black tudors homework

Black Tudors: The fascinating lives of Africans living in Tudor England

There is a general assumption that Black people came to England only through the slave trade in the 17th century or through immigration during the middle part of the 20th century, such as with West Caribbean migrants who arrived on the SS Empire Windrush boat at Tilbury Docks in June 1948.

Misconceptions arise mainly through popular culture and how people of colour, both in Britain and America, have been portrayed in films and TV dramas over the last fifty years. School history books often focus on England’s notorious ‘Triangular trade route’ that was at its height in the 18th century. This route saw British ships exchanging goods for enslaved people in West Africa to transport and sell in America.

Read more about Ancient History

The history of black Britain: Roman Africans

A little known fact is that black people and people of colour were living as ‘free people’ in the Tudor times, coming to its shores through a variety of ways, mainly through trade with countries such as Morocco. But it wasn’t just in Elizabethan England that black people were making their presence known. The Congolese ambassador Don Miguel Castro to the Netherlands in the 1640s was African and others such as Alessandro de’ Medici, Duke of Florence had a mother who was an African woman called Simonetta. Other notable black figures were members of Margaret of the Netherlands’ court, as well as many other non-slave black men and women, some of high status and ranking who were socially integrated in northern European cities. Rembrandt’s 1661 painting ‘Two African Men’ is one of the Dutch old master’s enigmatic works.

This article presents some of those characters, who in a few unique cases are captured in rare paintings and images.

Read more about Black History

The life of Alessandro de' Medici, the Black Duke of Florence 

England’s free soil.

In England during the 16th century there was a concept, most likely theoretical, of ‘free soil’ which translated as meaning that if anyone set foot on England’s soil, they become free. The only court case to discuss slavery in this period concluded in 1659 that ‘England had too pure an air for slaves to breathe in’.

Possibly the main reason why England had this reputation was that in the 1500s there were still no English colonies before 1607 and in the West Caribbean not until 1623. Before the infamous trade in human cargo in which England became a main player during the 17th and 18th centuries, most enslaved African people were transported by Spanish and Portuguese merchants to Europe and later to their respective colonies in the Caribbean. Spanish colonists first began importing enslaved black people from the Iberian Peninsula in Spain to their Santo Domingo colony on the island of Hispaniola in 1501. The Portuguese however were the first traders in enslaved Africans and the first to engage in the Atlantic slave trade as early as 1526.

Severus: Rome’s first African Emperor

When England was at war with Spain and Portugal its warships recruited enslaved people from Spanish and Portuguese ports to fight alongside the English. Some Africans found passage back to England where they were considered free. Although most black people in England lived and worked within the lower echelons of Tudor society they were not enslaved but worked as servants or had a trade such as carpenters, needle makers and silk weavers, along with other craftsmen who were considered to be free.

However, less than a century later Britain’s role in the transportation of West Africans to its colonies would become an infamous part of English history which saw over 3.1 million Africans transported across the Atlantic. These enslaved people were forced to work producing raw materials for England’s manufacturing industries or contributing to its international trade in sugar and tobacco. Half the entire slave trade took place during the 18th century with the British, Portuguese and the French being the main carriers of nine out of ten enslaved people abducted in Africa.

Free Africans in Elizabethan England

Before England’s appalling contribution to the slave trading industry in the 18th century black residents and other characters of ethnic origin could be considered free people, protected from the shackles of slavery and ownership. The following characters represent a diverse group of black Tudors and Elizabethans, whose histories are recorded in rarely acknowledged or well known documents.

Read more about British History

12 Black Britons who shaped history

Mary fillis of morisco.

Born in Morocco in 1577 by a mother only known as Fillis of Morocco who was a basket weaver and shovel maker, Mary Fillis is an example of a black women who was not enslaved in England. She is noted for an extraordinary act of risk taking where she decided to leave one house of secure employment for another to gain invaluable skills. Mary came to London as a child to live in Mark Lane in the parish of St Olave’s, Hart Street near the Tower of London as a servant in the household of merchant John Barker and his wife Anne. It is possible that Mary came to England through Barker’s occupation as a merchant agent involved in trade between England and Morocco, bringing the young girl back with him to England.

The most striking aspect of Mary’s story is that at some stage when she was about 19 or 20 years-of-age she left the Barker household to live with her new mistress Millicent Porter, a seamstress. It was in this more modest household that Mary learned seamstress skills, most likely to raise her status in Elizabethan society as a woman with skills to earn a living. In 1597 with Porter’s assistance and help Mary was baptised at St Botolph’s Aldgate church in London where her baptism record in the parish clerk’s memorandum book. The entry which covers three pages describes her as a ‘Blackamoor’. From that auspicious day, possibly one of the first black women to be confirmed into the Christian faith in England, she became a free woman, afforded the rights of any free-living citizen on par with English people during the 16th century.

It is fascinating to think that Mary Fillis took the brave initiative to leave the relative comfort of Barker’s affluent household with all its luxuries to take up service in mistress Porter’s modest home. Here as well as undertaking a variety of household duties she was able to learn skills to better herself and earn a living that would have helped her to integrate more fully in Elizabethan England.

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The importance of celebrating black British history

Henry viii’s black favourites : jacques francis & john blanke.

King Henry VIII (1491 - 1547) is perhaps a surprising figure to be associated with two black Tudors who represent vital evidence of Africans holding important positions in 16th century England. Both men were respected for their formidable skills that were acknowledged by one of the most influential and powerful kings in history.

Jacques Francis : Salvage Diver

Black African, Jacques Francis, became famous as the salvage diver of one of the Tudor period’s most ill-fated warships, the Mary Rose. Francis was brought to England and employed by Henry to dive down into the wreck of the king’s most valuable 600 tons warship which boasted state-of-the-art maritime technology and weaponry. On 19 July 1545 the Mary Rose set out from Portsmouth to defend England against an invading force of 30,000 Frenchmen in what was to become the battle of the Solent. After having only just left port the colossal ship sank, watched by King Henry himself and who was said to have wept at the sight of the tragedy.

The guns on the ship were marked with Henry’s royal crest and were worth each more than £1.7 million in today’s money. Realising that it was impossible to raise the ship from the depths of the Solvent, King Henry decided to try and salvage some of the expensive weaponry. One problem with this plan was that most Europeans couldn’t swim, let alone dive great depths. The only people known in the early modern world who could swim and dive and hold their breath for long periods were Africans.

Henry hired a Venetian to put together a team of divers led by Jacques Francis, who with his team, possibly other Africans, also salvaged valuables from sunken ships the Santa Maria and Sanctus Edwardus.

Born around 1527 in the Portuguese colony on Arguin Island off the western coast of Mauritania in 1528, the island’s treacherous waters were an ideal training ground for Francis to acquire the skills of salvage diving. He would have learned to dive to great depths without any equipment and what is known today as free diving. By the time Francis was 18 he was living in Southampton and frequenting a pub called The Dolphin for his meals and drink before his royal calling.

Read more about Tudor History

The Mary Rose: Tudor battleship

Court testimony.

The reason why we have details about Francis’ life is because he testified in a court case as a witness for his employer Pierso Corsi who had been accused of theft. Because Francis’ English wasn’t good enough to be heard in court, a translator was employed to assist as Francis testified of his own free will. Interestingly three Venetians maintained that Francis was a ‘slave’ and a ‘heathen’ and that his testimony should be discounted. One reason for this disparagement was due to the claim that Francis had not been baptised and was therefore not a Christian.

Jacques Francis didn’t define himself as an enslaved person, arguing that he was paid wages. He described himself as a ‘famulus’, a Latin term for servant or attendant, which the court in England accepted and therefore his testimony. In the eyes of the law Francis was acknowledged as a ‘free man’, the same as other black Tudors and Elizabethans during this period. One impediment to citizens not being afforded the same rights as other free men and women, and being allowed to give testimony in court was if they were considered to be slaves. Throughout history, going back to Roman law, enslaved people were not allowed to give testimony in court and could only be taken under torture. In colonial America legislation was passed to bar Africans from testifying. The fact that Africans’ testimonies could legally be heard in English courts is evidence that they were not enslaved in England.

John Blanke: Royal Trumpeter

John Blanke, known as the Black trumpeter during the court of King Henry VIII is mentioned in wage documents relating to his time in employment, at first with Henry VII and later with his infamous son Henry VIII. Besides wage documents some Africans appeared in legal papers, as in the case of Jacques Francis who acted as a witness giving testimony in court. John Blanke however is one of the few if not the only African whose identity is recorded in a rare painting now held in the College of Arms.

Blanke is identified, possibly twice in different costumes, among other trumpeters in the ‘Westminster Tournament Roll’, a sixty-foot record of the moment when Henry VIII celebrated the birth of his first ill-fated son by Catherine of Aragon in 1511 who would die aged just 52 days old. Blanke, along with other prized trumpeters is seen in the roll playing at this prestigious royal event and his presence along with other chosen royal trumpeters indicates his status and prestige. Blanke’s reputation is further enhanced by evidence that he also asked his boss Henry VIII for a raise and got it, increasing his wages from 8d to 16d.

Blanke’s image is the only known portrait of an African in Tudor England. Besides John Blanke, Africans lived and worked all across the country from Edinburgh to Hull down to Truro in Cornwall and southern port towns like Southampton, Bristol and Plymouth, while a third existed in London.

The lives of Henry VII and Henry VIII: Never the twain shall meet

Edward swarthye : gloucestershire porter.

