Interpretations of the Influence of the Immigrant Population in Kent in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

INTERPRETATIONS OF THE INFLUENCE OF THE IMMIGRANT POPULATION IN KENT IN THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES ELIZABETH EDWARDS Specialised research into European migrants to Kent from the thirteenth to the twentieth century tends to have been done by two separately identifiable kinds of researchers: family historians and the Huguenot Society, and historians of a specific local community, such as the Walloons in Canterbury and Sandwich. 1 The tercentenary of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1985 provided a focus for a revival of studies into the immigrant communities in England and dovetailed with the growing interest in family history.2 Recognition of the religious profile of stranger communities in Kent was woefully dealt with in Religion and Society in Kent,3 and, although their role in the economy of the County was alluded to throughout The Economy of Kent,4 the focus was necessarily on the wider scope of the book. The aim of this article is to start to bring together the study of religious and economic migrants from the near Continent to Kent in the early modern period; to shift the focus from local to regional, from the separate groups to all types of immigrant, and to look at the different waves of movement, by drawing on the studies of specialist historians.5 Historians have to set bounds to their studies and may be led by the market place as much as by their own interests, but too much confinement spawns myth and can fail to make the connections which can enhance understanding. At their best local research studies can provide invaluable detail for those with a specific local interest and material for those who are seeking to interpret the wider picture; at their worst they can distort the role of individual local communities Within their surrounding region. This is not an attempt to provide statistical evidence of the incidence and pattern of immigration,6 but to set those researches within a wider Kentish context in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The writer's debt to those who have done 275 ELIZABETH EDWARDS much of the primary research will be apparent from the citations in this article. Migration between mainland Europe and the British Isles did not begin with the religious refugees in the wake of the Reformation, nor did it begin with the invitations to Flemish weavers to bring their skills to make the English wool trade an effective competitor in late medieval international trade. The invasions in the first millennium ensured that Britain absorbed migrant communities within its own dynamic, culminating with the Norman French in the eleventh century. Migration is an integral factor within societies which interact with each other and its consequences are wide and deep. Alongside separately identifiable communities which arise from large-scale migration, there is always inter-marriage and assimilation. Together with exclusivity of some economic activities, new markets are opened and contacts extended. Awareness of the differences of cultural practices of immigrants and hosts alike is heightened, but at the same time ideas are spread, absorbed and transmuted to something new that has a life of its own. Samuel Smiles painted a wonderful Victorian picture of the early economic migrants from the Low Countries, Italy and Germany, who taught the 'idle English' to develop effective industries.7 Although his creative narrative of the motives for, and effects of, Edward III's policies may cause us to raise our eyebrows today, his brief appendix does set the scene for the range of goods, trade and people that spread throughout Europe during the later middle ages. Over a hundred years later, and coinciding with the tercentenary of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, Cottret also pointed out that apart from the main waves of refugees occasioned by particular events, reasons for migration were very varied. 8 The bounds set in this article are, however, those traditionally set around early modern migration, that is from the early sixteenth century to the last quarter of the seventeenth century. The enormous impact of the Flemish and Walloon refugees who arrived in Sandwich from the 1560s and doubled the population by 15809 should not allow us to forget that greater numbers went to London, Norwich 10 and Southampton, as well as those in Colchester," and similar numbers migrated within the Low Countries to Middleburg in Zeeland, and later to Amsterdam and other Holland (sic) towns. Similarly, the later waves of Huguenots who came over to England during the reign of Louis XIV, as the policy towards non-Catholics hardened, were initially smaller than those who migrated to the Dutch Republic, and even when they later moved on to England it was London which remained the main magnet. Much of the literature on immigrant 276 IMMIGRANT POPULATION IN KENT IN THE 16TH AND 17TH CENTURlES communities has therefore focused on London,12 thus leaving a gap between the specialised local studies and the national implications focused on the capital. The difficulties in taking a more regional approach will become clear as the collected evidence is discussed. Nevertheless the local impact of migrant populations was often very significant, whether beneficial to the economy or putting pressure on resources. The fluidity between the migrant populations both within Kent and across the South and East of England is also a major part of the story. For example, as well as the movement between the Kentish communities, Backhouse cites 56 strangers moving from Sandwich to Norwich as early as 1565, with others moving on to London, Dover, Colchester and back to the Continent, both to the Netherlands and Germany. 