John Lincoln

John Lincoln was a second-hand dealer in London. He persuaded Dr. Beal, the vicar of St Mary's Church in Spitalfields, to preach against the foreigners in his sermon in Easter week of 1517. Beal agreed and to a great congregation in the fields outside the city he "denounced the aliens who stole Englishmen's livelihoods and seduced their wives and daughters; he said that even birds expelled interlopers from their nests, and that men were entitled to fight for their country against foreigners." (1)

Sebastian Giustinian, the Venetian ambassador in England, reported: "After Easter, a certain preacher, at the instigation of a citizen of London, preached as usual in the fields, where the whole city was in the habit of assembling with the magistrates. He abused the strangers in the town, and their manners and customs, alleging that they not only deprived the English of their industry and of the profits arising there from, but dishonored their dwellings by taking their wives and daughters. With this exasperating language and much more besides, he so irritated the populace that they threatened to cut the strangers to pieces and sack their houses on the first of May." (2)

John Lincoln calls for action

Edward Hall, a twenty year old student, wrote: "The multitude of strangers was so great about London that the poor English could get any living... The foreigners... were so proud that they disdained, mocked, and oppressed the Englishmen, which was the beginning of the grudge... The Genoans, Frenchmen, and other strangers said and boasted themselves to be in such favour with the king and his council that they set naught by the rulers of the city... How miserably the common artificers lived, and scarcely could get any work to find them, their wives, and children, for there were such a number of artificers strangers that took away all the living in manner." (3)

On 28th April 1517 John Lincoln posted a bill upon one of the doors of St Paul's Cathedral, complaining that "the foreigners" were given too much favour by the king and council. It claimed that "the foreigners" had "bought wools to the undoing of Englishmen". Sebastian Giustinian, went to see Cardinal Thomas Wolsey about his concerns. He sent for London's mayor and told him that "your young and riotous people will rise and distress the strangers". (4)

Giustinian went to see Henry VIII at Richmond Palace on 29th April to tell him that he heard rumours that the "people would rise and kill the foreigners on May Day. Henry promised that all foreigners would be protected. Cardinal Wolsey ordered the Lord Mayor and the city officers to enforce a curfew on the eve of May Day, when large crowds always assembled and trouble sometimes occurred. (5)

May Day Riots

Sir Thomas More, the Under-Sheriff of London and his men, patrolled the streets that night. Some young apprentices broke the curfew and when an officer tried to arrest one of them, a riot broke out. More's men charged the rioters with their staves. This only made them more angry and soon afterwards a large crowd of young people were attacking foreigners and burning the houses of Venetian, French, Italian, Flemish and German merchants. (6)

Edward Hall reported that "diverse young men of the city assaulted the aliens as they passed by the streets, and some were stricken and some were buffeted, and some thrown into the canal... Then suddenly was a common secret rumour, and no man could tell how it began, then on May Day next the city would rebel and slay all aliens, in so much as diverse strangers fled out of the city." (7)

It was reported that rioters ran through the city with "clubs and weapons... throwing stones, bricks, bats, hot water, shoes and boots, and sacking the houses of many foreigners". It is estimated that 2,000 Londoners sacked the houses of foreign merchants. This became known as the Evil May Day Riots. It was claimed that women were partly to blame for this riot. The government announced that "no women should come together to babble and talk, but all men should keep their wives in their houses". (8)

The rioting continued all night and on the morning and afternoon of May Day. According to Jasper Ridley: "The hated Frenchmen were the chief target of the rioters. Several were assaulted in the street. The French ambassador escaped, when his house was attacked, by hiding in a church steeple... The London watch was quite incapable of dealing with the rioters. The Constable of the Tower opened fire on them with his cannon, but only shot a few rounds and did no damage." (9)

Punishment of Rioters

That afternoon, Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, brought 1,300 soldiers into the city and mass arrests began to take place. The first batch of 279 people were brought before the courts later that day. Edward Hall described the prisoners as "some men, some lads, some children of thirteen years... there was a great mourning of fathers and friends for their children and kinsfolk." (10) Charles Wriothesley claimed that eleven men were executed. (11) Hall thought it was thirteen but Sebastian Giustinian said it was twenty and Francesco Chieregato thought it was as high as sixty. Those executed suffered the penalty of being "hanged, drawn and quartered".