Edward Swarthye, a porter in the village of Lydney in rural Gloucestershire was a black Tudor employed as a servant by his master and godfather Edward Wynter. The name Swarthye meant ‘dark skin’ and he most likely came to England due to Edward Wynter’s voyage to the Caribbean with Sir Francis Drake to raid Spanish ports where Swarthye may have been recruited to fight alongside the English. During the 1600s over 300,000 Africans were transported by the Spanish to their colonies in the Caribbean to work in silver mines. English ship captains fighting the Spanish on the high seas would recruit enslaved Africans to fight the Spanish. In many cases enslaved Africans would seize the opportunity to escape their Spanish masters and board English ships, which may have been how Edward Swarthye made his way to England.

Whipping scandal

An event on the 3 December 1596 involving Swarthye when he whipped a white man on his master’s orders shocked witnesses at the time, not because he was black, but because the beaten man was of higher status. The story is perhaps a more shocking revelation to contemporary readers due to the history of slavery and the preconceived notion of white men whipping the black men in less enlightened and brutal times.

The whipping, ordered by Swarthye’s employer Edward Wynter was carried out on servant John Guy in front of twenty men. The crowd were shocked, not because of any racial element but because Guy was of high rank and standing than Swarthye. Guy had also worked as a servant for Wynter and been brought up in his household. At the time of the beating he was in charge of Wynter’s iron works and on high wages. Wynter accused Guy of running off to Ireland while he was away and leaving the ironworks unmanaged. Wynter believed this desertion deserved physical punishment. An alternative explanation for the vicious punishment could have been to do with a personal feud because Guy had married the daughter of Wynter’s enemy James Bucke. When the incident reached the Star Chamber Court, Swarthye himself gave a deposition, largely supporting his master’s actions and maintaining that the whipping had not been premeditated.

The fact that Swarthye, a black man, testified, showed that, like Jacques Francis, he was seen as a ‘free man’ in the eyes of the law. The humiliated John Guy went on to become the Mayor of Bristol and the governor of the first English colony in Newfoundland.

The blockade of Africa: The West African Squadron

Baptisms, racial integration and marriages.

During the Tudor period it was essential for Africans or other non-English residents - be they from Morocco or the south Caribbean - to become baptised to be able to fully integrate in society. At the time of Mary Fillis and her baptism in 1597 there was a general view among the English that African people in England could become Christians, even if it meant just learning the Lord’s prayer and some of the psalms. Mary’s baptism was one of sixty baptisms of ‘Blackamoors’ during that time where there existed a progressive view that Africans and other non-European races were created after the image of God and therefore able to become true Christians.

Citizens like Millicent Porter, who acted as godmother to Mary Fillis encouraged the baptism and religious education of Africans. One such benefactor was Paul Bayning, a merchant and privateering magnate. After Bayning died in 1616 he left £5 to the minister of St Olave’s, Hart Street in London for instructing his African servant ‘Anthony’ in the principles of the Christian faith and religion, to be baptised.

As baptism and instruction into the Christian faith legitimised Africans’ acceptance in Tudor society, it also led to marriages between English citizens and Africans. Records show marriages taking place between English Christians and Africans, be they between African men and English women, or African women and English men. A man called George Best wrote in 1578 ‘I have seen an Ethiopean as black as coal brought to England who taking a fair English woman to wife, begat a son in all respects as black as the father’. In 1600 in Bristol, an African woman called Joan Maria married a man called Thomas Smith whose job was manufacturing weapons.

Olaudah Equiano and the Zong Massacre

Servants vs slaves.

But not everyone respected the notion of ‘free soil’ and people being free of slavery in England during the Elizabethan age. In 1587 Portuguese merchant Hector Nunes, who had left Portugal for London to escape anti-Semitism submitted a petition to the Court of Requests over a matter relating to an ‘Ethiopean Negar’ who was working for him and had most likely come from Santo Domingo in modern day Dominican Republic where he had been enslaved by the Spanish. Having traveled to England as part of Sir Francis Drake’s fleet after fighting the Spanish he was sold illegally to Hector Nunes.

Nunes’ petition was in the form of a document complaining that the black man in his employment refused to carry for him and serve him. Nunes assumed that the law in England was the same as in his native Portugal but was to learn that the common law in England had no remedy to offer him with his situation. Such legislation meant that Nunes couldn’t force the Bman to work for him. In an earlier case of slavery being challenged by England’s ‘free soil’ principle an African man called Pero Alvarez told the king of Portugal that he had been set free in England by Henry VII. The King of Portugal accepted this explanation and Alvarez continued to live a free life in Portugal.

There were at least 350 Africans in England during the Tudor and early Stuart period (1500 – 1640) who mostly came from North and West Africa. None were regarded as being enslaved by law. Underlining an atmosphere of modest toleration of ‘foreigners’ and marriages between races in English society was possible due to the influence of biblical texts such as in the Geneva translation of the Bible where there is a reference to Moses taking an Ethiopian wife. Tragically this brief welcoming view was to change drastically in the 18th century when there developed a stark contrast in society’s attitudes towards people of colour just a century later.

In 1562 Captain John Hawkins was the first known Englishman to include enslaved Africans in his cargo. Queen Elizabeth approved of his journey, during which he captured 300 Africans. He then sailed across the North Atlantic and exchanged them for hides, ginger and sugar. This appalling chapter in England’s history, in which millions of Africans were transported to be enslaved its colonies in the name of international commerce, lasted over 200 years. This trade in human misery wasn’t abolished until 25 March, 1807 when King George III signed into law the Act for Abolition of the Slave Trade, banning trading in enslaved people in the British Empire. Enslaved people were not set free in British colonies until an act of Parliament in 1834.

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BLACK TUDORS…A peek into the lives of ten people of the African Diaspora who lived in Tudor Britain

Until now, the story of the Africans, The Black Tudors, who lived and died in England during the Tudor and Stuart reigns remains untold.

The Tudors reigned from 1485 to 1603 then the Stuarts from 1603 until 1714. Of interest is the fact that it is now also possible for many of the African Diaspora tracing their ancestry, to go back as far as the early 18th Century but we know virtually nothing of the African Diaspora before that period. Miranda Kaufmann’s book is most certainly revealing:

We know what they wore. We know what they ate. We know the details of their monarchs’ love lives, and how they caused seismic changes in our country’s religious and political history. But what about the  Black  Tudors?

Miranda Kaufmann   gives us great insight and through diligent research she has unearthed some startling facts about our history. A history never before told in her new book:

BLACK TUDORS  tells the stories of  ten Africans and   traces their tumultuous paths during the Tudor and Stuart eras, uncovering a rich array of detail about their daily lives and how they were treated. She reveals how John Blanke came to be the royal trumpeter to Henry VII and Henry VIII: the trouble Jacques Francis got himself into while working as a salvage diver on the wreck of the  Mary Rose ; what prompted Diego to sail the world with Drake, and she pieces together the stories of a porter, a prince, a sailor, a prostitute and a silk weaver. 

They came to England from Africa, from Europe and from the Spanish Caribbean. They came with privateers, pirates, merchants, aristocrats, even kings and queens, and were accepted into Tudor society. They were baptised, married and buried by the Church of England and paid wages like other Tudors. 

Yet their experience was extraordinary because, unlike the majority of Africans across the rest of the Atlantic world, in England they were  free . They lived in a world where skin colour was less important than religion, class or talent: before the English became heavily involved in the slave trade, and before they founded their first surviving colony in the Americas. Their stories challenge the traditional narrative that racial slavery was inevitable and that it was imported to colonial Virginia from Tudor England. They force us to re-examine the 17th century to find out what  had caused perceptions to change so radically. 

Introducing Black Tudors means a reassessment of our national story and what it means to be British today. They are just one piece in the diverse jigsaw of migrations that make up our island’s multicultural heritage. The knowledge that Africans lived free in one of the most formative periods of our national history can move us beyond the invidious legacies of the slavery and racism that blighted later periods in our history. BLACK TUDORS challenges the accepted narrative that racial slavery was all but inevitable and forces us to re-evaluate our shared history.

The Men and Women featured in the book Black Tudors: The Untold Story

JOHN BLANKE, the royal trumpeter

The two images of the court trumpeter John Blanke in the Westminster Tournament Roll of 1511 comprise the only known portrait of a Black Tudor. He was present at the court of Henry VII from at least 1507, and may have arrived with Katherine of Aragon in 1501, when she came from Spain to marry Henry VIII’s older brother, Prince Arthur. In 1509 he performed at both Henry VII’s funeral and Henry VIII’s coronation. He was paid wages and successfully petitioned the new king for a pay rise. He married in 1512, and was given a wedding present by Henry VIII, but after that he disappears from the records…

JACQUES FRANCIS, the salvage diver 

An expert swimmer and diver, both skills common to his native land, but extremely rare in Tudor England, Jacques Francis was part of a team hired to salvage guns from the wreck of the Mary Rose in 1546. When his Venetian master, Peter Paulo Corsi, was accused of theft by a consortium of Italian merchants based in Southampton, Francis became the first known African to give evidence in an English court of law.

