92 GYPSIES. 



When peasant uprisings and penal statutes drove the 

 Gypsies out of France, they fled into Spain, where a num- 

 ber had penetrated before. From then till this day 

 Gypsies have always beeu found in the peninsula, where, 

 owing to the backward civilization and brigandage, &c., 

 they have generally flourished. Laws were passed 

 against them in 1491, when King Ferdinand wished to ex- 

 pel them. Philip III also wanted to drive them out. 

 But the force which had expelled the Jews and the Mo- 

 riscoes and stamped out Protestantism was not able to 

 combat the will-o'-the-wisp, every-where-at-once tactics of 

 the wanderers, and they remained. They even settled in 

 some towns which had their Gitanerias, or Gypsy quarters. 

 Borrow believes that in certain thieving, fortune telling 

 tribes of the Barbary coast, called the Dar-Bicshi-Fal, 

 he has found a race of probable Gypsy origin, and this 

 is quite likely. The Spaniards frequently seized Gyp- 

 sies and exiled them to Morocco, besides which they 

 might easily have found their way across the straits. By 

 the end of the fifteenth century the Gypsies had prob- 

 ably penetrated into nearly every quarter of Europe. 



There is reason to believe that there were Gypsies in 

 Scotland as early as 1460. They probably came from 

 Spain via Ireland, driven out by King Ferdinand's edicts. 

 By 1506 they were in full force in the northern kingdom, 

 for King James IV wrote a letter to the king of Den- 

 mark recommending to him, "Anthonius Gawino, 

 ' Earl of Littlfe Egypt,' * * * and the other afflicted 

 and lamentable tribe of his retinue " who, he said were 

 travelling by command of the Pope and had sojourned 

 in Scotland ''for several months, in a peaceable and 

 catholic manner." From this letter of James IV it is 

 evident that the gentle Romanies had "come it over" 

 that religious and melancholy monarch pretty thoroughly. 

 They had stuffed their penance legend down his throat 

 and gotten him to recognize the noble pretensions of 



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