From what we can tell, Africans living in Tudor England lived quiet lives in a range of occupations, including court trumpeter, shoemaker, needlemaker and servant. We also know that some came from North Africa.

After the Reformation, when King Henry VIII rejected the Catholic Church, relations between the English and North African Muslim governments were good because they had a common enemy: the Catholic Spanish monarchy, whose forces had re-conquered Spain from its previous Moorish Muslim rulers.

Other African immigrants were Moors who had come directly from Spain. They may, like one of the attendants of Queen Catherine of Aragon, have been Muslims who converted to Christianity.

• In the 1590s, proposals were made to remove some black residents from England, but there is little evidence that these measures were widely carried out
• when lawyers objected to a black diver giving evidence in court, his rights were upheld
• when John Blanke, one of King Henry VIII’s trumpeters, asked for a pay rise the King granted it. Henry also gave Blanke and his bride a wedding gift

Religious allegiance was often more politically significant than ethnic heritage in Tudor England, and Catholics faced particularly harsh persecution under Elizabeth I.