Evil May Day

[2] Some of the rioters were later hanged,[3] although King Henry VIII granted a pardon for the remainder following public pleadings from his wife Catherine of Aragon.

[7] According to the chronicler Edward Hall (c. 1498–1547), a fortnight before the riot an inflammatory xenophobic speech was made on Easter Tuesday by a preacher known as "Dr Bell" at St. Paul's Cross at the instigation of John Lincoln, a broker.

Bell accused immigrants of stealing jobs from English workers and of "eat[ing] the bread from poor fatherless children".

[11] As soon as More had calmed them, however, the inhabitants of St Martin started to throw stones, bricks, bats, and boiling water from their windows, some of which fell on an official who screamed: "Down with them!

Henry announced the pardon after his wife, Catherine of Aragon, appealed before him to spare the lives of the rebels for the sake of their wives and children.

[16] Historian Brodie Waddell summarised the riots by saying that, despite the fact that "Flemish cobblers had little in common with French royal courtiers", both wealthy and working-class immigrants "suffered at the hands of the crowd.