DIEGO, the circumnavigator 

Diego ran through gunshot in his eagerness to be taken aboard Francis Drake’s ship when it docked at Nombre de Dios in Panama in 1572. He forged an alliance between the English and the local Cimarrons (Africans who had escaped their Spanish captors to found their own settlements) that resulted in the capture of over 150,000 pesos of Spanish silver and gold. Following this lucrative adventure, Diego returned to Plymouth with Drake, whence they set sail together again once more to circumnavigate the globe in 1577 on the Golden Hinde. He was with Drake when he passed through the straits of Magellan, raided South America and laid claim to California in the name of Elizabeth I in 1579. Diego died near the Moluccas of an arrow wound sustained after a fight a year earlier with the Araucanians, who lived on Mocha island off the coast of Chile.

EDWARD SWARTHYE, the porter 

In 1596, Edward Swarthye whipped John Guye, the future first governor of Newfoundland. They were both servants in the Gloucestershire household of Sir Edward Wynter: Guye managed the iron works, while Swarthye was the porter. Swarthye had likely been brought home by Wynter after he captained the Aid on Francis Drake’s Caribbean raid of 1585-6, one of many Africans who fled their Spanish enslavers to join the English. The whipping was just one incident in an ongoing family feud between the Wynters and their neighbours the Buckes. Edward Swarthye appeared as a witness in the ensuing court case of 1597, his testimony confirming that he, a Black Tudor, had whipped a white man before a crowd assembled in the Great Hall at the Wynter’s home, White Cross Manor.

REASONABLE BLACKMAN, the silk weaver 

Reasonable Blackman made an independent living as a silk weaver living in Southwark c. 1579-1592. The silk industry was new to England but its products were the height of fashion. He had probably arrived in London from the Netherlands, which had both a sizeable African population and was a known centre for cloth manufacture. He had a family of at least three children, but sadly lost a daughter, Jane, and a son, Edmund, to the plague that struck London in 1592. 

MARY FILLIS, the Moroccan convert 

Mary Fillis was the daughter of Fillis of Morisco, a Moroccan basket weaver and shovel maker. She came to London c. 1583-4 where she became a servant to John Barker, a merchant and sometime factor for the Earl of Leicester. By the time of her baptism in the summer of 1597, she was working for a seamstress from East Smithfield named Millicent Porter. Porter died on 28 June 1599 but we do not know what became of Fillis. She was however present in London during a period which saw a succession of ambassadors arriving in England from her native land in order to negotiate alliances against the common enemy: Spain. 

DEDERI JAQUOAH, the prince of River Cestos 

Jaquoah was the son of King Caddi-biah, who ruled a kingdom in modern-day Liberia known for its meleguetta pepper or ‘grains of paradise’ and ivory. He arrived in England aboard the Abigail in the autumn of 1610, and was baptised in the City of London church of St. Mildred’s Poultry on New Year’s Day 1611. He spent two years in England with John Davies, the leading Guinea merchant of the day, before returning home. In 1615, he received a delegation of East India Company merchants en route to Bantam. They reported that he spoke good English and made ‘great proffers and promises of trade’. 

JOHN ANTHONY, mariner of Dover 

John Anthony was a sailor who almost certainly came to England with the pirate Sir Henry Mainwaring. In 1619 he was employed aboard The Silver Falcon on a voyage to Virginia. Had all gone according to plan he, a free, waged, sailor, would have been the first African to arrive in an English colony in mainland North America. However the ship only made it as far as Bermuda, where it acquired a cargo of tobacco in dubious circumstances, before docking unexpectedly in the Netherlands. A bitter dispute followed between the owner of the ship, Lord Zouche, and the principal merchant in the venture. This held up the payment of John Anthony’s wages but after petitioning Lord Zouche, he eventually received payment with interest in the spring of 1620.

ANNE COBBIE, the tawny Moor with soft skin 

Anne Cobbie was a prostitute who worked in the parish of St. Clement Danes, Westminster, in the 1620s. It was said that men would rather give her a gold coin worth 22 shillings ‘to lie with her’ than another woman five shillings ‘because of her soft skin’. She was one of ten women cited when the couple who owned the brothel where she worked were brought before the Westminster Sessions Court in 1626. The action was brought by one Clement Edwards, a clergyman from Leistershire whose wife had left him to work in the Bankes’ establishment. Anne Cobbie is exceptional: there is actually more evidence of African men visiting English prostitutes than vice versa at this time. 

…  CATTELENA OF ALMONDSBURY, independent single woman 

One of a number of Africans recorded in rural locations, Cattelena lived in the small Gloucestershire village of Almondsbury, not far from Bristol, until her death in 1625. An inventory survives of the goods she owned. Her most valuable possession was a cow, which not only supplied her with milk and butter but allowed her to profit from selling these products to her neighbours. No furniture is listed, which suggests she may have shared her home, perhaps with Helen Ford, the widow who administered her estate. Her possessions, from her cooking utensils to her table cloth, each tell us something of her life, but the fact that she had them at all tells us even more. Africans in England, like Cattelena, were not owned, but possessed property themselves. 

Miranda Kaufmann will speak about her award-winning book on 28th February   2019 at the National Archives in Kew, London and on   13th   April 2019 in Canterbury. For further information see our National Listings Page or contact: http://www.mirandakaufmann.com

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Tudor, English and black – and not a slave in sight

From musicians to princes, a new book by historian Miranda Kaufmann opens a window on the hitherto unknown part played by black people in 16th-century England

W ithin moments of meeting historian Miranda Kaufmann , I learn not to make flippant assumptions about race and history. Here we are in Moorgate, I say. Is it called that because it was a great hub of black Tudor life? “You have to be careful with anything like that,” she winces, “because, for all you know, this was a moor. It’s the same with family names and emblems: if your name was Mr Moore, you’d have the choice between a moorhen or a blackamoor. It wouldn’t necessarily say something about your race.”

Her answer – meticulous, free of bombast, dovetailing memorable details with wider issues – is typical of her first book Black Tudors: The Untold Story , which debunks the idea that slavery was the beginning of Africans’ presence in England, and exploitation and discrimination their only experience. The book takes the form of 10 vivid and wide-ranging true-life stories, sprinkled with dramatic vignettes and nice, chewy details that bring each character to life.

Africans were already known to have likely been living in Roman Britain as soldiers, slaves or even free men and women. But Kaufmann shows that, by Tudor times, they were present at the royal courts of Henry VII, Henry VIII, Elizabeth I and James I, and in the households of Sir Walter Raleigh and William Cecil. The book also shows that black Tudors lived and worked at many levels of society, often far from the sophistication and patronage of court life, from a west African man called Dederi Jaquoah, who spent two years living with an English merchant, to Diego, a sailor who was enslaved by the Spanish in Panama, came to Plymouth and died in Moluccas, having circumnavigated half the globe with Sir Francis Drake.

Kaufmann’s interest in black British history came about almost by accident: she intended to study Tudor sailors’ perceptions of Asia and America for her thesis at Oxford University, but found documents demonstrating the presence of Africans within Britain. “I’d never heard anything about it, despite having studied Tudor history at every level. When I went to the National Archive for the first time, I asked an archivist where to start looking and they were like: ‘Oh well, you won’t find anything about that here.’” Kaufmann kept digging, contacted local record offices and ultimately built up to her book. So why has the existence of black Tudors been unknown, untold and untaught? “History isn’t a solid set of facts,” she replies. “It’s very much about what questions you ask of the past. If you ask different questions, you get different answers. People weren’t asking questions about diversity. Now they are.”

Despite Kaufmann’s research, it is hard to swallow the idea that black people were not treated as extreme anomalies (or worse) in Tudor England. “We need to return to England as it was at the time,” says Kaufmann – “an island nation on the edge of Europe with not much power, a struggling Protestant nation in perpetual danger of being invaded by Spain and being wiped out. It’s about going back to before the English are slave traders, before they’ve got major colonies. The English colonial project only really gets going in the middle of the 17th century.” That said, she does leave a stark question hanging in the air: “How did we go from this period of relative acceptance to becoming the biggest slave traders out there?”

Black Tudors does not make overblown claims about ethnic diversity in England – in her wider research, Kaufmann found around 360 individuals in the period 1500-1640 – but it does weave nonwhite Britons back into the texture of Tudor life. Black Tudors came to England through English trade with Africa; from southern Europe, where there were black (slave) populations in Spain and Portugal, the nations that were then the great colonisers; in the entourages of royals such as Katherine of Aragon and Philip II (who was the husband of Mary I); as merchants or aristocrats; and as the result of English privateering and raids on the Spanish empire. “If you captured a Spanish ship, it would be likely to have some Africans on board,” says Kaufmann. “One prized ship brought in to Bristol had 135. They got shipped back to Spain after being put up in a barn for a week. The authorities didn’t know quite what to do with them.”

Although there was no legislation approving or defining slavery within England, it could hardly have been fun being “the only black person in the village” – such as Cattelena, a woman who lived independently in Almondsbury and whose “most valuable item … was her cow”. Nonetheless, Kaufmann uncovers some impressive lives, such as the sailor John Anthony, who arrived in England on a pirate’s boat; Reasonable Blackman, a Southwark silk weaver; and a salvage diver called Jacques Francis. Kaufmann points to them as “examples of people who are really being valued for their skills. In a later age, you get these portraits of Africans sitting sycophantically in the corner looking up at the main character, but they’re not just these domestic playthings for the aristocracy. They’re working as a seamstress or for a brewer. Even in aristocratic households they are performing tasks – as a porter, like Edward Swarthye, or as a cook – they are doing useful things, they get wages. John Blanke, a royal trumpeter, gets paid twice the average wage of an agricultural labourer and three times that of an average servant. They’re not being whipped or beaten or put in chains or being bought and sold.”