13 And in the early seventeenth century Canterbury weavers under economic pressure migrated to the silk weaving centre at Spitalfields in London.14 In his acknowledgements Couret sees the story of the Huguenots in England as an 'epic' and talks of the 'poor refugees', saying: The Huguenot epic, with its emotional appeal and heroic overtones, lends itself to a two-dimensional approach: it was at the same time mythical and realistic, sometimes bordering on the trivial. .. and there was an implicit comparison in my mind between the Huguenot settlement of yore and more recent trends of immigration. Our present concept of a 'refugee' is largely derived from that time. 15 But this Huguenot 'epic' is only part of the whole picture and the following narrative of the main waves wi II set the context for the later broad survey of the stranger migrants in sixteenth- and seventeenthcentury Kent. Migration Periods There are five identifiable periods of religious migrations from the near Continent in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries each of which was a result of changing politico-religious circumstances: 1540s-1550s; 1567-68; 1572-3; 1681; and 1685. Each of these waves was underpinned by strong economic motives. The complex history of the Low Countries until 1830, contrasted with the cohesion of France as a nation state under Francis I by the early years of the sixteenth century, has led to greater confusion over the identity of 􀃎alloons, Flemings and Dutch migrants, as opposed to the clearly 􀃏dentifiable Huguenot refugees from Catholic France. This confusion 1s doubly compounded by the French names associated with Walloons and the close links between them and the Huguenots in 277 ELIZABETH EDWARDS their later settlements. Grell overcame this to some extent by calling his collection of essays Calvinist Exiles in Tudor and Stuart England, but as its title implies the book deals predominantly with religious exiles. 16 For purposes of clarity the following definitions are used here: French, or more normally Huguenot, for native French-born migrants; Dutch is used only for the early migrants coming from the whole of the Netherlands before the revolt in 1572 against Spain; thereafter Fleming is used for Flemish speakers from the Spanish Netherlands and Walloon for French-speaking Netherlanders from Northern France and the Spanish Netherlands. These waves of immigrants are relatively easy to identify; their arrival, settlement and further movements were usually the subject of official legislation, particularly in the sixteenth century, and they normally came in groups large enough to be established as a significant minority within the receiving community. But even before the first major influx in the 1540s, immigrants from the Netherlands had been arriving in small numbers during the reign of Henry VIII. These early religious refugees tended to be individual family groups with connections, either family or business, already well-established in England and they quickly became integrated within the native population. Archbishop Cranmer was originally critical of refugee migrants, but during the reign of Edward VI moderated his views and was instrumental in the Charter of 1550 which encouraged protestant immigrants. Was this positive incentive to calvinist refugees part of the strategy to strengthen the protestantism of the English Reformation, which had so signally failed to accept Lutheranism after the Henrician break with Rome? The first wave of immigrants coincided with the spread of the calvinist organisation from Geneva to France and the Netherlands, as well as with the Counter Reformation embodying the catholic re-affirmation at the Council of Trent. These clarifications of the distinctions between European Protestantism and orthodox Catholicism were echoed in the active development of an English Church during the reign of Edward VI. A large proportion of the early Dutch refugees were from Flanders 17 and had the wherewithal to make good their escape from the persecution arising from the strengthening of the Spanish Catholic resolve in the Netherlands. These Flemings came from an urbanised area where the textile trade had created an early example of full economic infrastructure, albeit under pressure by this time and showing signs of decline. Trade, through Antwerp, between the north-western European countries was well-established with agents and families crossing boundaries with regularity. The earlier influences of the fourteenthand fifteenth-century economic migrants who helped to establish the 278 IMMIGRANT POPULATION IN KENT IN THE 16TH AND 17TH CENTURIES thriving English textile industry in the Weald and East Anglia were part of the cultural history, and whatever the later trading fluctuations and tensions, the links were already well-entrenched. The first wave of migration hardly had time to get established before the resurgence of Catholicism under Mary and her attempts through her marriage to create a catholic alliance led to an exodus of many of the refugees to Emden in the securely protestant area of west Germany. These early refugees had not settled in any large numbers in Kent, but in London. The Kentish story proper begins with the accession of Elizabeth in 1558. But before this the basis for what followed was well set. The refugees were not dispossessed peasants and labourers being driven from their lands by territorial overlords. They were not without sufficient funds, often had a basic education and were largely from skilled artisan or even minor professional families. They were escaping from the risk of persecution by a deeply catholic system which presented a threat not only to their new religion, but also to their own economic survival. Often they had shown prescience in escaping before persecution began. And most importantly they brought their trades and skills with them, enabling them to establish virtually self-supporting communities where they settled in larger numbers at Canterbury and Sandwich, although there is little evidence for how they managed in smaller communities. The well-established communities then became magnets for further migrants who would find a welcome with those who spoke a common language and had an established economic, religious and social infrastructure. At the same time as the mass migrations there were clerics and scholars who sought refuge in England which allowed them freedom to pursue their own beliefs within a relatively tolerant environment, and to provide, with the encouragement or acquiescence of the authorities, the basis for separate calvinist churches. Along with the Polish John a Lasco, who came at the invitation of Archbishop Cranmer, and the German Martin Bucer came three who were important for the later stranger church in Canterbury: Jan Uitenhove, a Fleming from Ghent, the Walloon, Fran9ois de la Riviere, and Pierre Alexander, whose origins are unclear. 