As the English parliament was preparing to sit, news came in of a protestant cataclysm in the making in October 1685, and soon after refugees started arriving with horror stories of persecution. The rumours were confirmed. Louis XIV had revoked the Edict of Nantes which protected 800,000 French Protestants, and made their religion illegal. Nor was this the only matter on the minds of MPs as they assembled, and heard their King address them on 9th November.

 

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Transcript

It’s a November nighttime, and we are at a farmhouse near the coast,  in the Saintonge area of South West France. The little farmhouse’s main room is rammed with people, 15 to 20 of them, and are wrapped up warm against the cold, and carrying everything they now own. We are looking at a group of French Protestant refugees, Huguenots, who have decided they must flee their country. We meet them in a crisis –  Their host and protector is a nouveaux catholique, a nouveau convertis,  – a recent forced convert to Catholicism – and he is nervous. If he is discovered harbouring these people, he will lose everything. There are government dragoons near, searching for refugees just like those shivering under his roof. And his nerve has broken. He turns to Jacques Fontaine, the leader of this little group, with the bold bluster that come from desperation and fear and snarls

“I have damned my own soul to save my property, and I am not going to run the risk of losing it to save your souls. You must do as I have done or take your chance elsewhere.”

Out into the woods the refugees were forced. And only just in time  – before half an hour had passed, a troop of Dragoons and a magistrate were at the farmhouse, ransacking it for any sign of Huguenots on the run. Jacques and his fellow fugitives were on their own, and must find a way to survive.

 

Hello everyone and welcome back to the History of England, episode ****.

Before we talk about Jacques, just a quick reminder of where we have got to. Jimmy two has become king, and all the worries everyone had about a Catholic king have melted away like the summer snows. James has made handsome promises about protecting the status quo, the supremacy of the church, and working with parliament like a good ‘un. He has had parliaments firstly in Scotland – and they loved him there anyway; in Ireland there was no parliament sitting, but they love him there anyway, Ormonde had been replaced as Lord Deputy by Clarendon, and the vast majority of ordinary people are expecting great things. And even in England where once there were whigs, there is now nowt but Tories, waving their flags. And so the first session of parliament was a triumph. James did set lay down some ground rules, telling them to forget any idea of

Feeding me from time to time by such proportions as they shall think convenient

Instead they must

Comply with me in what I have desired, and that you will do it speedily.

And it appeared the Tories all agreed, voting customs and excise dues so that James was now flush with cash. After all, obedience to the hereditary, divinely appointed monarch was their credo, alongside protecting the unrivalled supremacy of the Church, as established in law, which James had vowed to protect in every particular. And so when Argyle raised the traditional fiery cross to summon the clans barely a dog barked, and even in England Monmouth’s bid for the throne was easily contained. In November 1685, the English parliament was to meet again, everyone expected a happy time.

But an important context to that meeting would be set by the likes of Jacques Fontaine, so back to him then. So, they’d just escaped the dragoons, and now managed to find other places to hide. This is from Jacque’s memoirs

‘we experienced much greater humanity from the fishermen’s wives than from the rich people; and in the cottages of the former we spent the next four or five days’[1]

They met and made a deal with an English Captain, who agreed to take a risk and run the French blockade  – for a fee of course, and on 30^th November they set out on small boats they hired to rendezvous at sea with the English Captain near the Ile de Re. And he was was there, signals were given and received – but – disaster! A French Frigate hove into view over the horizon, it had seen the English ship, and from their boats, saw it board and search for fugitives. Phew that they had not already been on board, curses they would have to find a different way. The poor boatman they’d hired was in a right old panic – if he was found, he would swing for helping Huguenots to escape.

They spent a nervous day waiting until at last the Frigate left. Then they snuck out to sea again – and by a stroke of luck, contact was made, they boarded the English ship and out into the deep blue sea! They had escaped the frying pan – but what of the fire?

On 1^st December 1685 they made landfall in in England, in the west country, at Barnstaple Devon; and there, said Fontaine

‘the good people of Barnstaple had compassion upon us, took us into their houses, and treated us with the greatest kindness; thus God raised up for us fathers and mothers, and brothers and sisters, in a strange land.’

