Protestant Exiles from France/Historical Introduction - section III
Section III.
THE HOSPITALITY OF JAMES I.
The Tudor Queen's example of hospitality was followed by her Scottish successor. He wrote assuring letters both to the Dutch and to the French refugees. He recognised the two special causes of the renown of the Queen, his deceased sister — first, her zeal for the worship of God; and secondly, her hospitality to strangers. He declared his esteem for those who had left their native lands for the sake of religion, and also the obligations under which they had laid their adopted country by their contributions to manufactures, useful arts, and political economy.
His letter to the Dutch refugee church I copy from Strype (“Annals,” vol. iv. page 386):—
“Messieurs,— Encore que vous me n’ayez vu jusqu’à present, si est ce que je ne vous suis point étranger ni inconnu. Vous savez quant à ma religion quel je suis, non seulement par le bruit que vous avez pu entendre de moi, mais aussi par mes écrits en lesquels j’ai veritablement exprimé quel est l’affection de mon âme. C’est pourquoi je n’ai besoin d’user de beaucoup de paroles pour vous representer ma bonne volonté envers vous, qui êtes ici refugiés pour la religion.
“Je reconnois que deux choses ont rendu la Reine, ma Soeur défunte, renommée par tout le monde. L’une est le désir, qu ’elle a toujours eu, d’entretenir et fomenter le Service de Dieu en ce royaume. Et l’autre est son hospitalité envers les étrangers — à la louange de laquelle je veux hériter.
“Je sais bien, par le temoignage des Seigneurs de ce royaume (comme vous m’avez dit), que vous avez toujours prié Dieu pour elle, et que vous n’avez outrepassé votre devoir. Je sais aussi, que vous avez enrichi ce royaume de plusieurs artifices, manufactures, et sciences politiques.
“Si l’occasion se fut presentée lorsque j’etois encore éloigne comme en un coin du monde, je vous eusse fait paroitre ma bonne affection. Mais comme je n'ai jamais taché ni voulu empiéter sur le bien d’aucun Prince, aussi, puisque maintenant il a plu à Dieu me faire Roi de ce pays, je vous jure que si quelqu’un vous moleste en vos Eglises, vous vous adressant à moi, je vous vengerai. Et encore, quoique vous ne soyez pas de mes propres Sujets, si est-ce que je vous maintiendrai et fomenterai, autant que Prince qui soit au monde.”
To the French refugees he wrote: “Je vous protégerai ainsi qu’il convient à un bon Prince de defendre tous ceux qui ont abandonné leur patrie pour la religion.”[1] He kept his word royally, though he drew rather pitifully upon their gratitude by asking the London pasteurs to write in his favour against John Welsh, and against the other victims of the persecution which we were carrying on in Scotland beneath hypocritical forms of law. The French and Dutch ministers wrote “a long letter in elegant Latin” to the ministers of Edinburgh, dated from London, 26th February 1606; the French ministers signed themselves Robertus Masso Fontanus, Aaron Cappel, and Nathaniel Marius.”- “By defective and otherwise misleading statements, the Government succeeded in inducing a few foreign ministers, who had not the means of judging of the merits of the case, to blame the imprisoned ministers, and to vindicate the Government.”[2] The malignant rumours with which the king and his councillors had poisoned the minds of the refugees were contradicted by the good confessors in a Latin letter, dated from the Castle of Blackness, and addressed to the Presbytery of Edinburgh, “with the intention that it should be sent to the ministers of the French and Flemish Churches in London, for their better information.”
We now lose the assistance of Strype, but a valuable auxiliary succeeds him. The Camden Society volume entitled “Lists of Foreign Protestants and Aliens resident in England 1618-1688, edited by Wm. Durrant Cooper, F.S.A. (1862),” is prefaced with useful information by the editor. Lord Treasurer Buckhurst now appears in his new title of Earl of Dorset, and Secretary Sir Robert Cecil has been raised to the peerage as Earl of Salisbury. The London Companies of weavers, cutlers, goldsmiths, &c, so much esteemed for their feasts and funds, seem to have prevailed on those statesmen to listen to them, and at least to make a show of busying themselves for their protection against alien industry. It was complained on 22d July 1605 “that the English merchants were injured because foreigners were allowed to export baize and other goods without paying double custom.”
