exceeding] the nomber of twelue in yche of there famylies & in the whole at anye one tyme not excedinge the number of xxv housholdes for the onlye exercisinge of the faculties of makinge of Sayes baye & suche other clothe or tapestrie as hathe not byne vsed to be made within this our Realme of Englande or for fysshinge in the seas may lawfully & safely inhabite within the said Towne & porte of sandwiche & exercise the said faculties aboue mencioned only & of none other and for those intentes & purposes may safely & lawfully hier & take ferme dwellinge howses shoppes messuages or tenementes in forme afforesaide and that vppon occacion of deathe or departure of any of the said xxv douchmen aliens from tyme to time diinge or departinge as afforesaide the other douchemen alyens suceedinge as aforesaid shall & may do the like to all intentes & purposes as he or they that shall fortune as to die or departe myght do all and euerie the said douchmen aliens in forme aforesaid do & execute the premisses without any contempte offence or displeasure of vs our heires or successors and without any payne penaltie or other forfayture losse or damage to be incurred forfayted or susteaned the said Generall estatutes or actes of parliamente as aforesaid or any other whatsoeuer acte statute prouision vsage custome proscriptione lawe or other thinge whatsoeuer to the contrarie hereof had or made in any wise notwithstandinge and theise our letters Patentes shalbe aswell vnto the said archbishoppe bisshoppe & lord warden for the tyme beinge alsoe vnto the said mayor Iurattes & comynaltie & euerie of them & to the said Aliens & to all & euerie other to whome it shall apperteane a full & sufficient warrante & discharge for the doinge & executinge of all the premisses and theise our lettres Patentes to continewe vntill by our other lettres Patentes vnder our greate seale of englande to the said maior Iurattes & comynaltie hereafter to be directed the same shalbe reuoked & repelled In wittenesse wherof &c. I B apud Westm’ xxiiijto die Decembris /

Notes

[fn]1|On the strangers in Sandwich, see Dorothy Gardiner, Historic haven: the story of Sandwich (Derby: Pilgrim Press, 1954); Helen C. Bentwich, ‘The strangers come to Sandwich’, in History of Sandwich in Kent (Deal: T. F. Pain, 1971), 37-42; Marcel F. Backhouse, ‘The strangers at work in Sandwich: native envy of an industrious minority 1561-1603’, Immigrants and Minorities 10:3 (1991), 70-99; Backhouse, ‘The Flemish and Walloon communities at Sandwich during the reign of Elizabeth I (1561-1603)’, University of Southampton PhD, 1991, published posthumously in an ‘abbreviated and revised version’ as The Flemish and Walloon communities at Sandwich during the reign of Elizabeth I (1561-1603) (Brussels: Paleis der Academiën, 1995), quoted at 5. The most recent and fullest history is Helen Clarke, Sarah Pearson, Mavis Mate and Keith Parfitt, Sandwich the ‘completest medieval town in England’: a study of the town and port from its origins to 1600 (Oxford and Oakville: Owbow Books, 2010).[/fn]

[fn]2|Says is a light, twilled woollen fabric resembling modern serge; bays, though the word is related to the modern ‘baize’, is a fabric of a finer lighter texture.[/fn]

[fn]3|Elizabeth to Sir Nicholas Bacon, 6 July 1561, as printed in William Boys, Collections for an history of Sandwich in Kent. With notices of the other cinque ports and members, and of Richborough (Canterbury: for the author, ‘1892’ [i.e. 1792]), 741.[/fn]

[fn]4|Boys, Collections, as the first document in ‘[Appendix] G’ (740-7), at 741. On Boys, see Jennett Humphreys, rev. John Whyman, ‘Boys, William (1735-1803)’, Oxford dictionary of national biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).[/fn]

[fn]5|Kent History and Library Centre [KHLC], Sa/ZB 13. Although Boys evidently had access to it, the document does not appear in the Historical Manuscripts Commission report on the papers of the Corporation of Sandwich in 1886. According to an exhibition tag preserved with it, the document was donated to the Guildhall at Sandwich by Alderman Jacobs in 1907. Henry Thomas Riley, ‘The Corporation of Sandwich’, in Fifth report of the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts. Part I. Report and Appendix (London: HMSO, 1876), 568a-571a; exhibition tag for ‘Queen Elizabeth’s permit for strangers to reside in Sandwich, 1561’, The Dover, Sandwich & Deal Local History Exhibition at the Town Hall, Dover, 1935. KHLC, Sa/ZB 13.[/fn][pg16]

