Читать книгу London in the Time of the Tudors онлайн

29 страница из 135

On the proclamation of war against France, the City was ordered to furnish a contingent of 300 men fully armed and equipped. There seems to have been no difficulty in getting the men. The money for their outfit was subscribed by the Companies, who raised £405, and so the men were despatched, clad in white with St. George’s Cross and Sword, and a rose in front and back.

In June 1516 Cardinal Wolsey addressed an admonition to the City: they must look to the maintenance of order; there was sedition among them; the statute of apparel was neglected; vagabonds and masterless men made the City their resort—an instructive commentary on the King’s ordinances of seven years before. The sedition of which Wolsey complained was due to the intense jealousy with which the people of London always regarded the immigration of aliens. They were always coming in, and the freemen—the old City families—were always dying out or going away. In 1500, and again in 1516, orders were issued for all freemen to return with their families to the City on pain of losing their freedom. Had they, then, already begun the custom of living in the suburbs and going into town every morning? The case against the foreigners is strongly put by Grafton:—