From France to England: Huguenot Charity in London

Thus argued William Shakespeare through the voice of Sir Thomas More in his contribution to the jointly authored manuscript play of the same name at the turn of the seventeenth century. ² Shakespeare was later to lodge in London with the Huguenot tire-maker Christopher Mountjoy. ³ Here he captured the local feelings that had awaited the early Huguenot refugees to London; that is, the fear of economic competition and local merchants’ lack of sympathy for their plight. Shakespeare, via More, compelled them to charity, visualising the needs of the ‘wretched’ and ‘poor’ strangers who sought assistance from the English.