18 All three came to Canterbury, but a Lasco moved on to found the stranger Church at the Austin Friars in London, given to the Walloon congregation there. Uitenhove and de la Riviere remained in Canterbury until fleeing to Emden on the accession of Mary, but Uitenhove returned from Germany in 1559 bringing with him the Edwardian Charter of 1550 to reassert the privileges of the immigrants. Although under the Elizabethan regime he was unable to gain the same freedoms as that charter had given he 279 ELIZABETH EDWARDS was still able to play an important part in establishing the first organised stranger church in Canterbury. 19 The European situation in the 1560s was becoming increasingly complex and dangerous for protestants. The succession of Philip II in Spain had re-invigorated the Inquisition in the Netherlands and the French Wars of Religion which broke out after the relative stability under Francis I and Henry II made the French Calvinists a force to be suppressed. By I 560 Calvinism was a well-organised, second generation religious grouping nearing one-eighth of the population of France and centred mainly around the commercial urban areas in the west of France. For the early leadership of the revolt in the Netherlands, the issue was not one of protestant against catholic, but Netherlander against Spaniard. The rule of Philip II was one of aggressive subjugation and taxation. While his father, the emperor Charles V, had never fully relinquished his Low Countries roots, the remaining territories left to Philip on his father's abdication, were securely centred on the power of Spain.20 By using the terror of the Inquisition as a political tool and establishing unacceptable governors in Brussels, the King and his successors alienated both local leading catholics and the new protestant communities. The northern provinces in the early part of the revolt were often less protestant than Flanders, but gradually the outrage of the whole region coalesced and eventually the northern provinces became outwardly protestant while those in the south continued within the catholic fold of Spain. The large scale exodus of refugees from France, often via the Channel Islands, and from Flanders, descending as often as not on London, gave immediate rise to the establishment of colonies in provincial centres like Sandwich (1561), Norwich (1565) and Southampton (1567-8).21 The majority of these centres already had close commercial and trading links with the near Continent and would have been familiar with both Flemings and Walloons and their interests. The pressures on the capital and the benefits to the declining trade of the provincial towns were quickly perceived and the crown set in motion the removal of Flemings from London to Sandwich, augmented by a separate Walloon congregation in 1568. The royal warrant of 1561 which directed the Sandwich authorities to accept the Dutch refugees, restricted to no more than twenty-five households with a maximum of twelve persons each, did not foresee the rapid expansion which at first enhanced and later threatened the economy of the town. Concurrent with the settlements at Sandwich evidence begins to appear of a stranger church in Canterbury in 1567, and the first thirty-six families were settling in Maidstone. 22 Most commentators 280 IMMIGRANT POPULATION IN KENT IN THE 16TH AND 17TH CENTURIES of these settlements agree that because the Maidstone immigrants remained under the jurisdiction of the archbishop and did not have their own separate establishment, they tended to remain in smaller numbers and more importantly to anglicise and integrate. 23 This integration of a small but defined and authorised group should alert us to the possibility that interpretations of the main picture should not make assumptions about the immigrants in Kent based only on the evidence of Sandwich and Canterbury. Nevertheless evidence is thin for the period 1567-73 until the effects of the events in Europe in 1572 resulted in the third wave of French, Flemish and Walloon refugees. The two major events were the second revolt of the Netherlands in 1572 as a consequence of which the north finally broke from Spain and formed the United Provinces of the Dutch Republic, offering sanctuary to the protestant migrants from the rump of the Spanish Netherlands. Secondly, in the same year, the St Bartholomew's Day Massacre coinciding with the marriage of the Catholic princess to the Protestant King Henri of Navarre brought the first significant influx of French refugees. By now these new refugees had somewhere to go where they knew their compatriots or co-religionists had already received a careful welcome and had established an economic role within the local communities. Their reception was mainly sympathetic although there was now the potential for conflict between the tenets of Calvinism and the practices of the English Protestant church. The size of the immigrant community in Sandwich, now a unity of Flemings and Walloons, became a real threat to the small native population and the beginnings of the establishment of a stranger population in Canterbury by 1574 led to the steps taken to remove 100 families of French speakers to the larger town after an official enquiry; the move officially took place at midsummer 1575.24 The majority remaining in Sandwich were Flemish speakers, but the Walloons who did not qualify for residence in Canterbury were allowed to travel to the French church there