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‘Love ye therefore the strangers’: immigration and the criminal law in early modern England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 December 2014

MATTHEW LOCKWOOD
MATTHEW LOCKWOOD*
Affiliation:
Yale University.
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Abstract

This article offers a comprehensive examination of the relationship between foreign residents and the criminal law in early modern England, as well as an investigation of trials ‘de medietate lingue’, trials with half-English and half-foreign juries, in theory and practice. Because England witnessed both a series of foreign migrations and a series of geo-political crises in the years between 1674 and 1750, the article charts patterns of foreign prosecutions across the period in order to place them in their proper historical context. The article concludes that the protections offered by English law to foreign residents were real and significant and that these protections were especially important at points of geo-political stress.

«on vous aime aussi, les étrangers»: immigration et droit pénal en angleterre à l’époque moderne

Dans cet article, l'auteur propose d'examiner, dans une perspective large, pour l’époque moderne, le rapport qu'entretenaient les résidents étrangers avec le droit pénal de l'Angleterre. Il a étudié des procès de medietate lingue, à savoir des affaires confiées à des tribunaux dont les jurés furent, en théorie (et en pratique), pour moitié étrangers et pour moitié anglais. Comme l'Angleterre a connu, entre 1674 et 1750, à la fois des vagues d'immigration étrangère et une série de crises géopolitiques, l'auteur trace divers modèles de poursuites pénales impliquant des étrangers au cours de cette période et les replace dans leur contexte historique. Il conclut que la législation anglaise offrait une protection réelle et importante aux résidents étrangers, une protection tout particulièrement appréciable dans les moments de stress géopolitique.

‘love ye therefore the strangers’: einwanderung und strafrecht im frühneuzeitlichen england

Dieser Beitrag bietet eine umfassende Untersuchung der Beziehungen zwischen ausländischen Einwohnern und dem Strafrecht im frühneuzeitlichen England sowie eine genaue Sondierung der Theorie und Praxis der Strafprozesse de medietate lingue, das sind Strafprozesse vor Geschworenengerichten, die paritätisch mit Engländern und Ausländern besetzt waren. Weil England in den Jahren zwischen 1674 und 1750 sowohl eine Reihe ausländischer Einwanderungen als auch eine Reihe geopolitischer Krisen erlebte, zeichnet der Beitrag die über diesen Zeitraum erkennbaren Muster ausländischer Anklagen nach, um sie in ihren historischen Kontext einzuordnen. Er kommt zu dem Ergebnis, dass die Schutzvorkehrungen, die das englische Recht ausländischen Einwohnern bot, real und signifikant waren, und zwar vor allem in Momenten des geopolitischen Stresses.

Type
Research Article
Information
Continuity and Change , Volume 29 , Issue 3 , December 2014 , pp. 349 - 371
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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References

ENDNOTES

1 Old Bailey Sessions Papers Online: Old Bailey Proceedings Online (www.oldbaileyonline.org, version 7.0 May 2011–April 2012) (hereafter OBP), T16820116a-8.

2 The 147 cases represent a wide range of nationalities and all types of criminal charges from perjury, bigamy, petty theft and libel to rape, murder and treason. I have so far found few records of trials de medietate lingue outside of the Old Bailey. For instance, I have found only two records of party juries in the assize calendars for the Home Counties. J. S. Cockburn, Calendar of assize records, 11 volumes (London, 1975–1985). There were also fairly substantial communities of foreign residents and refugees throughout southeast England, especially in cities such as Norwich, Colchester and Canterbury. For foreign communities outside London see: Goose, Nigel, ‘The Dutch in Colchester in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: opposition and integration’, in Vigne, Randolph and Littleton, Charles eds., From strangers to citizens: the integration of immigrant communities in Britain, Ireland, and colonial America, 1550–1750 (Sussex, 2001), 88–98Google Scholar.

