and French, to exercise their trades in the city. But it soon appeared that the Christian hospitality of our Queen and of the Government had not died. By an order in Council, dated Greenwich, 29th April 1599, the Queen required the Lord Mayor to “forbear to go forward.” The order was signed by the Archbishop of Canterbury (Whitgift), the Lord Keeper (Egerton), the Lord Admiral (Lord Howard of Effingham), by Lords North and Buckhurst, by the Controller of the Household (Sir William Knollys), by the Secretary of State (Sir Robert Cecil, younger son of Lord Burghley, and heir of his abilities), and by the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir John Fortescue).
Another petty persecution was similarly stopped in 1601. Sir Noel de Caron memorialized the Queen on behalf of several refugee tradesmen whose cases had been brought up by informers. Lord Buckhurst, who had succeeded to the office of Lord High Treasurer, wrote from Sackville House, 31st October 1601, directing the Attorney-General (Coke) to quash all actions at law against the strangers, the matter being under investigation by the Privy Council. (The documents described in this and the preceding paragraph are printed in Strype’s “Annals of Elizabeth,” vol. iv. pp. 352-3.)
Strype gives a quotation from Lambard’s “Perambulation of Kent,” denouncing “the inveterate fierceness and cankered malice of the English nation against foreigners and strangers.” Lambard begins by recalling “what great tragedies have been stirred in this realm by this our natural inhospitality and disdain of strangers, both in the time of King John, Henry his son, King Edward II., King Henry VI., and in the days of later memory.” He then declares his hope, “whatsoever note of infamy we have heretofore contracted among foreign writers by this our ferocity against aliens, that now at the last, having the light of the Gospel before our eyes, and the persecuted parts [members?] of the afflicted church as guests and strangers in our country, we shall so behave ourselves towards them as we may utterly rub out the old blemish.”
In April 1598 the King of France, Henri IV., enacted the Edict of Nantes, which is so named after the city in which his Council was held, and which was intended to quiet the religious commotions of France by a considerable, though fragmentary, toleration of the Huguenots. It was registered in the metropolitan Parliament at Paris on 15th February 1599. Our Queen Elizabeth wrote to the English Ambassador in Paris: “We doubt not that you bear in mind how advantageous it is to our tranquillity, and to that of our kingdom, that the French party which makes profession of being Reformed be maintained. And therefore we desire that on all occasions, when you can contribute to make the Edict observed, you will not spare yourself.”
With regard to the spiritual office of Superintendent of Foreign Churches in England, the accession of Elizabeth found it vacant, John a Lasco having finally left our shores. But the churches found a worthy successor in a refugee gentleman belonging to a noble family of Ghent, who had been an elder under a Lasco in the Dutch Church of London. John Utenhove [ab Utenkovett], having been ordered to quit Ghent (about 1545), withdrew to Strasburg. In 1547 he was Cranmer’s guest at Canterbury, and, during the reign of Edward VI. usually resided in London.
He visited Zurich in 1549, with letters of introduction describing him as “That nobleman of Ghent, alike distinguished by his birth and manners as by his faith and piety.” To these letters Bullinger responded, “That nobleman of Ghent, who is in every way so distinguished, far exceeded your commendation of him.” In Strasburg he was known as “a disciple of the French Church — a man of learning and of godly judgment.” In our State Paper Office there is a letter to the Queen from Utenhove, dated London, 11th December 1559, in which he states, that for maintaining the truth of the Gospel he had been expelled from his country by the Emperor fifteen years ago. After the death of Utenhove, Bishop Gindal was requested to become Patron and Superintendent, and, he having accepted the charge by the Queen’s permission, it thereafter remained with the bishops of the see of London, ex officio. “The widow of Utenhove, with three children boarded with her,” is an entry in the lists of strangers in 1568.
“Died on the 24th March 1603 (n.s.), Queen Elizabeth, who, having at her coming to the crown promised to maintain the truth of God and to deface superstition, with this beginning with uniformity continued; she yielded her land (as a sanctuary to all the world groaning for liberty of their religion), flourishing in wealth, honour, estimation every way” (I borrow the language of Archbishop Abbot, quoted in Strype’s “Annals,” vol. iv. page 359.)
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