So…why were Jacques and his family fleeing France, where, after all, they have croissant and Petit Filou? Well, pretend it’s October 18^th 1685, and let me fly you back over the water to the fabulous Palace of Fontainebleu, south of Paris, and, passing over the vast park and formal gardens created lovingly by Henry IV, drop into the fabulous state apartments, past the clouds of courtiers – gorgeous peacocks with a range of moods from grand confidence, entitlement and authority to fearful and desperate hope of finding a scrap fallen from the royal table. Then through the guards and closed grand doors into of the private apartments of the king, Louis XIV. There are not many people in there with him; his morganatic wife is there, Madam de Maintenon, probably with complicated feelings. Among a few others is then the Chancellor Michel Le Tellier, and his feelings are far from complicated. Louis is pressing the royal seal into the wax on a proclamation of 12 articles, which had been drafted by Le Tellier’s hand, and as he watches his king complete the task, and the Edict of Fontainebleu becomes law, Le Tellier joyfully declares that he can now die in peace, so happy is he.

The Edict was pretty brutal; Protestant worship was banned within France, all their churches closed – I see from the Huguenot society website they seem to be referred to by them as temples. No schools could teach their doctrine and Pastors were required to leave the country. All their children must be educated as Catholics. And very unusually for this sort of situation, no one except the Ministers were allowed to leave France.

So the act did technically allow freedom of conscience for existing adults – although everyone was confused about that, because without ministers or churches how would that happen. And anyway this came in the middle of a programme of forced conversions, so the expectation was, that would continue, and meanwhile the act specified that if new converts were just pretending – nouveau convertis like Fontaine’s panicking farmer – they would be sent to be a galley slave.

The obvious questions are why, and why now? The ‘why?’ is probably straightforward in principle. The Edict is sometimes also referred to as the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes of 1598, the act which had brought the ruinous Wars of Religion to a formal conclusion, and the nature of that agreement is interesting. Because just like the Treaties of Augsburg and Westphalia, the Edict of Nantes was not about toleration; it was an agreement not to fight. The 1 million or so Huguenots were allowed to carry on with worship and education only within their enclaves, defined areas, to arm themselves and fortify their cities so they could defend themselves. A state within a state in a way.

Louis XIV was an absolutist monarch, who did not believe in states within states…and seems not to have believed in some states outside his state. That’s just me being snarky…though you know, if the cap fits and all of that. ‘un roi, une loi, une foi’ he famously said, one king, one law, one faith,  and the Code Louis deleted all those local laws in favour of one. There’s a parallel in all of this with Thomas Cromwell who also deleted the laws of Hywel Dda, and then the franchise of the Marches, Durham and Chester, all in the name of a unified state.

Why now is more of a problem. The traditional story is that this was all inevitable, just a matter of time. The numbers of Huguenots reached their peak just before the St Batholomew’s Day Massacre of 1572; and since the Edict of Nantes had been gently falling, to maybe 800,000 or so focussed in sort of the old Aquitaine, out of a total population of 20 million. It was not exactly repression but some of those freedoms had been deleted, in some cases there were rebellions such as at La Rochelle; Louis XIII had been more intolerant than his predecessors – when he incorporated Bearn for example, a largely Protestant region, he forcefully re-imposed Catholicism.

The pressure grew under Louis XIV after the civil war of the Fronde; missionaries were sent out, laws were passed requiring official observers in Huguenot churches, their funeral processions were limited to 10 people, they were excluded from some guilds, couldn’t join professions, couldn’t have Catholics as servants – increasingly, Huguenots were under siege.

But in 1681 Louis got serious, and dropped all this nicey nicey, and started the Dragonnade, the Booted Missionaries as the Huguenots called them. Dragoons were quartered on the households of Huguenots who would not convert, and quartered at the householder’s expense. The soldiers could do just exactly what they pleased, and so they did. Thomas Bureau in Poitiers wrote of a group of 4 soldiers quartered on them, who

destroyed the carpentry work, the stacks, the windows with axes and hammers, brought their horses inside the shop…

and when that didn’t make them convert, threatened

“to hang them . . . or tie them to the harnesses of their horses and drag them through the streets like rabid dogs to serve as examples[2]

Bureau also wrote that

they climbed upstairs to our bedrooms and threw everything that was inside them into the streets as the mayor watched . . . filled with joy.