3 Blackstone, William, An analysis of the laws of England (London, 1771), 24Google Scholar.

4 Ibid, p. 24.

5 Ibid, p. 24.

6 Luu, Lien, ‘Natural-born versus stranger-born aliens and their status in Elizabethan London’, in Goose, Nigel and Luu, Lien eds., Immigrants in Tudor and early Stuart England (Brighton, 2005), 60–1Google Scholar. Receiving denizen status conferred upon the foreign resident a grant of permanent residency and thus immunity from expulsion. Luu argues that the decline in the percentage of denizens among foreign residents was because the process had become more onerous and expensive over the course of the sixteenth century.

7 For the French wars of religion see: Holt, Mack, The French wars of religion (Cambridge, 2005)Google Scholar. For the Dutch revolt see: Parker, Geoffrey, The Dutch Revolt (Ithaca, 1977)Google Scholar.

8 Selwood, Jacob, Diversity and difference in early modern London (Farnham, Surrey, 2010)Google Scholar, 28.

9 For the German immigration of the early eighteenth century and the ensuing political controversy in England see: Statt, Daniel, Foreigners and Englishmen: the controversy over immigration and population 1660–1760 (Newark, Delaware, 1995)Google Scholar; Dickinson, H. T., ‘Poor Palatines and the parties’, English Historical Review 82, 324 (1967), 464–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Alison Olson, ‘The English reception of the Huguenots, Palatines and Salzburgers, 1680–1735: a comparative analysis’, in Vigne and Littleton, From strangers to citizens, 481–92.

10 Luu, Lien, Immigrants and the industries of London 1500–1700 (Aldershot, 2005)Google Scholar, 107. For the population of London see: Finlay, Roger and Shearer, Beatrice, ‘Population growth and suburban expansion’, in Beier, A. L. and Finlay, Roger eds., London 1500–1700: the making of a metropolis (London, 1986)Google Scholar.

11 Finlay, Roger, Population and metropolis: the demography of London, 1580–1650 (Cambridge, 1981)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 68.

12 Gwynn, R. D., ‘The number of Huguenot immigrants in England in the late seventeenth century’, Journal of Historical Geography 9, 4 (1983)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 393. Finlay and Shearer estimate the population of London to have been about 490,000 in 1700. Finlay and Shearer, ‘Population growth’, 48.

13 Selwood, Diversity and difference, 28.

14 Statt, Foreigners and Englishmen, 121.

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17 28 Edw. 3, chapter 13 (1354).

18 Oldham, ‘Origins’, 169.

19 J. Thayer, A preliminary treatise on evidence at the common law (London, 1898), 94, n. 4, as quoted in Oldham, ‘Origins’, 167.

20 Oldham, ‘Origins’, 170–1.

21 Marianne Constable argues that the language surrounding the law of mixed juries changed in the late medieval and early modern period from a law which sought to protect foreign communities to a law which focused on the protection of those who could not speak English, a distinction which she ties to a contemporary shift away from a jury with local knowledge towards a jury which sought fact and truth. Marianne, Constable, The law of the other: the mixed jury and changing conceptions of citizenship, law and knowledge (Chicago, 1994), 120–7Google Scholar.

22 Oldham, ‘Origins’, 170.

23 Blackstone, William, Commentaries on the laws of England, vol. 4 (London, 1765)Google Scholar, 346.

24 de Riquetti, Gabriel-Honore, Enquiries concerning letters de cachet, the consequence of an arbitrary imprisonment (Dublin, 1787), 465Google Scholar. Foreigners also faced other legal restrictions not related to their treatment in the criminal courts. Foreigners were not allowed to inherit property or engage in retail trade and were charged higher customs duties. On non-criminal legal restrictions placed on foreign residents see: Joseph P. Ward, ‘“[I]mployment for all handes that will worke”: immigrants, guilds and the labour market in early seventeenth-century London’, in Nigel Goose and Lien Luu eds., Immigrants in Tudor and early Stuart England (Brighton, 2005), 76–90.