[fn]6|Edward Hasted, The history and topographical survey of the county of Kent, 4 vols (Canterbury: for the author, 1778-1799), IV, 252-3. Hasted writes that ‘great use has been made of Mr. Boys’s Collections for Sandwich, published a few years ago; a work of great merit and authenticity; every thing worthy of notice in which, that could be made use of, consistent with the general plan of this History, is inserted in it’ (IV, vi).[/fn]

[fn]7|John Southerden Burn, The history of the French, Walloon, Dutch and other foreign Protestant refugees settled in England (London: Longman et al., 1846), 205, citing Hasted.[/fn]

[fn]8|Thomas Dorman, ‘Notes on the Dutch, Walloons and Huguenots at Sandwich in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries’, Proceedings of the Huguenot Society of London (1887-88), 205-40, at 207-08.[/fn]

[fn]9|W. Cunningham, Alien immigrants to England (London: Swan Sonneschein, 1897), 162-3. Cunningham cites his sources as ‘Boys, Sandwich: Appendix G, p. 740. SPDom Eliz xviii.9’ (163 n. 1). The latter is now The National Archives (TNA), State Papers (SP), 12/18, art. 9.[/fn]

[fn]10|‘Settlement of alien craftsmen at Sandwich, 1561’, in R. H. Tawney and Eileen Power, eds, Tudor economic documents, 3 vols (London: Longmans, 1924), 1: 297, with the citation ‘From S. P. D., Eliz., Vol. XVIII, No. 9, in W. Boys, Collections for a Hist. of Sandwich (1892, i.e. 1792), App. G, p. 740’.[/fn]

[fn]11|Francis W. Cross, History of the Walloon & Huguenot Church at Canterbury, Publications of the Huguenot Society of London, vol. XV (Canterbury: The Huguenot Society of London, 1898), 13. Cross here quotes the document from Dorman, ‘Notes’, 206: it is taken from KHLC, Sa/Ac4, fo. 180v. Sa/Ac4 is the yearbook known as ‘the Little Black Book’, described by Henry Thomas Riley for the Historical Manuscripts Commission in 1876 as ‘a smaller folio, of 376 leaves of paper, in fair condition, bound in old black embossed calf’; it deals with the mayoralties from Thomas Menesse in 1552 to John Tysar in 1567. Its continuation, Sa/Ac5, is ‘[t]he new Red Book’, ‘a thick folio, in fair condition, with paper leaves, bound in black embossed calf, now in tatters’, from Tysar’s mayoralty in 1568 to Richard Porredge’s in 1581. Riley, ‘The Corporation of Sandwich’, 568b.[/fn]

[fn]12|Gardiner, Historic haven, 174.[/fn]

[fn]13|Bentwich, History of Sandwich, 37.[/fn]

[fn]14|Lionel Williams, ‘The Crown and the provincial immigrant communities in Elizabethan England’, in British government and administration: studies presented to S. B. Chrimes, ed. H. Hearder and H. R. Loyn (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1974), 117-31, at 122.[/fn]

[fn]15|Joan Thirsk, Economic policy and projects: the development of a consumer society in early modern England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978), 43-4.[/fn]

[fn]16|Backhouse, ‘Strangers at work’, 74.[/fn]

[fn]17|Clark et al., Sandwich, 231. See also Andrew Pettegree, Foreign Protestant communities in sixteenth-century London (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), 141; Scott Oldenburg, Alien Albion: literature and immigration in early modern England (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014), 45- 6; Christopher Joby, The Dutch language in Britain (1550-1702): a social history of the use of Dutch in early modern Britain (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 61; Joby, ‘Flemish and Walloon exile communities in sixteenth-century Norwich: a case study of local and national responses to large-scale migration from the low Countries’, Immigrants and Minorities (2024), 1-39 (doi:10.1080/02619288.2024.2392831, at 4-5.[/fn]

[fn]18|Cross, History of the Walloon & Huguenot Church at Canterbury, 13.[/fn]

[fn]19|Yearbook, 19 January 1561/2. KHLC Sa/Ac4, fo. 195r.[/fn]

[fn]20|Boys, Collections, 740.[/fn]