once a fortnight. By the mid-l570s we therefore have significant evidence of well-established and organised congregations of Flemings in Sandwich, French and Walloons in Canterbury and a small Flemish/Dutch migrant community in Maidstone. The regulations under which they Jived and worked were stringent, but their separateness was not complete. They were integrated into the local financial structure and, where liable, paid local taxes and levies and in 1588 members of the Canterbury stranger population were recruited for defence on Barham Downs against the potential Spanish threat.25 They were expected to police themselves, while remaining subject in the last resort to the civic magistracy. As in Sandwich the 281 ELIZABETII EDWARDS population in Canterbury grew far more quickly than could have been envisaged and within less than ten years more stringent vetting of newcomers was introduced. These conditions again mixed the economic with the religious. Refugees had to prove to the Elders of the stranger congregation that they were there on grounds of religious conscience, and they had to prove to the magistracy that they could support themselves in a necessary trade, which complemented but did not challenge the local economy. Attempts to establish another overflow community at Dover were less than successful.26 With the growing toleration in the erstwhile religious trouble spots in France and the Netherlands and the introduction of the Edict of Nantes by the protestant King Henri IV of France in I 598, the number of immigrants slowed down. Also contributing to this was a growing resentment of the strangers and fear of their contribution to a downturn in the local economies and the spread of plague in England in the 1590s and early 1600s. The Twelve Years Truce between Spain and the Dutch Republic (1609-21) confirmed the growing economic strength and stability of the new state which offered a home with a common language for Flemish refugees who could rise quickly to full civic rights there within a generation. In England the first formal, but short-lived, Act of Parliament for the naturalisation of immigrants was not passed until 1709, 150 years after the first wave of refugees established communities. The closure of the Scheidt in 1585 and the consequent decline of Antwerp made Amsterdam, which had formally converted to Calvinism at the Alteratie of May 1578, and other merchant towns in the north the ideal destinations. The major textile town of Leiden provided not only a common religious culture but also economic potential. The conflicts simmering between the English church and the Arminians during the reign of James I did not bode well for calvinists looking towards England and the rapid decline into political conflict and increasing religious intolerance after the accession of Charles I ensured that England was no longer a sought after destination for religious migrants.27 It was during this period, in 1605, that the first English church was established in Amsterdam and the early puritan emigrants from England first went to Leiden before setting out for the New World in 1607; the pendulum had swung a little the other way. The resulting small enclaves of Dutch remaining in England and newer communities of English dissidents in the Republic were to have resonances for trade and diplomacy throughout the seventeenth century.28 It was not to be until a hundred years after the third wave that a n_ e􀁽 influx of French Huguenots was to arrive in Kent, as the threat imphctt 282 IMMIGRANT POPULATION IN KENT IN THE 16TH AND I 7TH CENTURIES in the policies of Louis XIV became clear. Nevertheless it is important to bear in mind that from 1580 to 1680 the immigrant communities continued to live, work, marry and bear children in Kent. Even before the formal Revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV in 1685, the numbers of French religious refugees was increasing significantly. By 1681 it was obvious that developments in France were threatening for protestants and migrations began to both the Dutch Republic and England.29 But for the French the Dutch Republic was in many cases a less attractive proposition than England. The earlier French migrations had been almost wholly to England (until the situation had settled down in the Netherlands in the early seventeenth century) and therefore the links and support systems were more established in England. While the relatively tolerant attitudes of the Restoration prevailed the immigrants were generally welcomed although locals may have grumbled about the sympathy and tax exemptions extended to them, but in 1685 the accession of James II introduced a less tolerant approach and limited the provision for the freedom of the immigrant communities. James insisted on the use of the Anglican liturgy in immigrant churches and banned English ships from carrying French people who did not have passports; naturally enough the French authorities were not very co-operative in the provision of passports. The huge exodus from France following the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 therefore led to large numbers going to Amsterdam in the first place, but the gradual shift of economic advantage from that city to London following the Glorious Revolution (1688) encouraged many of these migrants to move on to the established communities in England. Throughout the seventeenth century the French protestants, like the English puritans, had had the opportunity of a new life in North America, but the fall of the only Huguenot colony, in Acadia (Nova Scotia), to the English in 1714 removed the possibility of emigration to the New World soon after they began to suffer greater threats at home. So the gains of England at the expense of the French in the Americas had the anomalous effect of making England a welcoming home for French emigrants. Integration and Influence By the 1680s established Flemish and Walloon communities were third, fourth and even fifth generation, and although integration was not positively encouraged and cultural and religious practices were handed down through the generations, assimilation was inevitable. Names were often indistinguishable from the English; while those 283 ELIZABETH EDWARDS like Hagell, Boyce, Parmenter and Gambier can still be recognised as possibly of Flemish or French origin, others like Baker, White and Carpenter cannot without good family records or other official evidence. 