25 Levine, Mortimer, ‘A more than ordinary case of “rape”: 13 and 14 Elizabeth I’, American Journal of Legal History 7, 2 (1963), 159–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

26 As quoted in Levine, ‘A more than ordinary case’, 159.

27 Ibid.

28 Ibid.

29 See for example: The complete juryman (London, 1752), 147Google Scholar.

30 22 Henry VIII, c. 10; Blackstone, Commentaries, 166.

31 Blackstone, Commentaries, 166. Further legislation in the reigns of Mary and Elizabeth (1 & 2 Ph. and M. c.4 and 5 Eliz. c. 20) instituted stiff fines for anyone who transported gypsies into England and made it a felony without benefit of clergy for a gypsy or anyone disguised as such, to remain in the country for more than one month. See also: Mayall, David, English gypsies and state policies (Hertfordshire, 1995)Google Scholar.

32 Lilly, John, The practical register: or a general abridgment of the law, vol. 2 of 2 volumes (London, 1719), 125Google Scholar.

33 OBP, t16910115-9.

34 OBP, t16970707-46.

35 Williams, Thomas, A digest of statute law (London, 1791)Google Scholar.

36 Lilly, The practical register, 125.

37 James Dyer, Reports of cases in the reigns of Hen. VIII. Edw. VI. Q. Mary, and Q. Eliz. taken and collected by Sir James Dyer, ed. Vaillant, John (London, 1794)Google Scholar, 304a.

38 Blackstone, Commentaries, 346; Lilly, The practical register, 125; Blount, Thomas, Nomo-Lexikon (London, 1670)Google Scholar, 184; Cowell, John, A law dictionary (London, 1708), 51, 211Google Scholar.

39 Bond, John, A complete guide for JPs (London, 1707), 161Google Scholar.

40 The complete juryman, 146.

41 ‘General Advertiser’, 1752 (8 July, issue 5527).

42 The full and whole proceedings of the New High-Court of Justice: or The Non-such Commission of the Peace, and Oyer and Terminer, held at the Capital City of the High and Mighty Prince Eagle (London, 1691)Google Scholar.

43 Ibid., 2–5.

44 Heath, James, A chronicle of the late intestine war in the three kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland (London, 1676), 361Google Scholar; Harvey, Gideon, The art of curing disease (London, 1689), 31Google Scholar.

45 For newspaper accounts of trials de medietate lingue see: ‘The Evening Post’, 28 March 1724–31 March 1724 (issue 2290); ‘The Daily Post’, 23 April 1726 (issue 2053); ‘Parker's Penny Post’, 25 April 1726 (issue 154); and ‘Penny London Post or The Morning Advertiser’, 7 August 1745 (issue 335). For contemporary collections of trials which include trials de medietate lingue see: Brownlow, Richard, Reports of diverse choice cases in law (London, 1651)Google Scholar; Sir Brooke, Robert, Some new cases of the years and time of King Henry VIII (London, 1651)Google Scholar; A complete collection of state trials (London, 1730); Dyer, , Reports of casesGoogle Scholar.

46 It is certain that many more foreign defendants were tried at the Old Bailey in the period in question than the 147 discussed here. I have limited myself to those defendants who were specifically identified as aliens in the records and those who were recorded as unable to speak English (although not Welsh or Gaelic speakers). As the names of many aliens were Anglicised in the court records, and many Englishmen and women had foreign-sounding names or names of foreign origin I have concluded that the evidence of names alone is not enough to substantiate a defendant as an alien.

47 Selwood, Diversity and difference, 28.

48 OBP.

49 Gwynn, ‘Number of Huguenot immigrants’, 393.

50 Selwood, Diversity and difference, 28.

51 Statt, Foreigners and Englishmen.

52 OBP.

53 OBP, t16880831-31; t1711205-26. It is interesting to note that these two cases also follow another pattern regarding accomplices, namely that male defendants almost always have male accomplices and female defendants female accomplices even when the crimes committed are similar.