[fn]21|On the Dutch Church, see J. Lindeboom, Austin Friars: history of the Dutch Reformed Church in London 1550-1950 (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1950). The Acta of the Consistory of the London- 17 ALAN STEWART Dutch church, vol. 1, 1 July 1560 to 18 August 1563, are in The London Archives, CLC/180/ MS07397/001 [hereafter Acta]; printed in A. A. Van Schelven ed., Kerkeraads-Protocollen der Nederduitsche Vluchtelingen-Kerk te Londen 1560-1568 (Amsterdam: Johannes Müller, 1921) [hereafter K-P].[/fn]

[fn]22|On Utenhove, see F. Pijper, Jan Utenhove: zijn leven en zijne werken (Leiden: A. H. Adrian, 1883); Andrew Pettegree, ‘Utenhove, Jan (1516-1566)’, ODNB.[/fn]

[fn]23|11 May 1561: ‘Fit mencio ab vtenhouio de Sandwico maritimo quod Sangicenses [i.e. Sandwicenses] supplicant apud magistatrum pro impetranda ibidem peregrinorum ecclesia’. (Acta, fo. 114r; K-P, 192-3).[/fn]

[fn]24|3 May 1561: ‘van Sandwijche verhaelt vtenhouius datter twe hondert husen toegelaten warden voer die vreembde nederlandischen ghemeente ex relatu Thomae Thomasz … Sayes, bayers trapeniers & laken-trapeniers & vischers & andere broeders dare onder’ (Acta, fo. 114v; K-P, 193, 194).[/fn]

[fn]25|24 June 1561: ‘vna cum conditionibus sandwicj’ (Acta, fo. 126v; K-P, 215).[/fn]

[fn]26|2 July 1561: ‘Venit ad ædes vtenhovij nuncius significans Sandwicenses venisse rogansque ut adesset ad ædes cuiussam [?] legisperitj anglj N. Emanhod. abit ille ad ædes petrj d[elaeni] inde ad ædes gerardj matte’ (Acta, fo. 129v; K-P, 220).[/fn]

[fn]27|2 July 1561: ‘Conuenitur a nostris fratribus flandris francisco boll et gerardo mat, et petro basser cum petro d[elaeno] et ioanne vtenhouio vna cum thoma thomasi ad edes legisperitj angli N. <E>manuhod iuxta templum paulinum sitas ab vna parte, ab altera parte a viris sandwicensibus illius senatus [?] nomine missis’ (Acta, fo. 130r; NP; K-P, 221).[/fn]

[fn]28|On Manwood, see Sybil M. Jack, ‘Manwood, Sir Roger (1524/5 – 1592), judge’, ODNB; N. M. Fuidge, ‘Manwood, Roger II (by 1532-92), of the Inner Temple, London’, House of Commons 1509- 1558; M. R. Pickering, ‘Manwood, Roger (by 1532-92), of Hackington, nr. Canterbury, Kent, and ‘St. Bartholomew’s House’, London’, House of Commons 1558-1603. For the spellings, see Acta, fos. 129v, 130r, 130v; K-P, 220, 221 (bis).[/fn]

[fn]29|29 June 1561. KHLC, Sa/Ac4, fo. 180r-v.[/fn]

[fn]30|2 July 1561: ‘considerantur conditiones expenduntur leges patriæ iubentur cras redire quo Emanuhod scriptum componeret quod vtrumque esset Reginæ offerendem [?] vt ibidem in Sandwico bene habitare et libere operari possint aliquot ecclesiæ nostræ fratres &c. quam obrem postridie sub horam quartam revertendum in ædes eiusdem legisperitj’ (Acta, fo. 130r; K-P, 221).[/fn]

[fn]31|3 July 1561: ‘Agunt inter se ministrj de statu fratrum Sandwicum profecturis. placet fratribus ut supplicatio exhibeatur Reginæ a duobus illis missis Sandwicensibus ^et Emahod^, comitante Thoma Thomide; et cupiunt a nobis adiungj’ (Acta, fo. 130v; K-P, 221).[/fn]

[fn]32|3 July 1561: ‘placet fratribus ut Thomas [a]deat legisperitum Mahohud ut videat an quid scripserit, referatque ad fratres responsum’ (Acta, fo. 130v; K-P, 221).[/fn]

[fn]33|4 July 1561: ‘Conueniunt seniores in templum post meridiem latius consulturj de conditionis transmigrationis germanicae … nihil concluditur’ (Acta, fo. 131v; K-P, 223).[/fn]