30 Backhouse has stressed how difficult it is to be certain about names and we have to be cautious about making assumptions of immigrant ancestry.31 Although records can be checked with some accuracy back into the nineteenth century, and early settlers can be traced through the demands of legislation and registration, the eighteenth century can be the time when family lines are lost. 32 Gwynne argues that the reasons for this are twofold: firstly, in the eighteenth century there was greater assimilation into the native population, and secondly, the communities were not confined by as much legislation as the earlier Dutch and Flemish migrants had been in the sixteenth century. 33 Nevertheless there was a large number of migrant families who remained identifiable because of some stability in location, trade and wealth. These form the core of those who sustain Cottret's 'epic' myth with accessible evidence and they should not be discounted in any way. Ormrod cites leading manufactuers including Woollett, Callant, Spilman and Bagge, and Chalklin adds the banking families of Minet and Fector at Dover, the latter originating from Germany.34 These are the kinds of families who are most likely to have left wills and possessions which make continuity more discernible. However, there is probably a far larger number who are not traceable, and some of the questions we need to consider when assessing the loss or assimilation of numbers of immigrants may be summarised as follows. The rigorous conditions under which immigrants were licensed in the sixteenth century led to banishment or other sanctions which resulted in exclusion from the registered communities of those who failed to meet the necessary requirements, or became unacceptable to both the municipal and immigrant community authorities. Backhouse cites the case of nine offenders who were ordered to leave Sandwich in 1571 by the Elders, of whom eight disappeared from the lists completely, although one did reappear in Sandwich in 1574.35 Such evidence does not make clear where those excluded went, but the reappearance of the one lends credence to the possibility that they may have been absorbed within the more fluid elements of society. The need to prove religious motivation for migration and to have an acceptable trade may have prevented many unqualified refugees from making the journey, but clandestine refugees are not a twenty-first· century phenomenon and the corruption and anglicising of French and Flemish names had been occurring since the Conquest and the fourteenth-century economic migrants first established in Kent. 36 As with all illegal movements conclusions can never be more than 284 IMMIGRANT POPULATION IN KENT IN THE 16TH AND 17TH CENTURIBS hypothetical as evidence is virtually impossible to find. The numbers within the immigrant communities are often only vague totals and all populations before formal censuses in the nineteenth century hide many non-persons. So although we have estimates of the numbers who returned to the Low Countries and Germany in the I 640s37 we cannot be sure that they are accurate. In many cases it is not clear if children and servants were counted, and we know that within a very few years children may be adults, bearing children and taking up occupations themselves. Therefore, where the close economic and religious communities provided for stability relative accuracy can be accepted as least as far as the number of households is concerned,38 but when these structures break down or become vulnerable, through economic pressure, intergenerational conflict, religious tensions, local hostility, or simply relaxation of regulations, we have to exercise greater caution. The preservation of records for the more wealthy and well-established can been seen in the I 677 list of payers of the poor rate in St Peter's Parish in Canterbury which provides a list annotated with 'Wal' for those of foreign origin, although the possible omission of 'Wal' beside the name of the 'Widow Bissett' raises questions about intermarriage. 39 But the evidence from Maidstone shows that as early as the 1580s only 3 out of 115 Dutch adults eligible for assessment were wealthy enough to pay subsidies.40 The case of the Maidstone community demonstrates the difficulty historians have had in tracing accurately the early Dutch community. Morant, quoting the June 1567 licence 'for the receipte and placynge Within the same Towne of the nomber of 3 score families', which could have meant as many as sixty families each entitled to households of twelve persons, alleges that no more than thirty families were established in Maidstone in 1568; this number had grown by 1580 to include the 115 eligible for assessment coming from 43 different family groups.41 In the latest history of Maidstone it is estimated that the town had a total population comprising 420 households in 1565 and this was augmented by Dutch immigrants rising from 30 households in 1576 to 45 in 1585, that is a small discrepancy from Morant's figure, but Ormrod is less specific and estimates that there were no more than 50 families at the peak in the 1580s.42 In 1576 the number of foreign men in 1576 is estimated as 200, among whom, bearing in mind the nine years' gap, were the 115 people eligible for assessment. It is therefore clear that there is no way of knowing exact numbers. The case of Maidstone also raises the question of the economic role of the immigrant populations. Ormrod shows how the Dutch, who 285 ELIZABETH EDWARDS introduced the unique thread twisting crafts to Maidstone in the 1560s, were closely involved in the development of the native industries, and although in the 1580s the number of Dutch had reached its maximum of c. 200 