Evil May Day
The May Day holiday means different things to different people. Rather stripped in Britain of its associations as an international day of Labour, it has sometimes been the focus in recent years for anti-capitalist protests in London. In China and Russia over the 20th century, its labour associations were twisted until the May Day parades became a vehicle for lavish public displays of military hardware. In the US meanwhile, two periods of hysteria in the 1920s and 1950s (the ‘Red Scares’) saw May Day unceremoniously uprooted and dumped into September as ‘Labor Day’ - any connection with Communist celebrations thus severed. Part of the problem for Britons is that this is a relatively young Bank Holiday (it only entered the official English holiday calendar in the seventies, along with the non-entities of ‘Spring Bank Holiday’ and ‘August Bank Holiday’ and the brutal culling of the traditional Whitsun) The result is that many people are unsure of what May Day is for.
And yet, like many of our holidays and celebrations, this one has ancient roots, and a natural place in the calendar. So Christmas marks the winter solstice and Easter the spring solstice, while the autumn equinox is marked by harvest festivals. May Day, similarly pre-dates the arrival of Christianity in this country, and heralded the start of summer in pagan England. It might seem a bit early to be celebrating summer to many of us, but take the summer solstice (midsummer) as 21 June and work back six weeks (or half a season) and you arrive at early May. This ‘cross quarter’ day equates to the Celtic feast of Beltane. For a population deprived of fresh food during the long winter, the fact that spring crops were finally appearing was a significant one, and the celebrations reflected this. Traditional rites included the crowning of the May Queen, the celebration of the Green Man, and dancing around the Maypole, all connected in their differing ways with fertility and fecundity.
And May Day has a long association with civic unrest, protest and riot. Evil (or Ill) May Day exploded onto the streets of London in 1517, as a mob of ‘apprentices, clerics and ruffians’ voice violent protest against the increasing numbers of foreign merchants and craftsmen from France, Flanders, Italy and the Baltic who were settling in London. The story wasn’t new and it has been repeated many times since by vocal and charismatic leaders seeking to stir up action against immigrants. There was a shortage of skilled tradesmen in London, and the Government of the day encouraged silversmiths, jewellers, silkmakers, traders, bankers and many others to come and fill the gap. The control of the City of London by the livery companies meant that immigrants had to settle and practise their trades just outside the City walls … in the East End that meant homes and workshops in Spitalfields. The obvious problem was that the existing tradesmen found their inferior skills were no longer in demand, in an already depressed London economy.
Into this tinderbox, preacher Dr Beal, who would speak publicly at St Paul’s Cross each Sunday, threw his spark. Over Easter, he demanded that ‘Englishmen rise up and defend themselves’. Rumours grew that May Day would see the tinderbox ignite. On 1 May, a thousand-strong gang of apprentices gathered in Cheapside. Led by an embittered broker, John Lincoln, they first moved north to St Martin Le Grand, home to many immigrants. Despite the pacifying efforts of under-sheriff Thomas More, fighting broke out as the mob looted houses. They headed for the East End, by way of the Tower of London.
As they reached Tower Hill, the Lieutenant of the Tower, Richard Cholmley, had his men open fire; the Earls of Surrey and Suffolk rode in with their troops, seizing 400 prisoners. Justice was immediate. Lincoln and his fellow leaders were hung, drawn and quartered, their remains gibbeted as a reminder to others. The surviving prisoners were charged with the ‘breaking the peace of Christendom, another capital crime. Pardoned by Lord Chancellor Thomas Wolsey, the prisoners ‘took the halters from their necks and danced and sang’.
Within a generation or so, the newcomers would be part of the seamless fabric of the East End of course - Anglicised French and Dutch names being the only reminder that their families had once been anything other than Londoners. But down the centuries the pattern of rabble-rousers leading the common people against ‘economic migrants’ would persist, through the Gordon Riots, the Blackshirts marches and beyond.