[fn]34|6 July 1561: ‘Referuntur læta de Sandwico et spes optimo, interim scribitur epistola ad ep[iscopum] l[ondinensem] cuius causam Antonius asch referent cum Toma Tomasz, qui postulabunt [?] commendaticiam Sandwicensium epistolam ad secretarium &c.’ (Acta, fo. 131v; K-P, 223).[/fn]

[fn]35|6 July 1561: ‘Legitur anglicum episcopi l[ondinensis] scriptum ad D[omnium] gulielmum Cecilium Secretarium, quod apud nos legitur iussu episcopi et consignatur et per Ludovicum Tyrium procuratur’ (Acta, fo. 131v; K-P, 223).[/fn]

[fn]36|8 July 1561: ‘Adsunt ministrj, seniores et diaconj ^multique alij ecclesiae nostrae fratres^. referetur de impetrata petitione peregrinorum concæssae ipsis apud Sandwicenses habitatione libera cum conditionibus scriptis &c.’ (Acta, fo. 132r; K-P, 224).[/fn]

[fn]37|8 July 1561: ‘Interim non displicet publicari inter fratres, concessum fratribus Religionis nomine profugis apud Sandwicenses libertatem habitandj, operandj, Ecclesiaeque negocio tractandj’ (Acta, fo. 132r-v; K-P, 224).[/fn]

[fn]38|8 July 1561: ‘Concluditur vt aliqui periti fratres Sandwicum proficiscantur maxime quj sint peritj in Saijs et baijs in minoribus pannis qui hic non conficiuntur et piscatoria arte’ (Acta, fo. 132r; K-P, 224).[/fn]

[fn]39|8 July 1561: ‘Hæcque maneant secreta. Interim sub pretextu horum quat[u]or conceditur [?] per magistratum Sandwicensem ut ^et^ & alij intermisceantur opifices’ (Acta, fo. 132r; K-P, 224).[/fn][pg18]

[fn]40|9 July 1561: ‘Conueniunt in templum Ministrj, in causam Sandwijcensem, refertur a Ioanne Beugrand. placere quibusdam fratribus ut uel hac nocte profiscantur Sandwycum, interim postridie conuenturos ipso Sandwicensium legatus in hac causa cum quibus agendum, de conditionibus secundum quas fratribus nostris apud Sandwicum agendam. Satisfit fratribus quod numerum attinet dominorum familias ibidem promittendorum sub scriptis conditionibus &c. Scribuntur quaedam conditiones postridie Sandwicensibus proponendæ in nostro consistorio, commitunturque Adriano van Doren collegendæ, deinde ab ipso Thoma Thomide anglice vertendae, atque ita denique Sandwicensibus offerendæ’ (Acta, fo. 132v; K-P, 224-5).[/fn]

[fn]41|10 July 1561: ‘Tandem accesserunt in templum nostrum Sandwicensium legatj, actum de mutuis vtrinque conditionibus, ubj se admodum tractabiles prestiterunt Sandwicenses’ (with the marginal note ‘Mutuæ cum Sandwicensi conditiones’) (Acta, fo. 133v; K-P, 226).[/fn]

[fn]42|13 July 1561: ‘Reuertuntur ab episcopo l[ondinensi] antonius asch et antonius Capella, quj refert quid episcopus l[ondinensis] responderit de Sandwicensibus … Non esse spem impetrandj iam pro Sandwicensibus sigillum, sed tamen ait episcopus nullam esse difficultatem, propterea quod ipse cancellarius dicat, alio stilj genere scribendum, sub festum Michaelis; [inte?]rim non minus licere fratribus iuris eodem pro festo’ (Acta, fo. 134v; K-P, 227). If Bacon meant the Michaelmas legal term, that ran from 9 October to 28 October 1561 (the Trinity term had ended on 25 June 1561). C. R. Cheney, rev. Michael Jones, A handbook of dates for students of British history (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press for the Royal Historical Society, 2000), 140, 132.[/fn]

[fn]43|13 July 1561: ‘Sub vesperam veniunt in templum ad nos ipsi legatj Sandwicensium, quj nobis idem de episcopo et cancellario referent, quod ipse dominus custos sigilli cancellarius dixisset non satis firma scripta esse, velle ut nobis et illis satisfiat’ (Acta, fo. 134v; K-P, 228).[/fn]

