180 THE MODERN HISTORY OF SILK. 



country occasioned a greater demand for silk goods. 

 The silk throwsters of the metropolis were united 

 in a fellowship in the year 1562, and were incoi-po- 

 rated by royal charter in I629. So prosperous and 

 flourishing had their business become, that it is 

 stated, in the preamble to a statute passed in I666, 

 (13 and 14 of Charles II, cap. 15,) that they had 

 at that time no fewer thun/orti/ i/iousand m(imd\i&h 

 in their employment ! And it is of importance to 

 observe, that though the importation of silk goods 

 from foreign countries was occasionally prohibited 

 during the reigns of James I, and Charles I, the 

 Protectorate, and the reign of Charles II, the pro- 

 hibition was not strictly enforced ; and, generally 

 speaking, the importation of these goods was quite 

 free. 



A considerable stimulus, though not nearly so 

 great as has been commonly supposed, was given to 

 the English silk manufacture by the revocation of 

 the edict of Nantes, in l685. Louis XIV. drove, 

 by that Intolerant and disgraceful measure, several 

 hundred thousands of his most industrious subjects 

 to seek an asylum in foreign countries ; of whom, it 

 is supposed, about fifty thousand came to England. 

 Such of these refugees as had been engaged in the 

 silk manufacture, several branches of which were 

 then in a comparatively advanced state in France, 

 established themselves in Spitalfields, which has 

 continued ever since the principal seat of the British 