adults, soon 8,000 workers were directly or indirectly involved in the industry.43 By 1616 some of these workers would have been among the estimated 2,000 emigrants who went to west Germany as a result of the restrictive trade measures,44 and would have included disaffected native English protestants as well as descendants of the early Dutch migrants. So far we have seen that even in the relatively well-documented communities at Canterbury and Sandwich, it is possible that the scale of integration and onward migration can be difficult to ascertain. With Maidstone the picture becomes unclear very early on. But scattered throughout the secondary literature and folk memory of the County are mentions of smaller settlements, for example at Dover,45 Chatham, Dartford, Greenwich, Faversham and Hythe,46 Hollingbourne and Boughton Malherbe,47 Bridge48 and Denton.49 The last mentioned location is an example of hearsay evidence relating to the allocation of a dwelling, smallholding and workshop to a skilled foreign carpenter in the 1670s which highlights the difficulties of establishing an accurate picture. The detail of the provisions hints that they may have been recorded in official documents but the current lack of definitive evidence must leave this as unproven hearsay only. But the proximity of Denton to Arnold Braems' house at Bridge Place would lend credence to the idea that there would have been small but significant numbers of skilled craftsmen, not associated directly with the major trades and working for short periods in the service of the wealthier and commercial classes of immigrants who had moved on from visitor status to landowners themselves. We know that specialist craftsmen were employed in large projects, for both native and immigrant employers and it is here that the influence of immigrants becomes an issue. These included glassmakers, with their skills in a wide range of products from stained glass to domestic glazing and drinking vessels. The early glass manufacturer Jean Carre, from Arras, established a monopoly in the Weald in the late 1560s,50 and although little is now made of the descendants of the early textile immigrants in the Weald, yet Carre must have been aware of the importance of the markets and resources there. An inevitable question follows: was he the only master craftsman following earlier economic migrants to the Weald? Gwynne also argues that the contemporary late seventeenth-century persecutions of protestants in France and the English oppositional restrictions led to an underestimation of the immigrant contribution to the early modern 286 IMMIGRANT POPULATION JN KENT JN THE 16TH AND 17TH CENTURIES economies.51 The late twentieth-century attempts to restore an awareness of this contribution may have distorted our understanding too much and created an environment within which to find influences everywhere. How much influence the immigrants had on the built and cultural landscape of Kent is not a simple question to answer. The example of Dutch gables cited as evidence of immigrant populations and their influence is somewhat simplistic. Many of the so-called immigrant features are in fact ideas brought back from the Continent by English travellers. For example, Quiney claims that the reintroduction of the Roman practice of building in brick may have received a stimulus from the fourteenth-century economic immigrants, but was given authoritative support in major buildings in the reign of Henry VII after the return of Archbishop Morton from exile in Flanders. 52 Again he points out that the so-called Dutch gables probably came to Kent from the Low Countries via Norfolk and was taken up as a practical building method by builders in 'East Kent [who] ... made them its own'. 53 The stepped gable is a simple and easy way of creating greater roof space and while it was used normally in the Low Countries at the front and back of terraces for maximum warehouse storage purposes with minimum technical complexities, its early forms in Kentish buildings were simple replacements for the wide hipped-roofs (for example, School Farm, Guilton, Ash) and very quickly tended to become a fashionable status symbol (for example, Ford Place, Wrotham, c. 1589 and Broome Park, Barham, 1635-9). The majority of the immigrants were not able to build for themselves until the late seventeenth and eighteenth century and by then they were far more likely to adopt the current English fashions highly influenced, as was much of the post-Restoration English architecture, by the French styles, and adapted to merge with the English style. Their early settlements were in poor houses set aside for them from among the receiving town's stock of uninhabited property. Oakley describes the allocation of housing to the Walloons in Canterbury: 'Generally speaking this was the poorer area of the city where there were many small houses built with narrow frontages to the street'. 54 Just as it is difficult to trace the majority of the poorer and less successful immigrant families, so it is almost impossible to disentangle their influences. The traders operating at the smaller ports around the Kentish coast from Deptford to the Romney Marsh would have included sailors who interacted with the local population, !rading not only in goods, but ideas in a two-way exchange. These mfluences m1ght be very minor, but they would have been adopted 287 ELIZABETH EDWARDS and adapted for the local circumstances. For example, early assumptions that the 'Dutch' tiles in the cellar of 19 Court Street, Faversham, were imports were proved wrong when they were given an English provenance, but this merely confirms the difficulties of distinguishing between immigrant and ongoing commercial influences.55 Similar arguments also hold good for the introduction of new agricultural products and methods. Just as the greater use of brick in sixteenth-century England was partly a revival of Roman skills, echoing classical revival throughout Europe, so some of the developing commercialisation of crops may have been a revival of previous Roman practices