[fn]44|15 July 1561: ‘Legitur scriptum, a Jacobo Hyperio [i.e. Jacob de Buyzere] exaratum, de impetrada sandwicensi libertate, mittendum ad fratres flandros ne quam sinant huc venire sine fideli suae fide vitaeque testificatione impetratam ibidem libertatem. Cum hic nos certiores ex nobis episcopus londinensis et ex utrisque Sandwicenses certiores fieri debent’ (Acta, fo. 135r; K-P, 228).[/fn]

[fn]45|27 July 1561: ‘fratres flandrj Sandwicum profecturj conueniunt consistorium rogitant 1. quomodo fratres vltromarinj debeant nostro testimonio probarj, quomodo impetrabunt testimonia a nobis et episcopo. 2. de vsu disciplinas in ecclesia Sandwicensj exercendo. 3. de Ministro ipsis prouidendo in predicando Dei verbo et sacramentorum exhibitione disciplinæque usu retinendo, postulantque Iacobum hyperium. iubetur causa diferrj in aliud tempus nempe proximum Iovis diem’ (Acta, fo. 137r; K-P, 231).[/fn]

[fn]46|29 July 1561: ‘De Jacobo hyperio quod consulendum, an Sandwicum mittendus. Respondendum fratribus Sandwicum profecturis, ipsos graviter peccasse sue voluntario imperio, quo insulterunt nobis, vel invitis proripere volentibus ministrum Verbi’ (Acta, fo. 137r; K-P, 232).[/fn]

[fn]47|29 July 1561: ‘Huic illi videtur velle iugum reiicere cum nondum sit aliqua constitua ecclesia’ (Acta, fo. 137r; K-P, 232).[/fn]

[fn]48|31 July 1561: ‘Adsunt fratres Sandwicum profecturi, quibus superius scripta sunt indicanda. Eorum prolocutor Joannes Camphin. Proponitur qua provisione vel Petrus vel Jacobus Hyperius vel alius illis ad tempus sit concedendus Verbi Dei minister … Idem refertur Jacobo hyperio, illeque acquiescit’ (Acta, fo. 144v; K-P, 233).[/fn]

[fn]49|Mayor and jurats of Sandwich to the ministers and elders of the Dutch Church [in London], 4 August 1561. KHLC, Sa/ZB3/68. The letter was received on 6 August and read (translated into Dutch) in the consistory the following day, when it was also reported that a letter from the mayor of Sandwich had been delivered to Grindal by Antonius Elspet. 7 August 1561: ‘legitur epistola sandwicensis Magistratus ad ministros ecclesiæ londinogermanicæ pridie accepta. In qua volunt probatos mittj fratres et idoneos viros. Et ^germanice^ versa legitur coram Consistorio. Traditur item epistola sandwicensis magistratus Antonio Elspet procuranda in manus episcopi londinensis’ (Acta, fo. 146v; K-P, 235-6).[/fn]

[fn]50|10 August 1561: ‘Legitur epistola hondischotanorum ministrorum ecclesiae ibidem, coram missis ab ipsa fratribus duobus senioribus et consistorio nostro, circa opificia sandwicensis ecclesiae. Proponunt missi seniores consistorio an debeant pro scotica ipsorum lana solvere Reginae vectigal invehenda ad conficiendas suas sayas, sperare mediocritatem in domino futuram respondere in domino etc. An debeant ecclesie londino-germanicae ecclesie membra esse qui ex ultramarinis partibus huc veniunt, quod libenter agnoscunt; praestim quomodo testimonium postulandum, placere ipsis si patres familias accipi loco suarum familiarum. Respondent fratres nostri satis esse. Cupiunt scribi literas ad hondischotanos ecclesie ministros, quod hic apud nos causam egerint’ (Acta, fo. 147v; K-P, 237).[/fn][pg19]

[fn]51|See entries for 21 August 1561 (Acta, fos. 149v-150r; K-P, 240).[/fn]

