Hey friends, welcome to the Renaissance English History podcast.

This is the weekly highlight reel of videos that I have put out on YouTube.

So in case you don't know, you can go over to YouTube and watch all my videos.

The channel is History and Coffee, And you can just search for my name as well, Heather Tesco, History and Coffee.

And you will get it. And you can subscribe there. Thank you to the many people who already subscribe.

And then what I've started doing is weekly highlight reels of some of the videos that have gone out on YouTube that would be of interest to the podcast listeners as well. So thanks for listening. And you can also, like I said, go over and join me on YouTube history and copy and search for Heather. And there I am. So let's get right into it. Today we are going to discuss a

darker chapter of Tudor history, the evil May Day riots of 2017, 2017, 2017, 1517.

The evil May Day riots was the result of increasing xenophobia and resentment towards foreigners in the 16th century, especially the Flemish workers and the foreign merchants and bankers residing in London.

These foreigners were officially known as strangers, and they constituted only about 2% of London's 50,000 residents,

yet their presence incited growing resentment amongst the locals.

These sentiments were further inflamed by a speech delivered on Easter Tuesday in 1517

by a Dr. Butts, a preacher incited by John Lincoln broker.

So Dr. Bell accused these immigrants of taking jobs from the English workers and eating the bread

from the poor fatherless children. Sounds pretty bad. Not only did Bell fan the flames of xenophobia, but he also

encouraged Englishmen to harm these foreigners for the common good. The following fortnight saw sporadic

attacks on these strangers, and rumors spread that a rebellion would occur on May Day to rid the city of the foreign elements.

As May Day approached, the city's mayor and alderman, fearing unrest, announced a 9 p.m. curfew for April 30th.

However, when local alderman John Mundy encountered a group of young men defying the curfew, he was faced with resistance,

suggesting a growing boldness among the city's apprentices. On the night of the riots, the resentment

that had been brewing finally boiled over. Around a thousand young male apprentices gathered in cheapside, freeing several prisoners who had been incarcerated for attacking foreigners.

Then they headed to St. Martin LeGrand, north of St. Paul's Cathedral, where a number of foreigners had resided.

Among the city officials trying to halt the rioting was Thomas Moore,

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