I balk at the names black Tudors were given – Swarthye, Blanke, Blackman, Blacke – and at the idea that trudging out an existence as a Tudor prostitute, like Anne Cobbie, a “tawny Moor” with “soft skin”, is any great win for diversity. But it does seem that black Tudors are no worse off than white ones. At a basic level, they are acknowledged as citizens rather than loathed as outcasts. “It’s enormously significant, given how important religion was, that Africans were being baptised and married and buried within church life. It’s a really significant form of acceptance, particularly the baptism ritual, which states that ‘through baptism you are grafted into the community of God’s holy church’, in which we are all one body.”

Kaufmann says she feels “anxious, because people might not like” her book. “Part of it is the surprise element: people didn’t think there were Africans in Tudor England. There’s this fantasy past where it’s all white – and it wasn’t. It’s ignorance. People just don’t know these histories. Hopefully this research will inspire producers to get multiracial stories on our screens.”

Although she is very generous with her time, Kaufmann has been uneasy, even to the point of seeming dissatisfied, throughout our conversation. She goes cautiously silent when I try to link her concerns to current issues such as Brexit, racism or the rise of populist nationalism. Part of the reason might be wariness at the vicious online treatment meted out to women of expertise when they comment on current affairs or state a fact that goes against philistine fantasies. Earlier this year, the historian Mary Beard was the target of abuse for corroborating an educational film for children which showed a well-to-do black family living under the Roman empire.

This resistance to accepting a black history is not confined to the lower reaches of Twitter. The academic and novelist Sunny Singh has written about director Christopher Nolan’s film Dunkirk, which erased the presence of Royal Indian Army Services Corp personnel and lascars from south Asia and east Africa working for the British and, on the French side, Moroccan, Algerian and Tunisian troops from France’s colonies. The comedian Mark Gatiss was so disturbed by the presence of one black actor in the cast for a Doctor Who time travel episode he was filming that he sent a “very difficult” email to his bosses protesting that “there weren’t any black soldiers in Victoria’s army” . Rattled, he did his own research and discovered that there had indeed been one black soldier there, whereupon he relented.

Despite her work in filling in these historical blanks, Kaufmann laments the scarcity of complete evidence: “I wish they had kept diaries or preserved letters. Much as I’ve pieced together these lives, they’re not satisfying biographies where we know everything – more often, they are snapshots of moments.” Nonetheless, the tide is turning against the myth that England has always been a monoracial, monocultural, monolingual nation. Along with writers such as David Olusoga, Paul Gilroy and Sunny Singh, and institutions such as the University of York, which has launched a project investigating medieval multiculturalism, historians such as Miranda Kaufmann are bringing England to a necessary reckoning with its true history.

Extraordinary lives: some black people in Tudor England

John Blanke, the musician One of the court trumpeters, he was present in the entourage of Henry VII from at least 1507. He performed at both Henry VII’s funeral and Henry VIII’s coronation in 1509.

Jacques Francis, the salvage diver An expert swimmer and diver, he was hired to salvage guns from the wreck of the Mary Rose in 1546. When his Venetian master was accused of theft in Southampton, Francis became the first known African to give evidence in an English court of law.

Diego, the circumnavigator Diego asked to be taken aboard Sir Francis Drake’s ship in Panama in 1572. Diego and Drake circumnavigated the globe in 1577, claiming California for the crown in 1579.

Anne Cobbie, prostitute Cobbie was one of 10 women cited when the owners of the brothel where she worked were brought before the Westminster sessions court in 1626.

Reasonable Blackman, the silk weaver He lived in Southwark around 1579-1592 and had probably arrived from the Netherlands. He had at least three children, but lost two to the plague in 1592.

Mary Fillis, servant The daughter of Fillis of Morisco, a Moroccan basket weaver and shovel-maker, Mary came to London around 1583-4 and became a servant to a merchant. Later she worked for a seamstress from East Smithfield.

Dederi Jaquoah, merchant and prince Jaquoah was the son of King Caddi-biah, ruler of a kingdom in modern Liberia. He arrived in England in 1610 and was baptised in London on New Year’s Day 1611. He spent two years in England with a leading merchant.

Black Tudors: The Untold Story by Miranda Kaufmann is published by Oneworld (£18.99 rrp). To order a copy for £16.14 with free UK p&p, visit guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846.

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Black Tudor History

by Heather   -  February 18, 2017

It’s Black History Month in North America, and in honor of that, I am going out of the planned narrative of war with France, and doing this episode on Black Tudors, and the experience of life for black people in Tudor England.  For those of you who prefer reading over listening, the transcript is below.

There have been black people in England since Roman times, and records show them in England throughout the middle ages. During the Age of Exploration, though, the population in London and England grew, so much so that Elizabeth I thought she might have to do something about it. She was unsuccessful, though.

Interestingly, the slave trade didn’t really take off in England until the mid 17th century, and under English law it was impossible to be a slave in Tudor England, so the experience of black Tudors is unique compared to those in Spain and Portugal during this time. In fact, the story is largely how similar to white Tudors their experience was. By that, I mean that their experience ran the spectrum from being poor servants to having important roles at court, and everything in the middle. You’d never know it based on the pop culture interpretations of Tudor England, though.

So join me in this episode to learn about several black Tudors including a black soldier who was made a knight after defeating the Scots.

If you like this show, please leave me a rating on iTunes . It’s the number one thing you can do to help new shows succeed. You can also support the show on Patreon for as little as $1/episode. And thanks!

Links and More Information

My Episode on the Agora Podcast Network Exchange: https://www.acast.com/theagorapodcastnetwork/untitletheexchange-ep.8-therenaissanceenglishhistorypodcast

Read the 1596 proclamation that England had a growing population on its own, and didn’t need “blackmoors” in the realm. http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/blackhistory/early_times/docs/privy_council.htm

The proclamation giving Casper van Senden license to sell black servants to help defray costs associated with returning prisoners from Spain and Portugal. The masters were offered no compensation, but the Queen stated that she wanted them to be served by Christian English people. http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/blackhistory/early_times/docs/privy_warrant.htm

The 1601 proclamation http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/blackhistory/early_times/docs/royal_proc.htm

History of the Slave Trade in England http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/slavery/pdf/britain-and-the-trade.pdf

BBC History Extra article on London’s first black neighborhood: http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-18903391

Of Ane Blak Moir – Satirical Scottish Poem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Of_Ane_Blak-Moir

Miranda Kauffman’s essay on blacks in Tudor England http://www.mirandakaufmann.com/blacks-in-tudor-britain.html

Miranda Kauffman’s essay on Diego, on the Golden Hinde http://www.mirandakaufmann.com/bbc-history-magazine.html

TRANSCRIPT on Episode 68: Black Tudors

Hello, and welcome to the Renaissance English History Podcast, a member of the Agora Podcast Network. I’m your host, Heather Teysko, and I’m a storyteller who makes history accessible because I believe it’s a pathway to understanding who we are, our place in the universe, and being in touch with our own humanity. This is episode 68, and I am doing something that I know many of you hate when I do, and I try not to do very often – I told a lie last episode. I was planning on doing the second French Wars episode this week, but with it being Black History Month in North America, I got distracted learning about Black Tudors, and wanted to do an episode devoted to the black experience in 16th century England.

Remember you can get show notes for each episode – this week’s are quite extensive – along with the book recommendations, at Englandcast.com, where you can also sign up for the newsletter list and get extra minicasts, special book giveaways, and other fun stuff. Go to Englandcast.com to sign up.

There are a lot of misconceptions about being black in Tudor England, and I want to try to debunk those in this episode. The first main one would be that there weren’t really black Tudors. When, in fact, there were many black people in Tudor England, some of whom had quite high up positions in the government and at court. Second, you might think that if you were black in the 16th century, you were likely a slave. Also not true. There are parish records of black people being buried in parish graveyards, marrying white English women, and there was even a black knight who helped win a victory against the Scots.

So let’s talk first about the status of black people in Tudor England. The slave trade in England didn’t really take off until the mid 1640’s, so during the reigns of the Tudors, there wouldn’t have been a slave trade, or slavery as we know it. In fact, in English law, it was not possible to be a slave in England. During the 16th century, the black population was mostly free, and there were many intermarriages, as I said before.

There were black people in England from Roman times, and they certainly would have been seen from time to time throughout the middle ages. In 1205, for example, the Close Rolls of king John give a mandate to the constable of Northampton to retain Peter the Saracen, maker of crossbows, and another with him, for the king’s service, and allow him 12d a day.” But it’s really during the Elizabethan period that we saw a large rise in the black population, which eventually led to Queen Elizabeth putting out several proclamations about the number of black people in the country.

Going back to the beginning of the century, in 1501 Catherine of Aragon came to England to marry Prince Arthur. She came from Southern Spain, which had been ruled by the Moors until just recently, and even today still reflects the Moorish history. I live in Andalucia, just a few hours from where Katherine grew up at the Alhambra, and in my town there are Moorish palaces still in existence, with gorgeous tiling and gardens, as well as a medieval wall built by the Moors that has that distinctive north African Moroccan look to it.

So Catherine would have been exposed to Moors, and to Africans in general. In her retinue when she came to England there were several black people; maids, and musicians. One, John Blanke, was a famous trumpeter. Little is known about his life, other than that he was in Catherine’s retinue. But he petitioned Henry for a raise in 1507, which was successful, and he was also part of the celebrations for Henry VIII’s only son with Catherine of Aragon, Henry Duke of Cornwall, and he is portrayed in paintings from that event. The Iberian Moor Catalina de Cardones was another member of Katherine’s retinue, and served her for twenty-six years as Lady of the Bedchamber. She married someone called ‘Hace Ballestas’, a crossbowman who was also of Moorish origin. Later on, Robert Cecil would have a black servant called Fortunas.