enhanced by the experience of early modern English travellers, such as George Bedford's visit to Zeeland in the 1620s where he learnt how to grow madder,56 as much as a direct result of immigrant practices and influence. If the trading restrictions and lack of land ownership meant that the majority of immigrants lived and worked within relatively closed urban communities, it cannot concurrently be argued that they had a direct influence on rural agricultural activities, unless the earlier argument also applies and there was much more creeping integration so that it is possible that ideas were spread more broadly. The development of market gardening in Sandwich might be seen as a direct result of immigrants needing to find other activities as the economy of the town declined, and the practice quickly became integrated in the surrounding areas. But Thirsk is rightly cautious to call Robert Paramore who was tending a herd of eighty animals near Sandwich 'our supposed immigrant' .57 The greater integration or less accessible identification which we have seen of the early fourteenth-century migrants kept the hop as the local flavouring for beer, echoing the Continental practices, until its commercial introduction. Thirsk also mentions the case of Peter De Woolf who was 'invited' to teach hop-growing techniques in 1550 at the same time as the first major wave of immigrants arrived from the Low Countries.58 These three examples neatly demonstrate some of the complex routes by which ideas are transmitted and assimilated: by informed curiosity and financial interest; by long term development and updating; and by opportunist use of contemporary resources. The role of the immigrant has the highest profile in the last of these methods, but possibly the stronger argument is once more that the growth and spread of ideas, which were taking firm strides forward with the increasing access to knowledge, in the early sixteenth century, were responsible for English practitioners to take up and adapt what they identified as the best from the near Continent. This selective and introductory survey of the early modern immig- 288 IMMIGRANT POPULATION IN KENT IN THE 16TH AND 17TH CENTURIES rants in Kent has shown that, although it is possible to study individual family histories or the larger immigrant communities over a specific period, it is far more difficult to provide a comprehensive account across two centuries. The limitations of the extant evidence is far exceeded by the gaps in evidence and it may be impossible to reconcile the ambitions of the family historian seeking a verified heritage with that of the regional historian attempting to draw an accurate picture of the demographic and economic spread of immigrants. The former pursues a select line of enquiry, while the latter has to work within a wide social and economic context. The absorption of religious immigrants within the 'dissenters' at the 1676 Compton Census, 59 may obscure their origins, but might present a more accurate picture of the nature of assimilation of migrant groups a hundred years (and several generations) after their arrival. The historian should be very wary of attributing long term evolutionary developments to the role of any one particular group; the dynamics of political, economic, social and religious life provide an ever-changing context within which other influences, checks and balances are always at work as well. Therefore, while we can confidently argue that early stringency of the legislation encouraged self-supporting corn- munities and that the later relaxation led to speedier integration, we should not ignore the less easily verifiable evidence of a far wider spread and integration of immigrants in the early modern period. NOTES 1 For example: F. W. Cross, History of the Walloon and Huguenot Churches ar Ca111erbury, Huguenot Society of London, vii (1898); Anne M. Oakley, 'The Canterbury Walloon Congregation from Elizabeth I to Laud', in Irene Scouloudi, ed., Huguenots in Britain and their French Background, 1550-1800: Contributions to the Historical Conference of the Huguenot Society of London, 24-25 September 1985 (1987); Margaret Fisher, 'The Walloon Strangers in Canterbury 1574-1640' (unpublished M.A. thesis, University of Kent, 1996); Marcel Backhouse, The Flemish and Walloon Communities at Sandwich during the Reign of Elizabeth I (1561-1603) (Brussels, 1995). 2 Michael Gandy, 'Huguenots in Kent; useful articles in the Huguenot Society's Proceedings', Kent Family History Society Journal (2000), 474, details articles on Canterbury, Dover, Faversham, Hythe and Sandwich, which highlight the interest in immigrants stimulated by the anniversaries of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in both 1885 and 1985. See also Robin D. Gwynn, Huguenot Heritage: The history and contribution of the Huguenots in Britain (1985), Bibliographical Note, pp. 197-8. 3 Nigel Yates, Robert Hume and Paul Hastings, Religion and Society in Kent, 1640-19/4 (Boydell Press and KCC, 1994). The only significant mention (p. 14) of the immigrants is that the, presumably absentee, rector of Little Mongeham in 1682, which had no church, was a French Huguenot beneficed in the Channel Islands. 289 ELIZABETH EDWARDS 4 Alan Armstrong ed., The Economy of Kent 1640-1914 (Boydell Press and KCC, 1995). The chapter by David Ormrod, 'Industry 1640-1800', is particularly useful in giving a balanced view of the immigrant contribution, p. 94 ff. 5 In many ways this is an attempt to pull together the lectures and discussions arising from the writer's work with students of Kentish history over the past seven years, in which she has striven to provide them with a three dimensional context for practising local history, and during which she has learnt much from them. 6 These are provided in many of the texts cited here and will be drawn together in The Historical Atlas of Kent (forthcoming 2003). 7 Samuel Smiles, The Huguenots, their setllements, churches, and industries in England and lrela11d (1868, reprinted 1972), Appendix I, pp. 354-68. 