[fn]52|24 August 1561: ‘petrus D[elaenus] et Ioannes utenhovius (ut erat inter seniores statutum) adeunt episcopum l[ondinensem] in causa Sandwicensj, vnaque cum illo scapha vehuntur lambetum ad edes episcopi Cantuariensis. Et impetrantur literæ ab episcopo Cantuariensj in quibus hæc et similia &c. 1. Concessum apud sandwicenses locum peregrinis germanicis ecclesiae londinogermanicae membris circa quaedam opificia versantibus sub testimonio tamen episcopi cantuariensis et londinensis episcopi, et ministrorum ecclesie londinogermanice. 2. Sibi satis esse, si sub testimonio episcopi l[ondinensis] et petrj D[elaeni] et Ioannis Vtenhouij ministrorumque, vt membra ecclesiæ germanicæ ibidem versantur, vt non opus sit ipsum pro testimonio accedere. 3. Huius scriptj formulam ut confecit episcopus londinensis, ita sibj eiusdem copiam seruat. Subscribitque ipsam authenticam episcopus Cantuariensis consignat[que]’ (Acta, fo. 150v; K-P, 241-2). The letter was given to the Sandwich envoys (staying at Thomas Thomas’ house) the following day, 25 August 1561. ‘denique in prandio idem scriptum tradit Sandwicum perferendum petrus duobis illos [emended to illis?] ex senatu Sandwicensj viris tum londinj presentibus in ædibus Thomæ Thomidæ &c.’ Acta, fo. 150r; K-P, 242). In a meeting on 10 August, Parker had let it be known that while he was pleased to be consulted with the bishop of London on the matter of the church in Sandwich, one meeting would be enough, so as not to burden him. 10 August 1561: ‘De conveniendo episcopo cantuariensi. Non displicet ut conveniatur a nostris ministris una cum episcopo londinensi in causa sandwicensis ecclesie; ut una vice satis convenisse [?] episcopum cantuariensem, ne nimium gravetur’ (Acta, fo. 148r; K-P, 237).[/fn]

[fn]53|26 August 1561: ‘Literae Gerardi Matte Sandwyco missae’ (marginal note) (Acta, fo. 151r; K-P, 242).[/fn]

[fn]54|26 August 1561: ‘Gerardi Matae literae leguntur in consistorio, quibus significant: 1. Joannem Broctuers ter hebdomada concionri. … 3. Circiter undecim ex Flandria familias venisse, quorum viros velit huc Londino professuros fidem’ (Acta, fo. 151r; K-P, 242).[/fn]

[fn]55|‘Refert Adrianus dorenus franciscum Boll et quosdam alios velle ut in Ecclesiæ acta referretur, quod propter ea in testimoniali Sandwicensium fratrum scripto, Se sinant Præfectos opificiorum atque magistros notarj, non quod alios sub se designatos velunt sua concessa prerogatiua priuarj, sed vt certo R[eginae] M[aiestati] numero commodius in [serviatur – in] Ecclesiæ [utilitatem]’ (Acta, fo. 161r; K-P, 245). The final line is not fully legible in the manuscript; the text here is supplied by K-P.[/fn]

[fn]56|23 September 1561: ‘Congressis in Consistorium fratribus, exponit Petrus D[elaenus] quam sit humaniter Sandwicj a Magistratu, ministris et populo anglico & germanico exceptus. Quod item Saundwicj et in pagis duobus sit concionatus, Denique quam feliciter ibidem Peregrinorum Ecclesia habitura videatur. Refert item exhibitum magistratuj Sandwicensi testimoniale fratrum ibidem morantium scriptum nostra & episcopj l[ondinensis] minibus subscriptum &c. Refert item quod fratribus flandris circiter vigintj exposuerit causas, cur oporteat ipsos Londinum petere ad publicam fidej suæ professionem, quibus illj acquieuerunt’ (Acta, fo. 165r-v; K-P, 250).[/fn]

[fn]57|See 24 September 1561: ‘Conueniunt Ministrj, placet vt pareti [?] locus aduentantibus Sandwico fratribus. Publicandum è suggesto vt testificati fratres Sandwicum profecturj nos conueniant dies dominico post meridiem in Consistorio examinandi et postridie ad publicam fidej professionem admittendi’ (Acta, fo. 165v; K-P, 250-1).. See also 28 September 1561: ‘legitur scriptum ministrorum ecclesiæ Sandwicensis, commendaticia pro fratribus Sandwico londinum aduentantibus. Habetur fidej inquisitio, eorum presertim quj Sandwicum sunt profecturj’ (Acta, fo. 167r; K-P, 252).[/fn]