John Lincoln was tried separately on 6th May. He was found guilty and executed. The public was shocked by the way Henry VIII had dealt with the rioters. Jasper Ridley points out: "For the first time since he became King, Henry risked his popularity with the people by his severe repression of the anti-foreign rioters of Evil May Day. The resentment felt against the foreigners; the sympathy for the young apprentices; the grief of the parents when their boys of thirteen were executed; the feeling that in many cases the more innocent had been punished while the more guilty escaped; and the tales, which Hall reported, of the brutality of the Earl of Surrey's soldiers who suppressed the disorders, all aroused great sympathy of the rioters." (12)

Primary Sources

(1) Edward Hall, History of England (1548)

The multitude of strangers was so great about London that the poor English could get any living... The foreigners... were so proud that they disdained, mocked, and oppressed the Englishmen, which was the beginning of the grudge... The Genoans, Frenchmen, and other strangers said and boasted themselves to be in such favour with the king and his council that they set naught by the rulers of the city... How miserably the common artificers lived, and scarcely could get any work to find them, their wives, and children, for there were such a number of artificers strangers that took away all the living in manner.

(2) Sebastian Giustinian, letter to the Signiory of Venice (April, 1517)

After Easter, a certain preacher, at the instigation of a citizen of London, preached as usual in the fields, where the whole city was in the habit of assembling with the magistrates. He abused the strangers in the town, and their manners and customs, alleging that they not only deprived the English of their industry and of the profits arising therefrom, but dishonored their dwellings by taking their wives and daughters. With this exasperating language and much more besides, he so irritated the populace that they threatened to cut the strangers to pieces and sack their houses on the first of May.

(3) John Edward Bowle, Henry VIII (1964)

In 1517 riots broke out in London against the foreign merchants and craftsman from Flanders, France, Italy and the Baltic, whose techniques surpassed those of the English; and who monopolized the most lucrative trades. Incited by a preacher at Paul's Cross, and led by a disillusioned broker, John Lincoln, a mob of apprentices and roughs used the May Day holiday to wreck and loot the foreign quarters and overrun the city. So bad was the riot, known as "Evil May Day", that the Lieutenant of the Tower fired his guns to intimidate the mob, and the riot was only quelled when Suffolk and Surrey brought in harnessed soldiers.

Lincoln and the ringleaders were hanged, drawn and quartered and their remains gibbetted; hundreds of the mob were rounded up. But the cardinal, who had fortified his house at York Place, staged a remarkable scene. Henry came up from Richmond, where he had remained through the disturbance confining himself to threats, to Westminster Hall. Here, in full state, with Queen Catherine, his two sisters, dowagers of Scotland and France, Wolsey, his Council, Lord Mayor and Aldermen and nobility ranged about him, the young king sat beneath his canopy of state.

Down the long hall came a miserable procession, 400 `poor younglings and old false knaves and a plain woman, in tattered shirts, halters about their necks, all along, one after the other'; they fell on their knees before the royalties and the government, "Mercy!" they cried, "Mercy!"

Then the cardinal, too, fell on his knees before the king. Henry remained adamant, even when the three queens added their supplications; only when Wolsey, weeping, pledged himself for the good behaviour of the prisoners, the king was seen to relent. He accorded the mob their lives: whereat the whole crew "took the halters from their necks and danced and sang". So Wolsey dealt with the symptoms, not the cause, and the king doubtless got more credit with his people than the cardinal.

Henry must have sensed the cardinal's unpopularity, and how much those who had business with him disliked him. Petitioners and courtiers said they would rather be ordered to Rome than approach the cardinal, who, walking in the park, would "suffer no suiter to come near but commanded them as far off as a man could shoot an arrow". "If ye be not content to tarry my leisure," he would say, "depart when ye will."

But the king approved Wolsey's personal splendour, expected in that age. "His upper vesture," writes Cavendish, his gentleman usher, in a vivid, admiring account, "was all of scarlet, or else of fine crimson taffeta, or crimson satin engrained... with a black velvet tippet of sables about his neck, holding in his hand an orange, filled with a sponge of vinegar or other confection against pestilent airs. This he most commonly held to his nose... when he was pestered by many suitors.