8 Bernard Couret, The Huguenots in England, immigration and settlement c.1550-1700 (Cambridge, 1985), p. SO. 9 Jane Andrewes and Michael Zell, 'The Population of Sandwich from the Accession of Elizabeth I to the Civil War', see this volume, pp. 79-99; see also, Backhouse, The Flemish and Walloon Communities at Sandwich, pp. 20-32 in which a warning is given about the 'hypothetical' nature of population figures quoted and the purpose and nature of the documentary evidence available, see especially p. 26 on the 1565 survey of the Flemish community. 1° For a comprehensive analysis of immigrants in Norwich, see Ragnard Esser, Niederliindische Exulanten in England des 16. 1md frtihen 17. Jahhunderts (Berlin, 1994). 11 Beate Magen, Die Walion en gemeinde in Canterbury, von lhrer Griindun bis zum Jahre 1635 (Frankfurth 1973), p. 31, also mentions communities at Yarmouth and Glastonbury; Andrewes and Zell also mention the community at Rye, toe. cit. 12 In addition to Gwynn's broad survey in Huguenot Heritage, two major studies of London immigrants also come out in the 1980s: Ole P. Grell, Dutch Calvinists in Early Stuart London (1989) and Andrew Pettegree, Foreign Protestant Communities in sixteenth century London ( 1986). 13 Backhouse, The Flemish and Walloon Communities, p. 36. 14 Ormrod, 'Industry 1640-l 800', 97. 15 Cottret, The Huguenots, p. xi. 16 Ole Peter Grell, Calvinist Exiles in Tudor and Stuart England (Aldershot. 1996). 17 Backhouse, The Flemish and Walloon Communities. pp. 18-9; Magen, Die Wal/on en gemeinde in Canterbury, pp. 43 ff. lists the origins of strangers in Canterbury from I 590 to I 644, which can be summarised as follows: Flemish 565, other Dutch (north and south) 989, French 168 and German 185. Of these 775 were born in England. 18 Backhouse, The Flemish and Walloon Communities, pp. 40-1; Gwynn, Huguenot Heritage, pp. 45-7. 19 Grell, Calvinist Exiles, p. 55. 20 On the abdication of Charles V (in 1555, but not formally accepted by the Empire until 1558) the imperial crown and the Austro-Hungarian territories were retained in the Holy Roman Empire under his brother Ferdinand, while Philip inherited the Spanish Atlantic empire. 21 Backhouse, The Flemish a11d Walloon Communities. pp. 17-20. The Southampton colony was predominantly French, see Gwynn, Huguenot Heritage, p. 30; Andrewes and Zell. pp. 79-99. 22 CCA. French Church Records, U47/Hl, Elizabeth's order for the removal of immigrants from London to Maidstone. 290 IMMIGRANT POPULATION IN KENT IN THE 16TH AND 17TH CENTURIES 23 The immigrants were, however, given the Chapel of St Faith's for their congregations. V. Morant, 'The Settlement of Protestant Refugees in Maidstone during the Sixteenth Century', Economic History Review, 2nd series, iv (1951), 211-2. Oakley, 'The Canterbury Walloon Congregation', alleges that in Maidstone names were deliberately anglicised, whereas in Canterbury they were more likely to have been changed through mis-transcription. 24 CCA, French Church Records U47/H l , 15 March 1574. 25 In 1596 Walloons are also recorded in the Faversham Tudor and Stuart Muster Rolls (CKS Fa/CPm2 l ); information from Jean Foreman. 26 Backhouse, The Flemish and Wa/10011 Commu11ities, p. 32 gives a figure of 277 immigrants in Dover in 1571. 27 Morant, 'Protestant Refugees in Maidstone', 211 quotes Jan Bulteel, A Relation of the Troubles of the 3 forraig11e churches in Kent ( 1645), writing about persecution of foreigners in England. 28 D. J. Ormrod, 'Protestantism and International Capitalism', in S. Cavaciocchi, ed., Le role economique des minorites en Europe, Xlll-XVf/f siecle (Prato, 2000). 29 In 168 I one thousand houses had been built for Huguenots in Amsterdam at nominal rents. G. A. Amsterdam, Res. Vroed., 23 September 1681; G. C. Gibbs, 'Some Intellectual and Political Influences of the Huguenot Emigr􀃚s into the United Provinces c.1680-1730', Bidragen en Mededelingen Betreffende de Geschiedenis der Nederlanden., xc, afl.2 (1975), 260. 3° Cross, History of the Walloon and Huguenot Churches at Canterbury, pp. 216-7; Gwynn, Huguenot Heritage, Appendix, 'Tracing Huguenot Ancestors', pp. 176-87. 31 Backhouse, The Flemish and Walloon Commu11ities, p. I 7. 32 Gwynn, Huguenot Heritage, loc. cit. 33 Ibid., p. 183. 34 Ormrod, 'Industry 1640-1800', pp. 99-101 and Chalklin, 'The Towns', in Armstrong, The Eco11omy of Kent, p. 216. 35 Backhouse, The Flemish and Walloon Communities, pp. 61-62. 36 See note 31. 37 Morant, 'Protestant Refugees in Maidstone'. 213-14. 38 Using households as a guide to numbers, however, implies a very broad assumption of anything up to the twelve per household allowed to the early immigrants. 39 CCA, French Church Records U47/H.4.15. 40 Morant, 'Protestant Refugees in Maidstone', 213. 41 lbid., p. 212. 42 Peter Clark and Lyn Murfin, The History of Maidstone: the making of a modern County Town (1995), p. 42; Ormrod, 'Industry 1640-1800', 95. 43 Ormrod, 'Industry 1640-1800', 99; Morant, 'Protestant Refugees in Maidstone', Joe. cit. 44 Morant, 'Protestant Refugees in Maidstone', 213-4. 45 See note 26 above. 46 Ormrod, 'Industry 1640-1800', 95. 47 Gwynne, Huguenot Heritage, p. 38. 48 E. Hasted, The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent. vol. ix ( 1797-180!) 1972 ed., p. 288: 'Sir Arnold Braems descended of a fa􀃛ily origi􀃜ally out of Flanders, where his ancesters were opulent merchants [who] built a spacious and magnificent mansion ... named Bridge Place' in the mid seventeenth century. 291 ELIZABETH EDWARDS 49 Information from Anthony Turner. 50 Gwynne, Huguenot Heritage, p. 74. 51 Ibid., p. 60. 52 Anthony Quiney, English Domestic Architecture: Kent Houses (Woodbridge, 1993), p. 93. 53 Ibid., p. I 00. 54 Oakley, 'The Canterbury Walloon Congregation', p. 59. 55 Information from Judith Webb. 56 Joan Thirsk, 'Agriculture in Kent, 1540-1640', in Early Modem Kent, Michael Zell ed. (Boydell Press and KCC, 2000), 103. 57 Ibid., p. 10 I, note 82. 58 Ibid., p. 103. 59 Yates et al., Religion and Society in Kent, pp. 15-6. The Census took place a few years before the second major wave of Huguenots immigrants. 292