History, Wonder Tales, Fairy Tales, Myths and Legends The Flemish | Page 109

Knights from the Low Countries were sometimes present in the 14th century at
tournaments in England. At a great jousting held for three days at Smithfield in 1390
there were present men of rank from Holland and Germany, among them the Count of
Ostrevant, son of the Duke of Holland. He was afterwards admitted to the Order of the
Garter.
Throughout the 15th century diplomatic relations were continuous between England
and the Low Countries. There were some important marriage alliances; in 1424
Jacqueline of Holland was married to the Duke of Gloucester, and in 1467-8 Charles
the Bold married Margaret of York, and many English people went in her train to
attend the festivities and jousts. Sir John Paston, we know, was present. Margaret
retained some English at her court in Bruges; Caxton was with her in 1470.
During the Wars of the Roses many Englishmen took refuge in the Low Countries.
The princes George and Richard of York were sent for safety to Utrecht. Other
prominent refugees were Lord Ross, the Earl of Wiltshire, and Bishop Morton, while
Edward IV fled in 1470 to Flanders to gather strength for his successful return to
Ravenspur.
1. 3.
The religious differences of the Reformation divided Europe into two camps. Owing to
continuous persecution migration became a necessity for a large part of the industrial
population of Germany and the Low Countries. Their prime object was not to discover
a country that offered special advantages to their particular callings, but to secure an
asylum where they could live according to their own convictions. That they exercised
an enormous economic and industrial influence the other chapters of this book prove,
but this result was incidental; the motive that brought them here was not industrial but
religious.
This religious immigration must have begun early. Among the lists of those who were
proceeded against for heresy in 1521, in the times when ecclesiastical authorities
were still concerned with preserving England from the contagion of the new doctrines
which were being widely sprea B