(Blacks in) ‘Tudor Britain’, The Oxford Companion to Black British History, eds. D. Dabydeen, J. Gilmore and C. Jones (2007), pp. 486-7.
Trumpeter John Blanke, 1511.
From the early years of the 16th century there were Africans at both the Tudor and Stuart Courts. Catherine of Aragon had brought some African attendants with her when she arrived to marry Prince Arthur in 1501. One of these was the trumpeter ironically named John Blanke (blanco, white), who was paid 8d. a day for his services and was depicted twice in the Great Tournament Roll of Westminster (1511). In 1523 it is recorded that Fraunces Negro was working in the Queen’s stables. At the Court of James IV of Scotland, Africans first arrived as booty from a Portuguese ship seized by the Barton brothers, and from 1500 to 1504 Peter the More served the Scottish King. Living at court at this time were a ‘More taubronar’, or drummer, with his wife and child and two maids known as ‘blak Margaret’ and ‘blak Elene’. One of these ‘More lassis’ was baptised on 11 December 1504. In 1505-6 King James tipped a nurse 28s. for bringing a ‘Moris barne’ to see him.
In 1508 the treasury paid the living expenses for two ‘More freris’ or friars. In June 1507 and May 1508 there was a jousting tournament: ‘the justing of the wild knycht for the black lady’ immortalised in William Dunbar’s poem ‘Ane Blak More’, in which the king disguises himself as a black and wild knight, and the winner of the tournament is to receive a kiss from the black lady. Dunbar’s description of the lady is not highly complimentary:
My ladye with the mekle lippis:
Quhou schou is tute mowitt lyk an aep,
And lyk a gangarall onto graep,
And quhou hir schort catt nois up skippis,
[My lady with the fulsome lips:
Whose jaw is prominent like an ape
And who’s like a toad to the touch
Whose short cat nose skips.]
However, he wrote equally rude verse about other courtiers, which was in keeping with the Scots tradition of ‘flyting’- the art of poetic insult. There continued to be a black presence in Scotland. In 1512, Andrew Forman, the Bishop of Moray, had a ‘More’ as his servant. In January 1513 James IV gave 10 French crowns to ‘the twa blak ledeis’ (probably Margaret and Elene).
In 1549 Marion, Lady Home, wrote to Mary of Guise requesting her to be good to an unnamed ‘Mour’ who is ‘als scharp ane man as rydis’ [‘is as sharp a man as rides’]. Mentioned in the same breath as the Spanish mercenaries, at a time when Hume Castle was occupied by the English, this may be reference to Sir Pedro Negro, a Spanish mercenary soldier who may have been the first African ever to receive an English knighthood. In 1546 Pedro Negro travelled into France with ‘diverse other Spanish knights and gentlemen’, under the command of the Spanish colonel Pedro de Gamba. They won a victory on 15 July and were all awarded lifetime annuities. Negro was awarded £75 in August and £100 that September. On 28 September 1547 he was knighted by the Duke of Somerset at Roxborough, after the taking of Leith. On 7 July 1549 he led a charge through the Scots that were besieging the strategically important castle of Haddington, to provide the castle with vital gunpowder, which allowed the English to defend themselves against the more numerous enemy. According to a Spanish chronicler, it was necessary to kill the 300 horses so as not to let the enemy take them, which he calls a ‘pretty feat of war’. He died in London on 15 July 1551 of the sweating sickness. His funeral was quite a ceremony, with twelve ‘staffes’, ‘torches burning’, ‘flute playing’, and the street hung with black and with his arms. The preacher was Dr. Bartelet, and it was attended by the company of clerks, ‘a harold of arms and mony morners’ [‘a herald and many mourners’].
Other Africans in England did not attain such great status. Dyego Negro was working as a servant to Thomas Bowyer in 1541. In Southampton around 1546-8 lived an African, originally from Guinea, called Jacques Frances, the slave of a Venetian named Peter Paulo who was engaged to raise sunken vessels including the Mary Rose. Frances was called to testify in the High Court of Admiralty in defence of his master, who had been accused of stealing tin and lead. His testimony was admitted by the court, despite the protests of another Venetian, Anthony de Nicholao Rimero ‘that the sayd James Fraunces ys a morisco born where they are not christenyd and slave to the sayd peter Paulo ym And therefore...no Credite nor faithe ought to be geven to his Sayenges as in other Strange Christian cuntryes hit ys to no suche slave geven.’
This case brings into question the legal status of Africans in England. Jacques Frances asserted to the court that he was the famulus of the Italian, which meant household servant, as opposed to servus, the normal Latin word for slave. Slavery was not recognised under English law, as we find in the 1658 Cartwright decision, in which ‘it was resolved that England was too pure an Air for slaves to breathe in’.
In 1551 Englishmen made their first voyage to Barbary, on which ‘there were two Moores, being noble men, whereof one was of the Kings blood, convayed by the said Master Thomas Windam into their Countrey out of England’. In May 1553 Anthoine, an Egyptian, was buried in Gravesend. In 1554 the merchant John Lok brought five Africans to England, three of whom were named Anthonie, George, and Binnie, ‘whereof some were tall and strong men and could wel agree with our meates and drinke’. Three were returned home in 1556, to act as guides and interpreters. What happened to the other two is not recorded.
This evidence may well be the tip of an unrecorded iceberg of Africans living in England at this time.* Their status was varied and though they were mostly dependents, they were not slaves.
Further reading:
Edwards, P. G., The Early African Presence in the British Isles: an Inaugural Lecture on the Occasion of the Establishment of the Chair in English and African Literature at Edinburgh University (1990).
Fraser, P.D., ‘Slaves or Free People? The status of Africans in England 1550-1750’, in R. Vigne and C. Littleton (ed.), From Strangers to Citizens: the Integration of Immigrant Communities in Britain, Ireland and Colonial America, 1550-1750 (2001), pp.254-260.