In July 1615 the Weavers' Company urged that “the strangers employed more workmen than were allowed by statute, and then concealed them when search was made — that they lived more cheaply and therefore sold more cheaply than the English — that they imported silk lace contrary to law,” &c. In 1621 a longer plaint survives [the original spelling may be seen in Durrant Cooper’s Introduction, page v.]: — “Their chiefest cause of entertainment here of late was in charity to shroud them from persecution for religion; and, being here, their necessity became the mother of their ingenuity in devising many trades, before to us unknown. The State, noting their diligence, and yet preventing the future inconvenience, enacted two special laws, that they should entertain english apprentices and servants to learn these trades — the neglect whereof giveth them advantage to keep their mysteries to themselves, which hath made them bold of late to devise engines for working of tape, lace, ribbon, and such, wherein one man doth more among them than seven Englishmen can do; so as their cheap sale of those commodities beggareth all our English artificers of that trade and enricheth them. Since the making of the last statute they are thought to be increased ten for one, so as no tenement is left to an English artificer to inhabit in divers parts of the city and suburbs, but they take them over their heads at a great rate. So their numbers causeth the enhancing of the price of victuals and house rents, and much furthereth the late disorderly new buildings which is so burdonous to the subject that His Majesty hath not any work to perform for the good of his commons (especially in cities and towns) than by the taking of the benefit of the law upon them, a thing which is done against his own subjects by common informers. But their daily flocking hither without such remedy is like to grow scarce tolerable.”
In 1606 “double custom” was imposed upon baise as upon cloth exported. Lord Dorset seems to have been inclined to discourage further immigration, on the plea that foreign persecutions had ceased. That noble Lord died in 1608, and Salisbury, who succeeded him as Lord High Treasurer, died in 1612. The complaints made against refugees in 1615 and 1621 were each responded to by the taking of a census, one in 1618 and another in 1621. The lists collected in 1618 are printed in the appendix to the Camden Society volume, and the lists of 1621 in the body of the volume, pp. i to 26. These lists rather injured the case of the complainants by revealing that they had exaggerated the number of foreigners and overstated the proportion between foreign and native tradesmen. On the 30th July 1621 a Board of Royal Commissioners was appointed to consider the laws affecting aliens, and to propound regulations for the liberty of their wholesale merchants and for enforcing the restrictions upon retailers. On 7th September 1622 (says Mr Cooper), “the Commissioners ordered that, as the retailing of English goods by strangers was hurtful to home trade, all strangers selling to strangers English goods should pay half the duty on such commodities as would be paid for custom on export, &c, &c. But little further took place. Any restrictions upon the refugees were unpopular with the mass of the people, however desirable they might appear to the chartered companies.” — (Introduction, page x.)
King James was anxious to be independent of foreign countries for silk. He therefore offered encouragement for the planting of mulberry trees, and the home rearing of silk-worms. The refugees were able and disposed to promote the enterprise, and for this reason the King’s letter, dated 16th November 1608, may be inserted here. The letter was addressed to the Lord-Lieutenant of each county.
“James R.,
Right trusty and well beloved, we greet you well. It is a principal part of that Christian care, which appertaineth to sovereignty, to endeavour by all means possible as well to beget as to increase among their people the knowledge and practice of all arts and trades, whereby they may be both weaned from idleness and the enormities thereof which are infinite, and exercised in such industries and labours as are accompanied with evident hopes not only of preserving people from the shame and grief of penury, but also raising and increasing them in wealth and abundance — the scope which every freeborn spirit aimeth at, not in regard of himself only and the ease which a plentiful estate bringeth to every one in his particular, but also in regard of the honour of their native country, whose commendations is no ways more set forth than in the people’s activeness and industry.
“The consideration whereof having of late occupied our mind (who always esteem our people’s good our necessary contemplations) we have conceived, as well by the discourse of our reason as by information gathered from others, that the making of silk might as well be effected here as it is in the kingdom of France, where the same hath of late years been put in practice. For neither the climate of this Isle so far distinct or different in condition from that country (especially from the hither parts thereto) but that it is to be hoped, that these things which by industry prosper there may by like industry, used here, have like success ; and many private persons, who for their pleasure have bred of those worms, have found no experience to the contrary, but that they may be nourished and maintained here, if provision were made for planting of mulberry trees, whose leaves are the food of the worms.
“And therefore we have thought good hereby to let you understand, that — although in suffering this invention to take place we do shew ourselves somewhat an adversary to our profit (which in the matter of our customs for silk brought from beyond the seas will receive some diminution) — nevertheless, when there is question of so great and public utility to come to our kingdom and subjects in general, and whereby (besides multitudes of people of both sexes and all ages) such as in regard of impotency are unfit for other labour may be set on work, comforted and relieved, we are content that our private benefit shall give way to the public. And therefore, being persuaded that no well-affected subject will refuse to put his helping hand to such a work, as can have no other private end in us but the desire of the welfare of our people, we have thought good in this form only to require you (as a person of the greatest authority in the county of _____, and from whom the generality may receive notice of our pleasure with more conveniency than otherwise) to take occasion, either at the Quarter Sessions or at some other public place of meeting, to persuade and require such as are of ability (without descending to trouble the poor for whom we seek to provide) to buy and distribute in the county of _____ the number of ten thousand mulberry plants, which shall be delivered unto them at our city of _____ at the rate of three farthings the plant, or at 6s. the hundred, containing five-score plants.