[fn]58|‘Postero die quam soluimus Londino saluj ac incolumes (laus Deo) venimus Sandwijcum, omnibus pro voto nobis fluentibus: nisj quod Gerardus Matteuus præter promissj fidem tibj præstitam, demigrauerat in nostras ædes antequam huc veneramus: ex quibus dum fratrum precibus vltro nobis cedens rursus demigraret, orta est quædam inter fratres quosdam de me sinistra suspitio, et ex suspitione (ita vt fit) calumnia: quasj ego eum imperiose ad illum agendum impulissem: Nam et Gerardus idipsum sparserat apud quosdam: cum ego eo quo Sandwycum venj die apud plures instabam, et imprimis apud Thomam Thomæ ne omnino in illis ædibus agerem. Id postquam resciueram, recusaui omnino has ædes occupare, ne cu materiam offensionis præberem. Hijs cognitis ministry conuocant fratres omnes, ijsque rem ordine pandunt, meamque innocentiam declarant: simulque Gerardus qui tunc præsens erat coram omnibus contestatur, se non coactum sed voluntarium mihi cessisse, ac si omnis controuersia e medio sublata est’. Jacob de Buyzere to Pieter Deleen, 1 October 1561. Joannes Henricus Hessels, Epistvlae et tractatvs cvm reformationis tvm ecclesiae Londino-Batavae historiam illustrantes (1544-1622), Ecclesiae Londino-Batavae Archivvm, vol. II (Cambridge: typis Academiae svmptibvs ecclesiae Londino-Batavae, 1899), 175-7.[/fn][pg20]

[fn]59|9 October 1561: ‘Legitur germancium Utenhovii scriptum de causa sandwicensi et pro privilegio pro sandwico-belgica libertate confirmanda etc. De adiugentis praetori sandwicensi duobus e consistorio fratribus; et statuitur Placet fratribus ut semel in annum generalis (subducatur) ratio seniorum prefecti sub calendas novi anni’ (Acta, fo. 169r; K-P, 255).[/fn]

[fn]60|11 October 1561: ‘Venit ad aedes Petri Delaeni praetor sandwicensis, significans se non multos Londini dies mansurum, velle ut designati nostril fratres adeant episcopum londinensem cum literis Joannis Utenhovii, tum se ad nos proximo Martis die venturum auditurus episcopi londinensis responsum, priusquam cum designates viris ecclesiae germanicae adeat dominum sigilli custodem etc.’ (Acta, fo. 170r; K-P, 256-7).[/fn]

[fn]61|17 November 1561. KHLC Sa/Ac4, fo. 185v.[/fn]

[fn]62|27 November 1561: ‘Venit praetor sandwicensis cum suis juratis ad impetrandum concessi peregrinis privilegii sigillum, cuius gratia Petrus Delaenus scribit ad episcopum londinensem ut diguetur scribere ad sigilli custodem pro eo impetrando. Monent item nos ne quem Sandwicum mittant nisi bone fidei testimonium suaeque artis concesse habeant’ (Acta, fo. 177v; K-P, 269).[/fn]

[fn]63|30 November 1561: ‘Concluditur ut Petrus Delaenus nomine consistorii scribat ad fratres sandwicenses, ne adiungant alii quam permissi opifices’ (Acta, fo. 178r; K-P, 270).[/fn]

[fn]64|2 December 1561: ‘Scribit Petrus Delaenus nomine consistorii londino-germanici ad ministros sandwico-belgicae ecclesiae, de his sequentibus: Magistratum sandwicensem in nostro fuisse consistorio et non parum sollicitum de iis qui se eo contulerint et non sint concessarum per Reginalem Majestatem artium opifices’ (Acta, fo. 178r; K-P, 270).[/fn]

[fn]65|List made by Jacob de Buyzere, 28 November 1561. Boys, Collections, 741-2.[/fn]

[fn]66|Boys, Collections, 742.[/fn]

[fn]67|Manwood to the mayor and jurats of Sandwich, 27 November 1561. KHLC, Sa/ZB2/4.[/fn]

[fn]68|4 December 1561: ‘Venit ad nos pretoris sandwicensis famulus in causa magni reginei sigilli pro peregrinis impetrandi, significatque pretorem rogare ut adeamus episcopum londinensem ut dignetur illius ergo ad dominum secretarium Cecilium scribere. Decernunt fratres ut Petrus Delenus cum Adriano Doreno postridie adeant episcopum londinensem huius gratia’ (Acta, fo. 179; K-P, 171).[/fn]

[fn]69|4 December 1561: ‘Postero itaque die Petrus Delaenus et Adrianaus accedunt episcopum londinensem prescriptorum causa, quibus episcopus londinensis respondet non opus ut scribat ad dominum Cecilium, cum ante et literis et coram cum ipso saepe egerit, et is omnino affectus sit erga sandwicensem causam promovendam’ (Acta, fo. 179; K-P, 171).[/fn]