Habib, I.H., Shakespeare and Race: Postcolonial Praxis in the Early Modern Period (2000).
Sherwood, M., ‘Blacks in Tudor England’, History Today, 53 (October 2003), pp. 40-42.
*Since writing this entry, I have found evidence of over 350 Africans living in Britain 1500-1640, while researching my D.Phil thesis 'Africans in Britain, 1500-1640'.
For more on Sir Pedro Negro see my article.
In 1508 the treasury paid the living expenses for two ‘More freris’ or friars. In June 1507 and May 1508 there was a jousting tournament: ‘the justing of the wild knycht for the black lady’ immortalised in William Dunbar’s poem ‘Ane Blak More’, in which the king disguises himself as a black and wild knight, and the winner of the tournament is to receive a kiss from the black lady. Dunbar’s description of the lady is not highly complimentary:
My ladye with the mekle lippis:
Quhou schou is tute mowitt lyk an aep,
And lyk a gangarall onto graep,
And quhou hir schort catt nois up skippis,
[My lady with the fulsome lips:
Whose jaw is prominent like an ape
And who’s like a toad to the touch
Whose short cat nose skips.]
However, he wrote equally rude verse about other courtiers, which was in keeping with the Scots tradition of ‘flyting’- the art of poetic insult. There continued to be a black presence in Scotland. In 1512, Andrew Forman, the Bishop of Moray, had a ‘More’ as his servant. In January 1513 James IV gave 10 French crowns to ‘the twa blak ledeis’ (probably Margaret and Elene).
In 1549 Marion, Lady Home, wrote to Mary of Guise requesting her to be good to an unnamed ‘Mour’ who is ‘als scharp ane man as rydis’ [‘is as sharp a man as rides’]. Mentioned in the same breath as the Spanish mercenaries, at a time when Hume Castle was occupied by the English, this may be reference to Sir Pedro Negro, a Spanish mercenary soldier who may have been the first African ever to receive an English knighthood. In 1546 Pedro Negro travelled into France with ‘diverse other Spanish knights and gentlemen’, under the command of the Spanish colonel Pedro de Gamba. They won a victory on 15 July and were all awarded lifetime annuities. Negro was awarded £75 in August and £100 that September. On 28 September 1547 he was knighted by the Duke of Somerset at Roxborough, after the taking of Leith. On 7 July 1549 he led a charge through the Scots that were besieging the strategically important castle of Haddington, to provide the castle with vital gunpowder, which allowed the English to defend themselves against the more numerous enemy. According to a Spanish chronicler, it was necessary to kill the 300 horses so as not to let the enemy take them, which he calls a ‘pretty feat of war’. He died in London on 15 July 1551 of the sweating sickness. His funeral was quite a ceremony, with twelve ‘staffes’, ‘torches burning’, ‘flute playing’, and the street hung with black and with his arms. The preacher was Dr. Bartelet, and it was attended by the company of clerks, ‘a harold of arms and mony morners’ [‘a herald and many mourners’].
Other Africans in England did not attain such great status. Dyego Negro was working as a servant to Thomas Bowyer in 1541. In Southampton around 1546-8 lived an African, originally from Guinea, called Jacques Frances, the slave of a Venetian named Peter Paulo who was engaged to raise sunken vessels including the Mary Rose. Frances was called to testify in the High Court of Admiralty in defence of his master, who had been accused of stealing tin and lead. His testimony was admitted by the court, despite the protests of another Venetian, Anthony de Nicholao Rimero ‘that the sayd James Fraunces ys a morisco born where they are not christenyd and slave to the sayd peter Paulo ym And therefore...no Credite nor faithe ought to be geven to his Sayenges as in other Strange Christian cuntryes hit ys to no suche slave geven.’
This case brings into question the legal status of Africans in England. Jacques Frances asserted to the court that he was the famulus of the Italian, which meant household servant, as opposed to servus, the normal Latin word for slave. Slavery was not recognised under English law, as we find in the 1658 Cartwright decision, in which ‘it was resolved that England was too pure an Air for slaves to breathe in’.
In 1551 Englishmen made their first voyage to Barbary, on which ‘there were two Moores, being noble men, whereof one was of the Kings blood, convayed by the said Master Thomas Windam into their Countrey out of England’. In May 1553 Anthoine, an Egyptian, was buried in Gravesend. In 1554 the merchant John Lok brought five Africans to England, three of whom were named Anthonie, George, and Binnie, ‘whereof some were tall and strong men and could wel agree with our meates and drinke’. Three were returned home in 1556, to act as guides and interpreters. What happened to the other two is not recorded.
This evidence may well be the tip of an unrecorded iceberg of Africans living in England at this time.* Their status was varied and though they were mostly dependents, they were not slaves.
Further reading:
Edwards, P. G., The Early African Presence in the British Isles: an Inaugural Lecture on the Occasion of the Establishment of the Chair in English and African Literature at Edinburgh University (1990).
Fraser, P.D., ‘Slaves or Free People? The status of Africans in England 1550-1750’, in R. Vigne and C. Littleton (ed.), From Strangers to Citizens: the Integration of Immigrant Communities in Britain, Ireland and Colonial America, 1550-1750 (2001), pp.254-260.
Habib, I.H., Shakespeare and Race: Postcolonial Praxis in the Early Modern Period (2000).
Sherwood, M., ‘Blacks in Tudor England’, History Today, 53 (October 2003), pp. 40-42.
*Since writing this entry, I have found evidence of over 350 Africans living in Britain 1500-1640, while researching my D.Phil thesis 'Africans in Britain, 1500-1640'.
For more on Sir Pedro Negro see my article.
