Disorder, Riot and Governance in Early Tudor London: Evil May Day, 1517

Abstract

Abstract On the eve of the May Day festival in 1517, a night of anti-immigrant violence broke out in London. Though pre-modern English historians have frequently invoked Evil May Day, as it came to be called, it has only recently been given concerted scholarly attention. The riot itself was ordinary, one amongst dozens in the first decades of the sixteenth century; it reveals, as a reflection of endemic grievance, a constellation of tensions surrounding labour, immigration, masculine identities, and governance in early Tudor London. More extraordinary, and heretofore not much noticed, was the Crown reaction to the Evil May Day disturbances, on which this article focuses. The insurrectionists were prosecuted for high treason rather than the minor charge of riot; a multi-day pageant of severe justice punctuated by theatrical reprieves followed. At least fifteen were put to death within London’s city walls and there are indications that the final execution toll was much greater, perhaps as high as forty-three. Such a toll following a mild riot could only have been unexpected and shocking, even if in fact ‘only’ fifteen rather than forty or more were executed. This was a message from the Crown both strategically conceived and emotionally driven by the king’s own rage, fury and fear. Though it was the youthful rioters who constituted most of those put to death in the aftermath, the message was meant primarily for the London civic elite, who had dared to question Crown policy and had failed to control the violence in their city.