The Mayor’s joy reveals another reason for the Revocation; because the policy of separation rather than toleration inherent in the Edict of Nantes, meant that none of the bitterness of the Religious wars went away. Instead, the separate communities built up their own versions of what happened and who was to blame for all that violence and death, and by the 1660s were both demanding Reparations. There was no reconciliation[3]. So for most of France Louis’ Revocation was a fantastic idea – there were public bonfires, collective singing of the Te Deum in churches, a sense of triumph over a “heretical” minority. Leading clergy declared Louis a New Constantine. There was something of a reaction by some when so many people fled; but historians actually think the economic dislocation was pretty temporary, and that Catholics took over the jobs and skills the Huguenots left.

 

 

The official reason Louis gave for this drastic action was that there was no need for the Edict of Nantes now anyway – the Huguenots, they’d had all seen the light, they were returning to mother church; and indeed the original Edict of Nantes had expressed a hope the division it authorised would all be temporary. It’s all toweringly disingenuous – yes, there had been conversions, but at the end of a Dragoon’s boot. And there were probably still over 700,000 left even then. I can advance therefore three real reasons. Firstly, the heightened policy from 1681 had led to violence and defiance; in 1683 Huguenots in the Langedoc had held vast open air meetings – so the troops were sent in, maybe 4,000 of them massacred and churches destroyed. So there was a sense of crisis.

Secondly, Louis needed something to please the Pope. He was in furious dispute with Innocent XI, because he’d taken a different approach to the wealth and power of the church and Pope than did Henry VIII – admittedly he didn’t have the heir and marriage problem. It is called Gallicism. Basically, crudely and in brief for the sake of time – the Popes and Bishops were to report to Louis on all temporal matters, including things like revenue and taxes. which was not the way the Pope wanted it to work at all. But Innocent was indeed pleased with the Revocation, writing to praise

that extraordinary zeal (never sufficiently commended by any praises) with which you have set as your illustrious goal to extend the Catholic religion and to guard it vigorously against heretics

And finally, because Louis had a few free moments in his busy schedule of wars and conquests; he’d made peace with the Dutch, and with Spain in 1684, so he was twiddling his thumbs in 1685 before the next project – so time to turn to the Huguenots.

In all about 200 to 250,000 people fled France; later Huguenot historians and chroniclers would describe this as a kind of great Protestant Exodus. Families first usually fled to the closest safe place, although they might then go on elsewhere; the Robillard family, for example, started in London but quickly headed on to The Netherlands because James

Was beginning to take away the Protestant’s privileges, which raised fear of persecution[4]

Out of the frying pan into the fire, sort of thing. So over the next couple of decades, approximately, 75,000 people ended up in The Netherlands, 50,000 in the Three Kingdoms. The Elector of Brandenberg Prussia actually published the Edict of Potsdam encouraging Huguenots to settle there – and about 40,000 did, and the balance to city states or Switzerland. From there some went on; I’m told maybe 800 refugees settled in New York, 700 in Virginia, 500 in South Carolina, and 300 in New England; the Dutch sent 300 or so to the Cape.

In the Three kingdoms, many ended up in Dublin and in Lisburn in the north – where Louis Crommelin started transforming the rural cottage linen industry there, into the Linenopolis that will be Belfast. In England they settled in the west country like the Fontaines – although Jacques would later move to Cork – they settled in East Anglia, where they set up textile businesses in Norwich and Ipswich, and then Canterbury had the largest settlement outside of London.

Before going on to London, where the largest number went, there are a couple of points to make. Firstly, Huguenots were already part of the make-up of many places; in Canterbury, the first Huguenot church was set up in 1548, by a group from Strasbourg. In London a church was set up in 1550 in Threadneedle street, to be later displaced by the Bank of England. The massacre of St Batholomew’s day in 1572 and later events in France had also already brought further waves.

The other thing is that many of these refugees, famously, were artisans, people with skills, rather than peasant refugees, and I would guess, though I don’t know, that it is the better off, with greater skills, and more mobile that were able to upsticks and leave; 500,000 stayed in France, the majority of whom – though not quite all – became catholic.