54 OBP.

55 Selwood, Diversity and difference, 32–3.

56 OBP.

57 Ibid.

58 OBP. The entire period between 1709 and 1720 accounted for no more than 5 per cent of the total indictments of foreign residents.

59 For the impact of Huguenot immigration in England after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes see: Cottret, Bernard, The Huguenots in England: immigration and settlement, 1550–1700 (Cambridge, 1991), 185–228Google Scholar.

60 Selwood, Diversity and difference, 28; Statt, Foreigners and Englishmen, 28–9; Gwynn, R. D., ‘The arrival of Huguenot refugees in England, 1680–1705, Proceedings of the Huguenot Society 21 (1965–1970), 366–73Google Scholar.

61 OBP.

62 Pincus, Steven C. A., ‘From butterboxes to wooden shoes: the shift in English popular sentiment from anti-Dutch to anti-French in the 1670s’, The Historical Journal 8, 2 (1995), 333–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

63 Pincus, Steve, 1688: The first modern revolution (New Haven, 2009), 176–7Google Scholar. See also: Gwynn, R. D., ‘James II in the light of his treatment of Huguenot refugees in England, 1685–1686’, English Historical Review 92, 365 (1977), 320–33Google Scholar and Miller, John, ‘The immediate impact of the revocation in England’, in Caldicott, C. E. J. ed., The Huguenots in Ireland: anatomy of an emigration (Dublin, 1987), 161–74Google Scholar.

64 An apology for the Protestants of France, in reference to the persecutions they are under at this day (London, 1683)Google Scholar; Smythies, W., An earnest exhortation to charity for the relief of the French Protestants and objections against it answered (London, 1688)Google Scholar. Many of these tracts compare the Catholic absolutism and persecution of Protestants of Louis XIV with the threat of James II's perceived pro-Catholic absolutist designs. For the proliferation of pro-Huguenot publications see: Cottret, The Huguenots in England, 188–95.

65 Cottret, The Huguenots in England, 185–7.

66 Ibid, 190–9.

67 English regiments were expelled from London and not allowed within 20 miles of the city until the spring of 1690. Israel, Jonathan, ‘The Dutch role in the Glorious Revolution’, in Israel, Jonathan ed., The Anglo–Dutch moment: essays on the Glorious Revolution and its world impact (Cambridge, 1991), 128–9Google Scholar.

68 Ibid, 129.

69 OBP, t16890516-5; t16910708-34; t16900430-30.

70 Although Jonathan Israel mentions the existence of anti-Dutch sentiment in London from 1689 there has been little written on Londoners’ experience of, or reactions to, the Dutch occupation. Nor has much been written about the dynamics or consequences of anti-Dutch feeling in the years following the Glorious Revolution.

71 Beattie, J. M., ‘Crime and the courts in Surrey, 1736–1753’, in Cockburn, J. S. ed., Crime and the courts in England 1550–1800 (London, 1977), 161Google Scholar.

72 OBP.

73 OBP.

74 I have as yet found no instances in which a foreign defendant was offered a trial de medietate lingue or made aware of his or her right to one, and yet refused to accept such a trial.

75 OBP.

76 Beattie, J. M., Policing and punishment in London 1660–1750: urban crime and the limits of terror (Oxford, 2001), 285, 340CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

77 OBP.

78 OBP.

79 For pious perjury, partial verdicts and jury discretion see: Beattie, Crime and the courts, 419–26; King, P. J. R., ‘Illiterate plebeians, easily misled: jury composition, experience and behavior in Essex, 1735–1815’, in Cockburn, J. S. and Green, Thomas A. eds., Twelve good men and true: the criminal trial jury in England, 1200–1800 (Princeton, 1988), 289–304Google Scholar and King, Peter, Crime, justice, and discretion in England 1740–1820 (Oxford, 2000), 221–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

80 OBP, t17270517-39.

81 OBP, t17270517-39.

82 King, ‘Illiterate plebeians, easily misled’, 255.

83 OBP. These cases did not, however, correlate directly with those cases tried de medietate lingue.

84 OBP.