from the free cities of Italy, where trade and manufactures had
long flourished, and where this combination of mercantile influence had
been employed by the Roman monarchs as a check upon the feudal power of
the barons. The inconvenience, however, that attended the monopolies
that sprung from this source were soon manifest; and disturbances were
continually arising, until free trade was in a measure restored. The
sumptuary laws of Edward the Third, and the inducements held out by him
to foreigners to settle in his dominions,--the fixing of the _staples_,
that obliged all merchants to bring their wool and woollen cloths for
sale to Norwich, forbidding any to offer such articles in any other part
of Norfolk or Suffolk,--tended materially to the commercial prosperity of
the city; but in the reign of Richard the Second, discontent spread
itself throughout the working population of the kingdom, and the
insurrection of Wat Tyler was followed by an open rebellion in Suffolk,
when 80,000 men marched upon Norwich, and committed divers acts of
devastation and plunder, headed by John Litester, a dyer. This, united
to the jealousies that existed between the native and foreign artisans,
caused a decline in the local manufactures for some time. In Elizabeth's
reign they revived, through the invitation given to the Dutch and
Walloons, then fleeing from the persecutions of the Duke of Alva. By the
advice of the Duke of Norfolk, thirty of these, all experienced workmen,
were invited to attend in Norwich, each bringing with him ten servants,
to be maintained at the expense of the duke. These speedily multiplied,
until their number exceeded five thousand. No matter of surprise,
therefore, is it that the Old City retains so many quaint traces of
Flemish taste and Flemish architecture, or that strangers, one and all,
should be struck with the peculiarly foreign outline of its quaint old
market-place. Soon after the settlement of these strangers in the
neighbourhood, new articles of manufacture were introduced; in addition
to the "worsteds," "saies," and "stamins," hitherto the sole articles of
commerce, and the admixture of mohair and silk with the wool, produced a
total change in the quality of the goods. Bombazine, that staple
"mourning garb," was the first result of the experiments made in silk and
wool combined. The ladies of Spain were thenceforth supplied with the
material for that indispensable article of their costume, the m