London was of course the most diverse city in England, and used to strangers among it, and so it would be nice to relate that Fontaine’s warm words  about his greeting in Barnstaple was a universal response, and there really was a lot of that. There were 28 Huguenot churches by 1700 in London[5], and they were part of the relief effort too; in the early days under Charles II, there was a public collection which raised £14,000. But just to state the obvious, large scale immigration will also produce tensions, and there is some of that too; there’s a history of governments encouraging immigration for specific benefits – we think of Edward III and the Flemings, the Dutch in East Anglia, for example, and other countries also incentivised immigration of skilled workers. But the experience of people on the ground who have to make space, especially those close to the economic edge is more difficult, and therefore the response more varied.

In the language of the time, immigrants such as the Huguenots were termed Strangers – Foreigner might be someone from the next parish. A stranger could acquire Denizen status for a fee – the right to remain and work – or become naturalised; but it required money and an act of parliament. Given that the Huguenots grew to 5% of the total English population, many did not need to use or even learn English in that first generation; integration takes time. Some workers and livery companies objected to the new businesses the Huguenots set up, and so in some cases Huguenots moved to just outside the City to escape the restrictions placed on them by guilds. They were helped in some ways because there is a bit of a craze for all things French – but in it’s turn, that puts some people’s back up for both economic and cultural reasons; one complained

We must have all French about us; their behaviour, their fashions…French music, French Dancing masters…French legs, French grimaces, only we have not so frequent the French shrug of the shoulder because we are not so low – and itchy

That last bit did make me laugh! So that Gallic shrug thing is that old!

Let me quickly outline the major London Huguenot communities and activities. In Spitalfields and Bethnal Green weaving and silk communities was established. In Soho, they became famous for high-end crafts, silversmithing, clockmaking, jewellery, and furniture making, and it was a bit of a hang-out for intellectuals – who also went along to Old Slaughter’s coffee shop in St Martins Lane. There were groups in Wandsworth and Greenwich. There were plenty also with financial skills; between 1685 and 1695, about 100 new joint stock companies were set up and that growth is said to owe something to Huguenots.

So I have spent long enough – too long you might say on French history. In my defence, this is one of the most seismic events in European history, often set alongside Spain’s expulsion of up to 100,000 Jews in 1492. So that’s one strand in my defence. The other is that while it has a long term influence on England’s economy, an influx of skills and entrepreneurship, it has a significant political impact in James reign. Part of that is the international situation; in The Netherlands particularly. Louis’ diplomacy had scored something of a coup by helping to create a rift between the States General, and the Organists. When the wave of refugee from France hit them, that rift began to heal, as it was made crystal clear where the threat to reformed religion came from – not from William of Orange, but from the real enemy, Louis. Also William and Dutch eyes began to look much more critically and with much greater worry at the behaviour and intentions of another Catholic king – James.  And meanwhile, the horror stories that came with the refugees to London, presumably amplified, formed part of the background to the November parliament.

Many of James’ subjects assumed that, as a Catholic, James approved of Louis’ actions. This is not necessarily true, in fact probably not true, though it is quite difficult to really know for sure. He did tell the French ambassador that he approved – but James was well used to dealing with Seigneur Barillon, and larding his words with praise – this is diplomacy afterall. James disliked active persecution for religion, as I have said. And when asked he set the wheels in motion to organise another state collection for the Huguenots, and in 1686 would order the English ambassador to leave Paris in order to bring his threatened Huguenot servants back home safely.

But to his subjects outside his private apartments, he did a poor job of communicating these feelings, and he was ambivalent anyway. Louis was important to him diplomatically and culturally, and that importance would grow as his plans created more opposition. Plus, he was prepared to accept that these were the internal affairs of another kingdom, who was he to mess, and what kickback would he generate if he did? So he did nothing to convince his subjects that he was on the Huguenot side. John Evelyn noted that the way the crisis was dealt with by the Crown’s twice weekly London Gazette

Informing us what was done all Europe over…never all this time spoke one syllable…making it very extraordinary in a Protestant country, that we should know nothing of what Protestants suffered