One story I want to tell you is about the first black Tudor made a knight. Sir Pedro Negro was a Spanish mercenary soldier. In 1546, during one of Henry VIII’s wars with France, he traveled into France with other Spanish fighters under the command of Colonel Pedro de Gamba.The Spanish mercenaries won a great battle against the French, and were awarded annuities. Negro was awarded 75 pounds in August and 100 pounds in September that year. In September of 1547 he was knighted by the Duke of Somerset at Roxoborough after taking Leith castle. In 1549 the Scots were besieging Haddington Castle; this was during a period of rough relations with Scotland when Edward VI started the Rough Wooing again to get Mary Queen of Scots to marry into England. So the Scots were besieging Haddington Castle, and Negro led a charge through the Scots to reinforce Haddington with gunpowder, which allowed them to continue to defend themselves longer. Sir Pedro Negro died in 1550 of the sweating sickness, and his funeral was a huge occasion with the street hung with black, and with his arms, and all sorts of musicians and parades honoring him.

As early as 1558 there are parish records mentioning Africans being buried in full Christian sanctified land in the graveyards. They were called Blackamoors, Blacks, Moors, Negroes, and Ethiopians. And they often intermarried. One James Allen Gronnio saw an African prince, who had been enslaved at 15, served in the British army, and later settled near colchester marry an English woman. He wrote, “I have seen myself and Ethiopian black as coal taking a fair English woman as wife. They begat a son in all respects as black as the father.”

As the slave trade from Spain and Portugal grew, and English pirates like Francis Drake came into contact with them, more and more Africans would have been appearing in England. This is reflected in Shakespeare with characters like Othello, which showed that there were plenty of black people in London at the time. There was an African on board the Golden Hinde when Drake left London, and three others joined the ship during its voyage.

There actually were enough black people in England so that Elizabeth thought she had to do something about it. By this point many wealthy landowners would have had one or maybe two black servants, and they were also common servants throughout society.

In 1596 Elizabeth issued a proclamation writing to the mayors of major cities that there were, “of late, divers backmoors brought into this realm, of which kind of people there are already here too many” She ordered that “those kind of people should be sent forth of the land.” At the same time she made an arrangement for a merchant, Casper van Senden, to deport black people. It seems that the aim was to either sell them to get money to ransom, or do an even trade, with Spain to get English prisoners held by them. Problem was that Elizabeth offered no compensation to employers to part with their servants, and so most refused to let them go.

In 1601 she issued another proclamation saying she wasn’t happy with the number of blackmoors which are “crept into this realm.” She again gave Senden a license to deport them, but it doesn’t seem that it was any more successful than the first attempt. Like it or not, it seems that black people had found a home in Tudor England.

But why did Elizabeth suddenly want to deport the black people? As we’ve talked about in this podcast before, the 16th century saw the breakdown in many things that had been taken for granted in society before, such as a very clear class system based on old money and land ownership. The ruling classes became worried about poverty and vagrancy as the feudal society basically died a slow death. They of course feared disorder, societal breakdown, and basically anything else that would challenge them. So they came up with a series of poor laws to deal with their fears.

The 1590’s saw a series of bad harvests, and suddenly there was more poverty and vagrancy than ever. Elizabeth seemed to be trying to place blame on the black people for the social problems. In the 1601 proclamation she said that black people were “fostered and relieved here to the great annoyance of the Queen’s own liege people, that want of relief which those people consume.” It also said that “most of them are infidels, having no understanding of Christ or his gospel.” Of course, as I said before, this isn’t true since many parish records show Christian burials for Africans, and there is no evidence to show that they were any poorer than any other group of people in Elizabethan society. But as those of you who listened to the xenophobia episode will remember, this was a time when it didn’t take a lot to make someone feel threatened. That’s not a political commentary. It’s just what was.

I want to close with the story featured in the BBC History Extra magazine in 2012 on London’s first black neighborhood. The parish records of St. Boltolph’s outside Aldgate show 25 black people in the later part of the 16th century. They are mainly servants, but one, who was next to the bell foundry off Whitechapel road likely worked at the foundry. Some were given very high status funerals with black cloth, which showed the high rank they were given by employers, neighbors, and colleagues.

Among the names are these: Christopher Cappervert [ie from Cape Verde] – “a blacke moore” Domingo – “a black neigro servaunt unto Sir William Winter” Suzanna Peavis – “a blackamore servant to John Deppinois” Symon Valencia – “a black moore servaunt to Stephen Drifyeld a nedellmaker” Cassango – “a blackmoore servaunt to Mr Thomas Barber a marchaunt” Isabell Peeters – “a Black-more lodgeing in Blew Anchor Alley” “A negar whose name was suposed to be Frauncis. He was servant to be [sic] Peter Miller a beare brewer dwelling at the signe of the hartes horne in the libertie of EastSmithfield. Yeares xxvi [26]. He had the best cloth [and] iiii [4] bearers” Among later names, we find: Anne Vause – “a Black-more wife to Anthonie Vause, Trompetter” John Comequicke – “a Black-Moore so named, servant to Thomas Love a Captaine” And, the saddest in this list: Marie – “a Blackamoor woman that die in the street”

Sometimes the detail in the Botolph’s register is very revealing.

In 1597, for example, Mary Fillis, a black woman of 20 years who had been the servant of Widow Barker in Mark Lane for many years. She had been in England 13 or 14 years, and was the daughter of a Moorish shovel maker and basket maker. Never christened, she became the servant of Millicent Porter, a seamstress living in East Smithfield, and now “taking some howld of faith in Jesus Chryst, was desyrous to becom a Christian, Wherefore shee made sute by hir said mistres to have some conference with the Curat”.

Examined in her faith by the vicar of St Botolph’s, and “answering him verie Christian lyke”, she did her catechisms, said the Lord’s Prayer, and was baptised on Friday 3 June 1597 in front of the congregation. Among her witnesses were a group of five women, mostly wives of leading parishioners. Now a “lyvely member” of the church in Aldgate, there is no question from this description that Mary belonged to a community with friends and supporters.

But the Aldgate records also show the difficult side to the lives of black Tudors.

Some black women worked alongside their white counterparts as prostitutes, especially in Southwark, and in the brothel area of Turnmill Street in Clerkenwell. Lucy Negro, a former dancer for the Queen, ran an establishment patronised by noblemen and lawyers. Lucy was famous enough to be paid mock homage in the Inns of Court revels at Gray’s Inn. Her area of London was notorious. “Pray enquire after and secure my negress: she is certainly at The Swan, a Dane’s beershop in Turnmil Street,” wrote one Denis Edwards in 1602. Shakespeare’s acquaintance, the poet John Weaver, also sang the praises of a woman whose face was “pure black as Ebonie, jet blacke”.

So this article from History Extra shows a microcosm of what life was like for black Tudors, which is that it was pretty much the same as life for white Tudors. Some were knights, lived at court, worked for advisors, worked for the Queen, had very high status. Others were prostitutes. Some ran the brothel, showing a certain entrepreneurial spirit. The point is, that the black experience, at least in this point in English history, before the slave trade really began in earnest in England, was very similar to the white experience, and while certainly black people were seen as “other” and often scapegoated, they still had a role in Tudor society, and the pop culture that leaves them out are doing a disservice to the accurate history of the time.

The book recommendation this week is Onyeka Nubia’s Blackamoores: Africans in Tudor England, their Presence, Status and Origins. Remember there are show notes, everything like that, at englandcast.com. Thanks so much for listening, and I’ll be back next week with more on France, now with Henry VIII in charge. Thanks so much for listening!

[advertisement insert here: if you like this show, and you want to support me and my work, the best thing you can do (and it’s free!) is to leave  a rating or review on iTunes.  It really helps others discover the podcast. Second best is to buy Tudor-themed gifts for all your loved ones at my shop, at  TudorFair.com , like leggings with the Anne Boleyn portrait pattern on them, or boots with Elizabeth I portraits. Finally, you can also become a patron of this show for as little as $1/episode at  Patreon.com/englandcast  … And thank you!]

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Episode 067: Henry VII and his foreign policy

Episode 69: supplemental - chat with james boulton on katherine of aragon, you may be interested in, the revival of anglo-saxon history in tudor england, anne vavasour and sir henry lee’s forbidden love, eclipses in the medieval sky: omens, astronomy, and the tudor cosmos.

Oxford Education Blog

The latest news and views on education from oxford university press., new ks3 enquiry: how can we find out about the lives of black tudors.

History teachers are all too aware of the importance of opening up the study of the past beyond the narrow tramlines that have shaped many schemes of learning over the years. Indeed, it’s clear that many history teachers have been having a good, hard look at some of the topics they teach (and the way they are taught) over the last year or so.

Some teachers have asked publishers to help support them in their efforts to diversify their curriculum. So – over the last few months, the OUP History team have put together a series of historical enquiries that we hope will shine a light on the contributions and experiences of previously underrepresented groups. Working with experts in their field, such as Dr Miranda Kaufmann , we have decided to add to the existing KS3 History course with nine exciting new lessons, spanning three enquiries. OUP is not going to wait to print new editions of the textbooks –  we have instead decided to supplement what we offer as part of our commitment to the inclusive presentation of diverse histories, and to better reflect the world around us.  Each of these enquiries will be available on Kerboodle in the form of a digital book and supplementary resources.

