170 BULLETIN OF THE ESSEX INSTITUTE. 



But they do not seem to have connected these facts very 

 closely, or to see that the sudden prosperity of London 

 after the downfall of Antwerp was largely due to the 

 actual presence in its midst of the men who had made 

 Antwerp, withtheir greater enterprise and broader views. 1 



Weavers, in particular, are always mentioned in con- 

 nection with Lollardism in earlier times ; and weaving was 

 introduced into England by Walloons from Brabant in 

 1330, although England long continued to play into the 

 hands of Flanders in this important respect. The so-called 

 Huguenots, to whom Queen Elizabeth allowed chapeland 

 Workshops in the crypt of Canterbury, were not Hugue- 

 nots at all, but French-speaking Walloons, silk-weavers 

 from the country round Brüssels. 



Any connection with cloth I begin to regard with sus- 

 picion. I even suspect the Winthrops, " clothiers of Nor- 

 wich," of being Van Throops or Van Tromps in disguise. 

 Such a descent is quite as honorable as the English, for 

 these were the men who led the world in their time. Eng- 

 land rose only on their ruin, and the Dutch Republic still 

 remained far greater than England until William the Third 

 dragged it at the tail of England's kite. 



Old Flemish point is very like Honiton ; it was Flemish 

 lace-makers who setup the manufacture in Devon. People 

 seem never to have remembered that any one spoke French 

 outside of France, or the Channel Islands. In fact, the 

 Dukes of Burgundy must have introduced much Flemish 

 blood into France in their trains and armies. Barante 

 mentions a representative of the well-known Boston name, 

 Sohier, in the the Service of the Duke of Burgundy at 

 Paris in 1391, "the son of a weaver of Malines." 1 The 



iN. E. Hist. Gen. Reg., vol. xlix, pp. 24-28. " The Grasshopper in Boston."— 

 p. 28. " Before Elizabeth, almost impossible for the city to raise a loan of £10,000. 

 Before she died it was advancing her loans of £60,000." 



Ibid. p. 27. The Gresham crest, a grasshopper, puzzled the experts. The Thach- 

 ers also bear it. I believe it Flemish, one of the quaint conceits of that fun-loving 

 people. 