In 1686, James would also order the public burning of a pamphlet written by one of the fugitives, Jean Claude, detailing abuses suffered by Huguenots. The way this looked was dreadful; James did it not because he approved of the persecution, but because Louis demanded it of him, he bought his argument that allowing criticism of Monarchs was a bad idea, because, you know, us divinely appointed dynasts should stick together. And then he dragged his heels on that Collection – the reason was French insistence that the letter to promote the campaign said nothing negative against Louis; but the five month delay caused by this diplomacy made his support for the persecuted protestants look lukewarm at best. James’ career is a case study in the importance of communication in politics. In addition, while he didn’t approved of their persecution, he didn’t trust the Huguenots who he thought of as rebels ; as early as July, he was personally convinced that they had played a part in encouraging Monmouth’s rebellion; like dissenters, he was sympathetic of their religious rights, but distrusted their politics.

So whn parliament met on 9^th November, there was a sense that the national whopping, towering, overpowering hysterical paranoia that Catholicism went hand in hand with Arbitrary power and repression – was indeed absolutely justified, along the lines of the ‘just because you’re being paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you’ thing.

‘The Protestants in France had free liberty, both to preach up the Protestant Religion, and to preach and write against Popery, till within eight or ten months that they began to torment and murder them’.[6]

Wrote the puritan Minister Roger Morrice in his diary. When William Trumbell, the English ambassador to France returned with his Huguenot servants, he told everyone who would listen of the pointless protests he made to Louis. He really hadn’t enjoyed the experience:

My soul abhorred the French court with it little flattering courtiers who bespattered me with their whipped cream[7]

Not just that; he saw a direct link and caution with affairs back home

I had seen too much of the friendship between the two kings cemented by the designs of promoting popery, and how we were pushing on at Whitehall, with incredible folly and invincible obstinacy, either to conquer Protestantism and the English liberties, or to perish in the attempt.

So, there’s all that background. But there’s another, which will dominate this parliament. But it’s not religion specifically that hasn’t yet become the big Issue. James had taken some action – he’d re-opened the embassy to the Papal Curia, and celebrated mass publicly, but at this stage he was cautiously committed to working with the existing Anglican Bishops. And so he largely had Tory support in when he repressed Bonfires  and street demonstrations around 5^th November. Though that didn’t make him popular with ordinary Londoners. They do like a bonfire and a bit of Pope burning – though fair do’s, they’d had a hooley on James’ birthday in October, and burned effigies of Jack Presbyter back then. So far so cautious  – but James had pushed ahead in another area where he was far less cautious.

 

As soon as the rebellions had been suppressed, James had drawn the conclusion that he might not be so lucky next time and started recruiting soldiers. The Militia was all very well, cute, pat on the head stuff, but too many of those west country yokels had joined up for Monmouth. Nope – what was needed to keep the country safe – and it’s monarch, by the by – was a standing army of hard faced professionals who knew exactly where to stick a pike, and wouldn’t question in whom they stick it.

That process was well advanced by the time parliament met, and by December England would have a standing army of 20,000 men. It’s not just their existence, though that was of course a long standing Red Flag on any English person’s 17^th century dating app – remember the New Model and all that, a standing army was anathema;. Lit was also that they were all over the place, causing trouble up and down the country. England didn’t have any barracks, because it’s normal armed forces were the militia, lived at home and got on with the day job. The Petition of Right 1628 meant the professionals they could not be quartered on the locals at their expense like the Dragonnades, but they were still an enormous irritation at a growing number of places around the country, quartered in chapels, pubs and Inns, anywhere they could find and getting up the nose of locals. James received so many complaints that he issued a declaration in August reminding commanders of their responsibilities. Though he didn’t mention the Petition of Right.

But also, in a few cases, only a few, a cloud no bigger than a man’s hand, he had given Army commissions to Roman Catholics. That my friends was in direct contravention of the Test Acts. A cloud no larger than a man’s hand maybe, but it was enough for George Saville, Lord Halifax to exercise his rights as a freeborn Yorkshireman, make for his chariot just like Elijah back in the day, and raise an objection in Privy council.