To give you an idea of how this might work, here’s how you can integrate one of these enquiries with the KS3 History Fourth Edition textbooks you’re already using:

• The first enquiry – now available on Kerboodle – is called ‘ How can we find out about the lives of Black Tudors?’
• This enquiry fits in with Chapter 2 (Life in Tudor times) of the Revolution, Industry and Empire: Britain 1558–1901 Fourth Edition Student Book . Chapter 2 looks at various aspects of Tudor society. The chapter itself opens with a focus on the different classes within Tudor society, as referenced by William Harrison’s well known 1597 Description of England. In 2.1A Who’s who? , students define the main groups that make up Tudor society and examine how the poor were treated. This enquiry builds on these lessons by focusing on the experience of Black people in Tudor England.
• The enquiry covers the following topics.
• The first lesson examines the presence of Africans in Britain up to the Tudor era. It details, for example, the Roman Empire’s first African Emperor, who lived in Britain for three years.
• The second lesson looks at the methods used by historians to uncover the hidden stories of Black Tudors, including a source analysis activity about a young woman named Mary Fillis.
• The third lesson investigates the life of John Blanke, a royal musician in the courts of both Henry VII and Henry VIII. Blanke is the only identifiable Black person to have been shown in sixteenth-century English art.

As well as ‘How can we find out about the lives of Black Tudors?’, there are two more coming later this year, which will focus on women in medieval society and the experience of Caribbean soldiers at the time of the First World War . Kerboodle users will get these enquiries automatically, but you can access a free sneak preview of the first enquiry here.

Like lots of the teachers I work with both in schools and in my role with PGCE students at the University of Warwick, OUP are determined to engage with, provoke and open up new ways of thinking about how we all fit into the complex jigsaw that is Britain’s past – and we hope that these enquiries are good ways to start doing this.

What do you think about the enquiry topics we’ve chosen? What other topics would you like to see developed in future? We’d love to know! Do get in touch by emailing [email protected] or message us on Twitter @OUPSecondary

Aaron Wilkes  is one of the leading history authors in school publishing as well as being a History teacher at St James Academy, Dudley. Aaron is the author of the new  KS3 History 4th Edition  series as well as part of our  Oxford AQA GCSE History  team.

Black presence up to Tudor times

• Septimius Severus (255kb) Emily Thomas's presentation on the Black Roman Emperor who died in York
• Attitudes to immigrants (49kb) Emily Thomas's ppoint on Tudor attitudes to race
• Before the Black Victorians website from the Mackenzie Heritage Archives
• Beginning History test (2.1mb) A baseline test with comprehension style questions about primary / secondary sources, chronology, bias and some simple source questions (approx L3-L5) which uses sources about John Blanke
• Drake and the Cimmarroons For further details of the Jewel and the connection between Drake and the Cimmarroons (runaway African slaves who intermarried with the local population in the Carribbean
• Drake Jewel The Jewel worn by Sir Francis Drake, painted by Nicholas Hilliard in 1575, showing a minature of Elizabeth I and a bust of an African male
• Drake wearing the Jewel from the National Maritime Museum website
• Elizabeth and the Blackmoores (1.4mb) A worksheet with thinking skills activities and a role play about Elizabeth's plans to exchange the Blackmoores for English prisoners in 1596
• Elizabeth and the Blackmoores lesson plan (26kb) A lesson plan for the above activities (a double lesson 100 mins)
• Quotes from Elizabethan and contemporary times about race and asylum
• First Asians in Britain A website tracing the history of Asians in Britain to 1600
• John Blanke the Black trumpeter at the Tudor Court, from the National Archives website, Black Presence
• Why India? the British Library virtual exhibition 'Trading Places' about the East India Company

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Cunning Plan 173: using Black Tudors as a window into Tudor England

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On 29 September 2018 I was fortunate enough to get involved with a collaborative project with Dr Miranda Kaufmann, the Historical Association, Schools History Project, and a brilliant group of people from different backgrounds all committed to teaching about black Tudors. In this short piece, I will share how I have introduced Year 8 pupils to black Tudors in my classroom. The accompanying ‘Triumphs Show’ in this edition of Teaching History explores the impact of these lessons in more detail.

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Africans in Tudor and Stuart England by Conor Byrne

The Tudor period was significant for black settlement in England. Katherine of Aragon arrived at Plymouth in October 1501 with a multinational entourage that included Moors, Muslims and Jews. The Iberian Moor Catalina de Cardones was one member of Katherine’s entourage, and served her for twenty-six years as Lady of the Bedchamber. She eventually married ‘Hace Ballestas’, a crossbowman who was also of Moorish origin. Alongside the arrival of ‘Black Moors’ from Spain and North Africa, this period witnessed the arrival of black people on a major scale as a result of the burgeoning slave trade. The National Archives at Kew contains a wealth of fascinating resources concerning Tudor Africans. Albeit from a slightly later date, during Stuart rule, on 29 September 1687 a Moor was granted the freedom of the city of York, and is listed in the freemen’s roll as ‘John Moore – blacke’, although he is occasionally referred to as ‘Johannes Moore’. Freedom of the city could be obtained through earning it (through serving an apprenticeship, for example); inheriting it from a parent who was a freeman; purchasing it; or receiving it as a reward for services rendered to the city. In this case, John Moore bought the freedom of the city. He paid two amounts: 20 nobles (equivalent to 13s 6d) to the Common Chamber of the city of York, and £4 to the city council, for his honour. It has been conjectured that John Moore was a wealthy member of the York community, since he was in a position to pay the requisite amount of money to the mayor of York to enjoy all the privileges of freedom of the city. He was able to bear arms and enjoyed the right to fish in the city’s rivers and was also able to graze his animals on the meadows by virtue of his freemen status. While Moore’s experiences seem to have been exceptional – no other black man or woman has been, to date, found in the York rolls – this example compellingly demonstrates the visibility, importance and potential for power of black people in England at this time.

Historian Miranda Kaufmann detailed the experiences of the Africans aboard Francis Drake’s ship The Golden Hind in the late sixteenth-century. His privateering escapades brought him into contact with Africans: over 300,000 were transported across the Atlantic Ocean in bondage, mainly by the Spanish and Portuguese, between 1502 and 1619. As Kaufmann notes, however, ‘Drake would also have encountered Africans in England, where a growing black presence was a notable side-effect of the war with Spain’. Large numbers of Africans arrived at English ports such as Bristol and Plymouth over the course of the sixteenth-century. In 1590, 135 Africans aboard one privateering ship landed at Bristol. According to Kaufmann, at least three Africans joined the Golden Hind in the course of its journey, while one, Diego, was on board already when Drake departed from Plymouth on 15 November 1577. Diego was one of several Cimarrons: Africans who escaped Spanish captors to found, in Panama, their own settlements. Drake met Diego while Drake was launching a series of raids in Central America. Diego acted as the principal point of contact between the Cimarrons and the English. Kaufmann conjectures that there is striking evidence of Drake’s high regard for Diego: he named Fort Diego after his ally. Diego later died of gangrene poisoning in what is now the Maluku Islands in Indonesia, having been hit by an arrow when Drake’s landing party was ambushed n the island of Mocha, off the coast of Chile, in late 1578.

Yet it is not only in the naval context that one finds evidence of Africans in Tudor and Stuart England. Tudor parish records from 1558 note Africans, who were described well into the seventeenth-century as ‘Blackamoores’, ‘Neygers’, ‘Aeothiopians’ and ‘Negroes’. Africans were baptised, buried and recorded in parish records in areas such as London, Plymouth, Bristol, Southampton, Leicester, Barnstaple and Northampton. Africans undoubtedly enjoyed positions of influence at court. John Blanke, the ‘blacke trumpeter’, served both Henry VII and Henry VIII from 1506 to 1512. He had an important role in the Westminster tournament celebrations of 1511 staged to honour the birth of Henry of Cornwall, son of Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon. ‘A Blackamoore boy’ served in the entourage of Elizabeth I. The queen ordered the clothes-maker Henry Henre to make the boy a ‘garcon coat… of white taphata cutt and lyned… striped with gold and silver with buckeram bayes… knitted stockings and white shoes’. Despite these clear examples of the visible role of Africans in Tudor society, as Onyeka explains ‘Tudor England is often portrayed as being all white’. Onyeka concludes that Catalina de Cardones, John Blanke, Mary Fillis of Morisco and Bastien ‘are as much a part of England’s history as their employers Catherine of Aragon, Henry VII, Henry VIII, Millicent Porter and William Hawkins’.

Notes and Sources

• The Missing Tudors: black people in 16th-century England , Onyeka (Nubia)
• Blackamoores: Africans in Tudor England, Their Presence, Status and Origins , Onyeka, Narrative Eye Ltd (Oct. 2013)
• 'Africans in Britain, 1500-1640'- Oxford D.Phil. thesis (2011), Miranda Kaufmann.

Conor Byrne, author of Katherine Howard: A New History is a British undergraduate studying History at the University of Exeter. Conor has been fascinated by the Tudors, medieval and early modern history from the age of eleven, particularly the lives of European kings and queens. His research into Katherine Howard, fifth consort of Henry VIII of England, began in 2011-12, and his first extended essay on her, related to the subject of her downfall in 1541-2, was written for an Oxford University competition. Since then Conor has embarked on a full-length study of qyeen Katharine's career, encompassing original research and drawing on extended reading into sixteenth-century gender, sexuality and honour. Some of the conclusions reached are controversial and likely to spark considerable debate, but Conor hopes for a thorough reassessment of Katherine Howard's life.

