This article questions the orthodox reading of early English city comedies that such plays
exhibit intense national or proto-national fervor, especially articulated in terms of anti-alien
sentiment. A close examination of The Dutch Courtesan and Englishmen for My Money
shows that English playgoers were keen to see their cosmopolitan city staged. Moreover,
these plays suggest that when it came to European immigrants to England, status and
wealth were far more important to the English than considerations of birthplace and ethnicity.