How many Jews were there in Elizabethan times?
Legally, none; Jews were expelled from the Kingdom in the 12th century and not officially readmitted until Cromwell’s Republic, in the 1650s. There was a small number of Jews in London, however – who had to keep their religion quiet or pretend to be converts; Queen Elizabeth’s physician Lopez (executed in 1594) was famously a Marrano (Portuguese) Jew. Because of the secrecy, we will never know exactly how many Jews were in Elizabethan England, but the number is certainly to be reckoned in the hundreds rather than thousands.
