HUGIJENOT ARTISTS DESIGNERS AND CRAYPSNEN IN GREAT ...

6.
INTRODUCTION
It used to be thought that the third wave of Huguenot emigration
to Britain occurred after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685.
Recent research has revealed that although 1685 was an exceptional year,
many refugees, including artists and craftsmen, had settled in this coun-
try before that date.
Persecution of members of the Religion Protestante Reform was
renewed as early as 1661, when the Edict of Nantes, signed in May, 1598,
for the benefit of the Huguenots, as the French Protestants were called,
was reinterpreted in a series of proclamations with a strong Catholic
bias. In 1661, Cardinal Mazarin, who had acknowledged the loyalty and
good services of the Huguenots, and had acted as their protector in
France, died. By 1669, Louis XIV had declared that Protestant preaching
was to be confined to a single locality in each place. Ten years later,
Mine. de Maintenon wrote, 'the King is thinking seriously of the conversion
of the heretics and will soon set to work at it earnestly.' Between 1679
and 1685 about one hundred and twenty five documents curtailed Huguenot
liberties; they were excluded from public posts, and mixed marriages
were forbidden. By 1680, in particular areas such as Poitou, soldiers
were billeted on the Protestant population, and encouraged to ill-treat
their hosts.1
Meanwhile, advantages accrued for converts. They were excluded
from billeting, relieved for three years from payment of debt, and
children of seven years old were free to deelare themselves Catholic and
to demand a reasonable pension from their parents. In one opin. was
the fear of losing their children if they remained in France tLat decided
the greater number to emigrate'. As the Rev. David Agnew aptly wrote,
Revocation was merely the destruction of the surviving sealing wax,
ink and parchment of 1598.'
On July 28th, 1681, Charles II issued a proclamation in which
England offered itself as a place of refuge. The refugees would receive
letters patent of denization under the Great Seal, free of expense, and
their possessions and stock-in-trade were to be landed duty-free. Despite
this encouragement, many refugees fled to Holland instead. Amsterdam was
particularly charitable. One contemporary reported that the city authorities
lent siuns of money without interest I or the refugees to buy tools and
materials for their work. By contrast, it was thought that in England, that
the refugees were persecuted, the Bank at London was broke, that aliens