James’ response – was to dismiss Halifax from his position of Lord President of the Council, and replace him with the reliably ambitious Sunderland, a man who knew on which side bread was buttered, and was given to muttering ‘I do like a little bit of butter on my bread!’. Several other Privy Councillors took this occasion to stop coming to meetings, feeling unwelcome by the King– chief snowflake among them was Bishop Henry Compton. Several earls resigned in protest at the Roman Catholic officers, among them William Cavendish, earl of Devonshire. We’ll hear from those guys again, you mark my words.

Well, James didn’t mince his words with these objections and protests, didn’t beat no bush, in his opening address to the assembled Lords and Commons, full of the beans of self-confidence he was. The Rebellion he said, had clearly demonstrated that the militia sucked and that

Nothing but a good force of well-disciplined troops, in constant pay

could defend the country against that sort of thing, and ‘down with that kind of thing!’. So he’d like some extra money to pay them – oh and by the way I’ve used my tried and tested, absolutely kosher and above board prerogative rights to appoint some Catholics, and even made sure to point out that of course no one could have exception to him using his tried and tested, absolutely kosher and above board prerogative rights – could they now? [8]

Now, it was traditional for Commons and House of Lords  to respond to the King’s opening address, and usually to make an Address of Thanks, the more oleaginous the better. So members of the Commons went into their huddle and of course there were no whigs there to make trouble.

There were only Tories, not given to making trouble with the divinely annoited King, but hey, this wasn’t part of the deal. Thomas Clarges was an anti exclusionist stalwart, right by Charles;’ side to dish Shaftesbury, but even he piped up and mentioned that, thinking about it, those whigs – the worst kind of dogs ,to a man of course – hadn’t they warned that a popish king would set about having a Popish army to suppress and tyrannise his own people? And he explained that his previously copper bottomed anti exclusionist stance, had been on the basis that the he knew they were safe from that sort of thing, because of the Test Acts. The established laws, they that would stop any of that, ensure that no papists could

Possibly creep into any employment

But – now, it seems the Test Acts might not be enough. Despite the King’s promises. Because he was insisting on a royal prerogative power to dispense with the statute law of the country – and from now on, the airways of political debate will be full of the phrase – Dispensing power.

 

 

Another monarchist stalwart, Edward Seymour, passed on news of complaints against the army in his area, and Clarges piped up again with the declaration that

A standing army is destructive to the country

So after a week of this, the address that emerged from the Commons was not of the oleaginous Thanks King variety at  – in fact it said  whaa whaas -oops,  only an act of parliament could allow those catholic officers into the army, the royal tried and tested and so on prerogative did not allow him to override that.

James was outraged. It does SO, he broadly responded, I paraphrase for brevity and dramatic irony  – and that he

Did not expect such an Address from the house of Commons

Burn. Try again.

More worried debate in the MPs huddle. One MP John Coke, stood and declared

I hope we are all Englishmen, and are not frightened out of our duty by a few high words

It appears James saw the duty of Englishmen otherwise, and John Coke was marched off to the Tower.

Now it has to be said that the Lords had collectively ducked their part in Coke’s view of their Duty, and had indeed sent a vote of oleaginous thanks. But in rather dodgy circumstances; because there was a heated debate, and it had not been sure to get through at all. But at one point Halifax exercised his Yorkshireman’s rights again with a bit of sarcasm, declaring

They had now more reason than ever to give Thanks to his majesty, since he had dealt so plainly with them, and discovered what he would be at

Well, the Chancellor Judge Jeffreys, still wiping rebel blood off his hands from Sedgemoor, pretended to miss the Yorkshire sarcasm entirely, marked it down as approval and the vote address of Thanks was through.

So all bit fractious. When the debate came for the vote of supply, Chancellor Jeffreys suggested on behalf of the king that £1.2m seemed reasonable. There was a full and frank exchange of views – well, less frank than John Coke, obviously; but even one dyed-in-the-wool Tory said

We owe a duty to our country to leave our prosterity as free in our liberties and properties as we can

In the end it was a compromise – a bill suggesting £700,000 went up to the Lords. Of course as we have just heard, they had already voted on the Thanks to be sent for the King’s address – but now in the light of this Commons Bill, the Earl of Devonshire – told you we’d hear from him again – Devonshire suggested they reconsider the vote, and whether they really should send the king thanks after all. Jeffreys objected that the vote was done, but was shouted down. In the debate mark 2, Bishop Henry Compton – told you we’d hear from him again – claimed in a lengthy speech to represent all the bishops, in warning that if acts of parliament like the test acts could be bypassed, the Constitution was in danger as well as the church, comparing these laws to

The dykes of Holland: once breached at any single point, inundation would follow.