Conor runs a historical blog which explores a diverse range of historical topics and issues. He is also interested in modern European, Russian, and African history, and, more broadly, researches the lives of medieval queens, including current research into the defamed ‘she-wolf’ bride of Edward II, Isabella of France.

URL for this post : https://www.tudorsociety.com/africans-in-tudor-and-stuart-england-by-conor-byrne/

There are 42 comments Go To Comment

Reading that article, and what stood out was these words “it cannot be denied that our obsession with the Tudors is very white-centred” What a very racist thing to write, how do you get away with it? oh yes, its because its a slur against the white people so its allowed!

I don’t believe that Conor was meaning it as a slur or being racist. He was simply saying that popular Tudor history usually focuses on the white population, which it does. It’s like saying that something is Anglocentric, that’s not a slur on English people. Tudor history does tend to focus on the white population, and actually the white upper classes. I love social history and enjoy reading about all the people who made up Tudor England – upper classes, middle and lower, the German immigrants in London, Afrucans etc. Tudor society was much more diverse than many people realise.

I also do not view that comment as racist. In fact, I find it an honest acknowledgement of the existence of racism throughout history in the sense that although many people of color lived in Tudor England, we know very little about them, the history erased.

I found the article fascinating, and I concur with Claire’s comments above. Coincidentally, in a recent correspondence with historian Catherine Fletcher, she also told me that the prevalence of people on color in Western Europe was far greater than most people, including historians, are aware of. For example, she notes in a recent interview on Queenanneboleyn.com the following… “But what’s also intriguing is that we think Alessandro’s (de’ Medici) mother – a servant in the Medici household – was mixed-race, of African descent. People often assume early modern Europe was all-white but that’s a long way from the truth.”

My immediate family is multi-racial, and my granddaughter is a child of color. No one in my family found Conor’s commentary racist in any way, and in fact we applaud him for teaching us that in the 16th century people of color led vibrant lives not only in Africa, but in Western Europe as well,

Thank you Conor for celebrating the diversity that was 16th century England. It is my hope research will continue to unfold this to long hidden story.

There was next to no “diversity” in 16th Century England though… the number of non-English (specifically black people) living in England was in the thousands at most. England was literally 99% English at the time.

Any time people of colour are mentioned on the Internet and especially in historical situations, at least one commenter, often an account never seen before or afterwards on the site, shows up to explain why mentioning that history is biased towards whites is racist toward whites.

Their unwritten but extremely clear point is that whites are naturally more human, smarter, and more civilized than people of colour, and that they *deserve* to be at the centre of every discussion. When they are not at the centre, when the world does not revolve around them, when it is not acknowledged that they are the only people worth talking about? They see that as racist.

Literally nobody is saying that though…

truly spoken as “A riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma” Careful, your skirt is showing.

It really wasn’t. The population of England, and Britain in general, was overwhelmingly native-born at the time, and that was the case up until very recently (native-born Brits are still the vast majority today mind you). I mean the number of non-natives numbered in the thousands at most… in a country of 4+ million.

I am really glad that you said this. People don’t realize that England society vary from upper class to lower class with different races, culture and languages. But when you hear Tudor you think of Henry, his sisters ( especially Margaret),and his sisters. So what was said is true

But the Tudors were swarthy just as the moorish people were. King Henry was known as the dark prince.

Henry VIII had a very fair complexion being a redhead. Anne Boleyn’s sallow complexion was commented on and so was unusual.

Anne Boleyn was black! Daughter of Thomas Boleyn and sister of Mary Boleyn also close cousin of another wife of King Henry whose name was Jane Seymour. English propaganda at its finest shows us these people were full pasty white which is just untrue and disgustingly significant in the whitewashing of history. Also for professional historians to still teach this lame false history is sickening and shameful.

Thank you….the dark ages were same as reconstruction period…

WHITE WASHED!

You can’t be serious

If you are interested in your history, you should be interested in all of it!

It’s a honest and correct comment.

Can someone moderate and remove this ridiculous 5-year-old comment? I came to the comments to see if there were any further links or reading, and this detracts and distracts from the excellent article and an informative website.

Seeing as Africans were erased from the Tudor narrative, perhaps Jane can be erased from this one.

I do hope she has learnt the definition of ‘slur’ since 2015. I think her grammar would have been beyond help.

I think the assumption lies in the fact that most modern White people think they have always been the White people or rather the only White people, aside to having an incorrect notion that people with Black skin cannot be White in terms of social status or that they have never been White in terms of Social Status which is contrary to historical fact.

“Speaking of the difference between modern thought and ancient times, Richard Smith warns that even apparently well-defined categories “like ‘race’ can be confusing”. According to him, Ptolemy placed two peoples, the Leukaethiopes and Melanogaetulians (‘Black Gaetulians’), in the far west of North Africa; namely, in southern Morocco. Smith suggests that the Leukaethiopes, “literally, ‘white Ethiopians’”, could also be described as “white black men” since in ancient times “the term ‘Ethiopian’ referred to skin color”. He further asserts that Pliny the Elder places the Leukaethiopes south of the (Sahara) desert, between the white Gaetulians and the black Nigritae; the closest neighbours would then have been the Libyaegyptians, “literally the ‘Egyptian Libyans’, another oxymoron”. However, Smith indicates that Pliny does not mention any black Gaetulians.”

Source: What happened to the ancient Libyans? Chasing Sources across the Sahara from Herodotus to Ibn Khaldun. Journal of World History, Vol 14, No 4, pages 459–500. Smith, Richard (December 2003). page 475

“Edmund Dene Morel, writing in 1902, confirms that both Ptolemy and Pliny speak of the Leucaethiopes, but believes that Ptolemy places them “in the neighbourhood of the Gambia”, whereas Pliny places them “a couple of degrees farther north”. Morel concludes that the Leucaethiopes may have been early Fulani since the first record on West Africa (ca. 300 AD) describes an Empire governed by “white” rulers, which was established by a king whose name contains a Fulfulde affix. According to Morel, this Fulani connection was first made in 1799 by Major Rennel in his Travels in the Interior of Africa, a notebook on Mungo Park’s travels.”

Source: Morel, Edmund Dene (1968) [1902]. Affairs of West Africa. Library of African Study. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-7146-1702-2, pages 141–142

“The Jacobean playwright Thomas Middleton invented the concept of ‘white people’ on 29 October 1613, the date that his play The Triumphs of Truth was first performed. The phrase was first uttered by the character of an African king who looks out upon an English audience and declares: ‘I see amazement set upon the faces/Of these white people, wonderings and strange gazes.’ As far as I, and others, have been able to tell, Middleton’s play is the earliest printed example of a European author referring to fellow Europeans as ‘white people’.”

Source: https://aeon.co/ideas/how-white-people-were-invented-by-a-playwright-in-1613

“When the first Africans arrived in Virginia in 1619, there were no “white” people, nor, according to colonial records, would there be for another sixty years. In his seminal two-volume work, The Invention of the White Race, Allen details the creation of the “white race” by the ruling class as a method of social control, in response to labor unrest precipitated by Bacon’s Rebellion.”

Source: https://www.versobooks.com/series_collections/33-the-invention-of-the-white-race

This is so interesting! The inexhaustible supply of fabulous history brought to life by your researches is amazing.

Very interesting research!

Not racist at all, it because people never worried about the colour of a person much that unless you dig you have no idea of the colour of the person.

I remember the dig in Ipswich, Suffolk, a few years ago when they found the remains of an African man buried in the late 12th century in the cemetery of a friary. Analysis of his bones told the team that he was from North Africa. It was very interesting with all the questions it raised about what he was doing at a Christian friary in Suffolk.

Hi Ms. Ridgway, I am replying to your comment here, although quite old, as I very much enjoy your YouTube videos and have read some of your books on Anne Boleyn, who I am (also) quite obsessed with! Having just finished the Spanish Princess on TV (I had read all the books already), and I found the character of Lina, the Moorish attendant in KOA’s retinue, very fascinating. Perhaps because the actress was so enchanting. But I was hoping to find more information about her. Have you come across any good resources? Or books? I love a good read, even if it is peppered with some poetic license! My mother was a history teacher and I often take my kids on trips abroad and tell them of things I have read or heard, adding of course, “some say…” so they know it isn’t fact.. but it helps them remember the tales of kings who cut off his wives heads, etc. Our trip to London and the Tower is still their favorite! Thanks for helping me add color to their history lessons! Be well! Suzanne

Hi Suzanne, I’m so glad you enjoy my videos and my books, thank you! I haven’t watched The Spanish Princess, is it good? There is an article on Lina on the History Extra website – https://www.historyextra.com/period/tudor/catalina-lina-spanish-princess-real-who-catherine-aragon-stephanie-levi-john/ . She was a real person, London is such a wonderful place to visit and it’s lovely that your children have such good memories of it.

If my lousy memory serves me right H7 had a coloured musician in his household? KOA would have experienced a very different religious culture in Spain too. Until the Moors were driven out of Spain, by Ferdinand and Isabella, K.O.A would have seen and heard, the Moors practising their religion. I wonder what she must have actually thought about it? Did she think that the Moors were evil or simply misguided in their beliefs?

