Elizabethan Strangers

The Elizabethan Strangers, usually referred to simply as the Strangers, were a group of Dutch and Walloon Protestant refugees who fled anti-Protestant policies, economic hardship and war in the Catholic Low Countries and settled in and around Norwich in England. The first group of around 300 migrants came from Flanders to Norwich in 1565 after being officially encouraged to do so, and many more followed, eventually making up an estimated 40 percent of the population of Norwich at their peak. More Strangers came to other nearby cities such as London, as well as smaller towns such as Colchester and Canterbury. The Strangers in Norwich were subject to a failed uprising against them in 1570, as well as increasing restrictions upon their worship under William Laud. Their population in records declined largely due to assimilation into the native population.