[fn]70|8 July 1561: ‘Referetur item de loco quodam Stampfort cuius mentionem fecit ipse Cecilius secretarius’ (fo. 132r; K-P, 224).[/fn]

[fn]71|On the Cecils and Stamford, see Joan Thirsk, ‘Stamford in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries’, in The making of Stamford, ed. Alan Rogers (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1965), 58-76.[/fn]

[fn]72|KHLC, Sa/Ac4, fo. 192: 22 December 1561. The officer was also to have one shilling as a fee.[/fn]

[fn]73|The mayor and jurats of Sandwich to Cecil, 31 December 1561 [draft or copy]. KHLC, Sa/ZB2/5.[/fn]

[fn]74|KHLC, Sa/AC4, fo. 194r: 8 January 1561[/2].[/fn]

[fn]75|KHLC, Sa/AC4, fo. 195r: 19 January 1561/2.[/fn]

[fn]76|Calendar of the patent rolls preserved in the Public Record Office prepared under the superintendence of the Deputy Keeper of the Records. Elizabeth volume II 1560-1563, eds J. H. Collingridge and R. B. Wernham (London: HMSO, 1948), p. 336.[/fn]

[fn]77|TNA, C66/981, m. 36d.[/fn]

[fn]78|Williams, ‘The Crown and the provincial immigrant communities’, 122.[/fn]

[fn]79|Privy Council, answer to certain petitions made by the town of Southampton, May? 1567. TNA, SP 15/13, fo. 168r-v, at 168v.[/fn][pg21]

[fn]80|Serjeant Nicholas Barham and Thomas Wotton to Sir William Cecil, 21 July 1567. TNA, SP 12/43, fo. 62. On Maidstone, see Valerie Morant, ‘The settlement of Protestant refugees in Maidstone during the sixteenth century’, Economic History Review, n.s. 4: no. 2 (1951), 210-14.[/fn]

[fn]81|‘The trewe Copye of the Lettres pattentes for the strangers in the Citie of Norwiche’. British Library [BL], Lansdowne MS 7, fos. 194v-201r.[/fn]

[fn]82|Copy of the decree, 23 July 1581. BL, Add. MS 27462, fo. 1r-v. The copy is here tipped into a Register of the Company of Mercers, etc of Sandwich, dating from 1655 to 1758, presumably as evidence of prior regulations. The copy is misdated to ‘1582’: the document belongs to 23 Eliz. See also KHLC, Sa/Ac5, fo. 266v, which has slight variations; quoted in Backhouse, Flemish and Wallon communities, 84-5.[/fn]

[fn]83|BL, Add. MS 27462, fo. 1r.[/fn]

[fn]84|Jane Andrewes and Michael Zell, ‘The population of Sandwich from the accession of Elizabeth I to the Civil War’, Archæologia Cantiana, 122 (2002), 79 – 100, at 94, citing KHLC SA/Ac5, fos. 140, 171.[/fn]

[fn]85|BL, Add. MS 27462, fo. 1r-v.[/fn]

[fn]86|Backhouse, Flemish and Walloon communities, 85 [Table IX].[/fn]

[fn]87|As reported in Privy Council minutes, 30 March 1582, Greenwich. TNA, PC 2/13, p. 659.[/fn]

[fn]88|Letter to Cobham, Privy Council minutes, 6 December 1581, Whitehall. TNA, PC 2/3, fo. 575r-v.[/fn]

[fn]89|Cobham to the Privy Council, 28 January 1581/2. TNA, SP 12/154, fo 37r (art. 14).[/fn]

[fn]90|Cobham to the Privy Council, 28 January 1581/2. TNA, SP 12/154, fo. 38v (art. 14).[/fn]

[fn]91|[?] to Cobham, 8 February 1581/2. TNA, SP 12/152, fo. (art. 40).[/fn]

[fn]92|See Cobham to the Privy Council, 28 January 1581/2, Blackfriars. TNA, SP 12/152 fos 37r-38v (art. 14).[/fn]

[fn]93|Draft of letter to the mayor of Sandwich, Privy Council minutes, 5 March 1581/2. TNA, PC 2/13, p. 633.[/fn]

[fn]94|Draft of letter to the mayor of Sandwich, Privy Council minutes, 5 March 1581/2. TNA, PC 2/13, p. 633.[/fn][pg22]