Hi Lorna, The Westminster Tournament Roll of 1511 shows a black trumpeter who is believed to be John Blanke – see http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/blackhistory/early_times/docs/john_blanke.htm .

I love discovering new things in history about all people. I’m am delighted to see this article, it’s fascinating, especially, when my DNA shows a percentage of England and Wales, could it be from my white ancestors or could it be from my black ancestors? Quite interesting, indeed.

I have recently finished reading ‘ Black Tudors’ by Miranda Kaufmann, a book I received as a Christmas present. It is a fascinating history of the lives of Africans in 16th century England. I recommend it.

Highlighting the fact there were some non-native English living in Tudor England is all well and good; what annoys me is the constant social and political agendas leftists push along with it.

Well said Ms Tamba.

Here it is 2019 and I’ve just discovered this interesting article because I was Googling a black character, Catalina (“Lina”) de Cardones, in the television miniseries The Spanish Princess. I hope the success of the series leads others to this excellent snapshot of Tudor history. Thanks.

Hi, there is a mistake in this text that continues a very long misunderstanding. The high-ranking Doña Catalina de Cardones/Cardenas is is not the same woman as Catalina of Motril, who was the moorish slave who acompanies Queen Catherine. This confusion seems to have arisen from the 1874 work of Mariano Roca de Togores, Marques de Molins, who indexes ‘Cardones’ as a slave girl in Catherine’s chamber, but contemporary Spanish references to Catalina the slave never accorded her a surname. As there were several Catalinas, there was an easy mistake to make, and the noblewoman Catalina and the slave Catalina were mixed into the same person, but please, let´s fix it.

Hello Claire,

I enjoyed reading your post, please let me know who the subject of the portrait is? I have never seen a portrait of African gentlemen (or lady) from 16th century. Do you know the painter?

Hi Anna, The portrait accompanying this post is Portrait of a Moor by Jan Mostaert and we don’t know his name, unfortunately. There’s a black trumpeteer depicted in a tapestry of the Field of Cloth of Gold, and John Blanke is pictured on the Westminster Tournament Roll – see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Blanke#/media/File:Black_Trumpeter_at_Henry_VIII's_Tournament_CROP_(no_source) .jpg

Moors were not African blacks!! Just like 500 years ago they are still Arabs, or Muslim Europeans as well as Berbers. African blacks would have never been allowed to be with any European royalty at the time. It is undeserving what Hollywood is doing to blacks today while trying to be PC. A pity since in reality blacks are killed each day by Yanks for not reason.

So why are they often referred to in medieval records as “blackamoors” ? Why did the Field of Cloth of Gold tapestry maker depict a black African ? Why would a black trumpeteer be recorded on the Westminister roll ? Why does household expenditure records for Mary, Queen of Scots and James VI of Scotland reflect black servants serving the royal household ? Why did Elizabeth I refer to an alarming presence of blackamoors in her kingdom ? I guess these historical accounts and artists are lies and liars ? You are applying modern ideas of race to a world you did not live in. You are assuming Europeans of this era were just as racist as contemporary Whites. Why did Queen Charlotte’s personal physician refer to her as having a perfect mulatto face ? She obviously looked mixed race to him in the late 18th century when he examined her. For him to compare her to a mulatto indicates he had seen many to compare her with. Where had the royal physician seen so many mulatto faces before to make the comparison ? Look at all the portraits of Queen Charlotte. She appears to have been a descendant of someone who was mixed race. We see this all the time in African American families. Some siblings maybe darker skinned and then there’s one or two throwbacks from a white ancestor from the slave era, probably a white male ancestor. Whites seem uncomfortable with the idea of whites having sex with blacks, so they try to deny fairer skinned blacks as anomalies that have no genetic link to the European race. They cannot see themselves doing this in modern times, so they assume no one before them did. Got news for you. It happened quite a lot in those times. Seems through Charlotte’s portugeese ancestry there was a link to a black African ancestor. It is what it is. Blacks have probably been present in Britain since Roman times. I mean really…what would make you think that ALL North Africans (moors) were caucasian at any period in history ? What imaginary line crossed subsaharan Africa from Northern Africa that forbid black Africans from traveling further North ? They have always been there.

Yes, and that’s what Conor says in the article. He even mentions the trumpeter that you refer to.

The mistake you and many people make is that when an “African” is referenced that they are assumed to be black. Fact is North Africa has been a homeland to Caucasians for thousands of years. The Berbers were the main occupants of North Africa and they are caucasian. I have been to North Africa and visited Berber tribes and yes they are white. The Romans named Africa after a Berber tribe called the Afri . The Egyptians called the inhabitants of North Africa the “Libyans” who were also Caucasian. Black Africans were being enslaved by the Arabs and Berbers for thousands of years. There is no imaginary line in Africa there is a real one. It is called the Sahara desert which was almost impossible to cross without having a guide. When Blackmoors are referenced they are talking about a person of a swarthy complexion. The English: variant spelling of Moores. Dutch: nickname for a man of swarthy complexion or ethnic name for a North African, from moor ‘Moor’. The queen Charlotte myth was started by an afrocentric Jamaican American writer J. A. Rogers who said “she must have a “Negro strain” because of her “broad nostrils and heavy lips”. There is no evidence she has any black African DNA. We should make our opinions on FACTS not what we feel or would like. I also disagree with your that whites are uncomfortable with the idea of whites having sex with blacks, which is a very racist statement. You seem to think all whites think alike. I am white and love having sex with black women and Asian women and every ethnicity there is. Most whites are not racist. This is the reason people of all cultures migrate to what were historically white countries, white countries are the least racist in the world.

There were black slaves and Arab slaves in Europe at the time. I watched the Spanish Princess and it was a debacle on actual history. The series shows Henry viii as a young teenager who wrote love letters to Catherine of Aragon instead of Arthur. Henry was only 10 when Catherine brought entourage to England. I also cannot see any English king -Tudor or otherwise-allowing Muslim prayer in England! They executed Protestants for believing differently. Charlotte Hope did an excellent job playing the part of the tragic Catherine. In America today, the press states how racist whites are. White Americans are not racist. This is a narrative from the left. If you look at entertainment, there numerous very talented blacks-Sidney Poitier, Lena Horne, Sammy Davis Jr, etc. we had black sitcoms in the 1960s. Where it true that blacks have experienced unfair treatment in the past, we must not judge them by today’s standards. European kings finally stopped beheading people. Blacks are free in our society. To bring up slavery as their hate for whites is ludicrous. There is not a ethnicity or race that has not been held in slavery during history. I believe all people who were involved in history is very interesting. It matters not there race. Tudor history is white because-the Tudors were white! Times change-people don’t. If you look at any royal medieval court and switch the names and titles to modern history.

I am researching my family history back to ABD Rahman I of Andalusia, and Hazrat KhalifaUMair, Uthman are all Arab leaders from the C7th century. My family are more German than, British, with a splash of Hungarian. this is unbelievable to me. the link seems to be King James II. IT is reflected in the current royal family in UK.

I recently discovered through my DNA that on my mother’s side 13 generations back there was Nigerian Ancestry. I found this interesting article and would like to read more about it. I am mostly Scottish but have ancestors in the English nobility. I believe the native inhabitants of Tudor England were originalky white Vikings, so, of course, any Africans would have been very much in the minority in those times. The discussion was both enlightening and a reflection of the times in which we live.

There was Black nobility in king Henry viii times in Tudor England and if you believe otherwise your beliefs lies in ignorance!

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Black tudors: three untold stories.

Dr Miranda Kaufmann

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PART OF OUR BLACK HISTORY MONTH SERIES

Dr Kaufmann tells the intriguing tales of three Africans living in Tudor England – Jacques Francis, a diver employed by Henry VIII to recover guns from the wreck of the Mary Rose; Mary Fillis, a Moroccan woman baptized in Elizabethan London; and Edward Swarthye, a porter who whipped a fellow servant at their master's Gloucestershire manor house. 

Their stories illuminate key issues: – how did they come to England? What were their lives like? How were they treated by the church and the law? Most importantly: were they free?

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This event was on thu, 17 oct 2019.

Miranda is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, part of the School of Advanced Study at the University of London. She is also an Honorary Fellow of the University of Liverpool and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

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Miranda Kaufmann’s Black Tudors

Please answer the following question in essay form. Your essay should be 4 to 6 pages, doublespaced and typed, with references (you can use endnotes, footnotes, or parenthetical citations). Please remember to use specific examples from the text to support your general arguments.

At its core, Miranda Kaufmann’s Black Tudors reconstructs the experiences of ten African men and women to enrich our understanding of Tudor England. Starting with the fragmentary direct evidence she has about these ten individuals, she uses a wide variety of roughly contemporary sources and secondary scholarship to tell their stories and highlight their significance. Critically examine two of Kaufmann’s case studies, using the following questions to build your essay: What is Kaufmann’s primary argument or “take-home” point in each case study? Put another way, what does each case study tell us about Tudor society? Given the paucity of evidence, how does she build that case? Finally, what does Kaufmann’s book say about race in Tudor England?

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We realize that sometimes clarification is necessary to ensure that quality work is done. Therefore, we provide a button for clients and writers to communicate in case some clarification is needed.

Paper Submission

We ensure that we submit all papers ahead of their respective deadlines. This allows you to go through the documents and request any revision, corrections, or polishing before the paper is due.

Customer Feedback

We encourage customer feedback, positive or negative. We can identify the various areas that we need to improve to provide even better services through your feedback. Please feel free to give us feedback.

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