“And, because the buying of the said plants at this rate may at the first seem chargeable to our said subjects whom we would be loth to burden, we have taken order that in March or April next there shall be delivered at the said place a good quantity of mulberry seeds, there to be sold to such as will buy them — by means whereof the said plants will be delivered at a smaller rate than they can be afforded being carried from hence — having resolved also in the meantime that there shall be published in print a plain Instruction and Direction both for the increasing of the said mulberry trees, the breeding of the silk-worms, and all other things needful to be understood for the perfecting of a work, every way so commendable and profitable as well to the planter as to those that shall use the trade.
“Having now made known unto you the motives as they stand with the public good wherein every man is interested — because we know how much the example of our own Deputy-Lieutenants and Justices will further this cause — if you and other your neighbours will be content to take some good quantities hereof to distribute upon your own lands, we are content to acknowledge thus much more in this direction of ours — that all things of this nature tending to Plantation, increase of science, and works of industry, are things so naturally pleasing to our own disposition as we shall take it for an argument of extraordinary affection towards our person — besides the judgment we shall make of the good disposition in all those that shall express in any kind their ready minds to further the same — and shall esteem that in furthering the same they seek to further our honour and contentment.
“Having seen in few years past that our brother the French King hath, since his coming to the crown, both begun and brought to perfection the making of silks in his country, where he hath won to himself honour and to his subjects a marvellous increase of wealth, we would account it no little happiness to us if the same work, which we began among our people, with no less zeal to their good than any Prince can have to the good of theirs, might in our time produce the fruits which there it hath done — whereof we nothing doubt, if ours will be found as tractable and apt to further their own good now the way is shewed them by us their Sovereign, as those of France have been to conform themselves to the direction of their King.
“Given under our signet at our Palace of Westminster the sixteenth of November in the sixth year of England, France, and Ireland, and of Scotland the two and fortieth.”[3]
The royal scholar gloried chiefly in hospitably "entertaining" foreign divines and literati. His grant under the Privy Seal to the learned Casaubon has left on record the sentiments which he desired to be associated with his memory:—
“James, by the grace of God, &c. To all to whom theis presents shall come, greeting. — As our progenitours have heretofore been carefull to call into their Realmes persons of eminent learning agreeing in profession of religion with the Church of England, and here to make use of them for the furtherance of learning and religion among their people, as namely of Paulus Fagius, Martin Bucer, Peter Martir, and others, soe have wee, in regard of the singular learning of Isaac Casaubon, and of his concurrancie with us and the Church of England in profession of religion, invited him out of Fraunce into this our realme here to make his aboad and to be used by us as we shall see cause for the service of the church. And for his better support and mayntenance during the tyme of his aboade here we are pleased to give unto him, and of our especiall grace, certayne knowledge, and meare motion, have given and graunted, and by theis presents for us, our heirs and successors, doe give and graunt unto the saide Isaac Casaubon a certeyne annuitye or pencion of Three hundred pounds of good and lawfull money of England by the yeare To have hould and yearely to receave the said annuitye or pention of Three hundred pounds by the yeare to the said Isaac Casaubon or his assignes during our pleasure. The same to begynn ymediatlye from the feast of the birth of our Lord God last past out of the Treasure of us our heires and successors, remaining in the Exchequer of us our heires and successors by the hands of the Treasurer and Chamberlain of us our heires and successors there for the tyme being. The same to be paide at the fower usuall tearmes of the yeare, That is to saie, at the feastes of the annunciation of the blessed Virgin Marie, the Nativitie of Saint John Baptist, Saint Michaell the Archangel, and the birth of our Lord God, by even portions, although expresse mention, &c.
“Witnes our selfe at Westm : the Nynteenth day of Januarye [1611?] Per Breve de private sigillo,” &c.[4]
King James divided the Scottish Church into two parties, viz., Conformitanes to government by prelates, and “Nonconformitanes,” i.e., stedfast Presbyterians. Near the end of his reign there was an opportunity for a generous rivalry between those parties. I quote from Calderwood’s History:— “1622. About this time there was a collection through the countrie for the Kirk of France. It began in Edinburgh upon the twelf and endit upon the twentie-sixt of Februar. The Nonconformitanes exceedit all others verie farre in their liberalitie. The servants maids and boyes were not behind for their part, for they contributed foure thousand merks. The summe of the whole amounted to threttie or threttie-five thousand merks. The ministers were forced to confesse that the Nonconformitanes were the honestest men in their fiockes.”