Another made the same point and added that in his view the King’s promise alone for their religion was not sufficient for them to rely on. Another peer made a specific link to the Revocation of Nantes – that Louis might have been less willing to do it if he

Had he not seen that England had a popish king, who would not resent it

Which is an interesting one; not only does it confirm the point, that whatever James’ true feelings, failed to convince anyone, it also showed a growing realisation by parliament that now England could no longer claim to be the champion of Protestantism, which was one of our little vanities, good Queen Bess, the Armada, Dutch Rebellion, and all that.

As you know the King could not sit in the Commons and watch all this – famously of course, English Revolution and all that, but he could sit in the Lords so he was watching and listening to all of this debate. And this was not what he expected from his loyal parliament, this was not playing by the rules at all. So he did what his father and his brother had done – he just sent the lousy, argumentative lot packing, proroguing parliament until February 1686.

 

 

 

James was cross, he was disappointed, he was vengeful, and he sacked Henry Compton from the Privy Council. He also dismissed from the army any officers who were also MPs who had spoken against his Dispensing right. He was used to command, and to those under his command doing their duty, which was his command – he would listen to counsel, but the idea of tolerating disagreement was not his way.

One of the Officers who had already lost his Army command under James, incidentally, was one Henry Sidney. He was the brother of the political philosopher Algernon Sidney who had been executed for his role in the Popish plot and the Good Old Cause in 1683. Henry Sidney had spent a lot of his army days in the Netherlands, and had good contacts and relationships with William of Orange. He now made the most of his leisure time to go back there, and renew that relationship – and William knew Sidney was a valuable link with a network of potential supporters in England. And as we’ve just noted, the Dutch were now focussed on England after the Revocation, carefully watching to see how events unfolded. So, 1686 found Sidney variously at The Hague, and with William at a meeting of German princes at Cleves. That’s something you should keep your eye on, should you have a mind. Though not to worry – I’ll keep my eye out for you, and let you know.

James had made a political blunder in his brusque dismissal of parliament. It was said that this threat of the return of political instability scared the money men in the City, and made them stop spending. The feeling was growing that James had ulterior motives; at home reading the news, even an arch royalist like John Evelyn was disgusted by the creation of a

Mighty land army…doubtless kept and increased in order to bring in & countenance popery

The growing distrust of the king encouraged a healing of the old fierce political division which had separated opposition so usefully for Charles. One commentator noted that the terms Whig, and Tory, were

Quite laid by, and now nothing talked of but whether a Protestant or a Papist

It might be that Dissenter and Anglican could find a common cause here; Presbyterians, wrote the same man, were so pleased with

This honesty of Bishops…that many of them went and communicated with them’.

He also warned that

The wise Catholics were troubled to hear those united who were formerly tearing of each other.

They were right to be worried.

Right that’s it for this week, thank you very much for listening…I am sorry if I spent too much time on the history of France as opposed to the title of the podcast, it was just one of those things which turned into something of a rabbit hole, and unless you are a Jack Russell, or a ferret, it’s impossible to turn round in a rabbit hole, you just have to go on to get out the other end.

Anyway, next time, James will start trying to turn his Three Kingdoms into places that in his mind would be a finer, fairer place, better for everyone to live in, and we’ll start to see how that goes.

[1] https://www.gethistories.com/p/the-first-refugees-1685

[2] https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/escape-from-babylon

[3] Van der Linden, D: ‘The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes’, University of Groningen

[4] Jackson, C: ‘Devilland’, p465

[5] Lincoln, M: ‘London and the 17^th Century’, p 260

[6] Southcombe, G; Restoration Politics, Religion and Culture: Britain and Ireland, 1660-1714 p83.

[7] https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1690-1715/member/trumbull-sir-william-1639-1716

[8] Harris, T: ‘Revolution’, p97