Читать книгу London in the Time of the Tudors онлайн

109 страница из 135

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.