The Huguenots in Later Stuart Britain is planned as one work to be published in three interlinking volumes (titles/publication dates detailed below). It examines the history of the French communities in Britain from the Civil War, which plunged them into turmoil, to the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, after which there was no realistic possibility that the Huguenots would be readmitted to France. There is a particular focus on the decades of the 1680s and 1690s, at once the most complex, the most crucial, and the most challenging alike for the refugees themselves and for subsequent historians. The work opens with the Calvinist French-speaking communities in England caught up in the Civil War. They could not avoid it, with many of their members largely assimilated into English society by the 1640s. Generally they favoured the Parliamentarian side, but any victory was pyrrhic because the Interregnum supported the rights of Independent congregations which undermined their whole Calvinist structure. Weakened by in-fighting, in the 1660s the old-established French churches then had to reassert their right to exist in the face of a sometimes hostile restored monarchy and episcopacy, a newly licenced French church emphasizing its Anglicanism and its loyalty to the crown, and the challenges of the Plague and the Fire of London which burnt the largest French church in England to the ground. They were still staggering to find their feet when the first trickle and then the full flood of new Huguenot immigration overwhelmed them. As for the newly arriving Huguenot ministers, not prepared for the England to which they came, they found they had to resolve what was often an intense personal dilemma: should they stand fast for the worship they had led in France, or accept Anglican ways? and if they did accept Anglicanism, to what extent? It is demonstrated that many ministers took the Anglican route, although Volume II will show that the French communities as a whole, old and new alike, voted with their feet not to do so. A substantial appendix provides a biographical account of over 600 ministers in the orbit of the French churches across this period. Volume II: Settlement, Churches, and the Role of London 978-1-84519-619-6 (2017); Volume III: The Huguenots and the Defeat of Louis XIV's France 978-1-84519-620-2 (2020).

The Huguenots in Later Stuart Britain is planned as one work to be published in three interlinking volumes (titles/publication dates detailed below). It examines the history of the French communities in Britain from the Civil War, which plunged them into turmoil, to the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, after which there was no realistic possibility that the Huguenots would be readmitted to France. There is a particular focus on the decades of the 1680s and 1690s, at once the most complex, the most crucial, and the most challenging alike for the refugees themselves and for subsequent historians. This volume explains when refugees fled France, and what drove them to settle in some regions of Britain but not others. Recent scholarship has lowered former estimates of refugee numbers across Europe, but careful analysis of the available evidence suggests that for Britain, previous estimates have been low and need upward revision. European historians have accepted Pierre Bayles assertion that the Netherlands were the great ark of the refugees too uncritically. While Bayles remark was true enough when the Edict of Nantes was revoked in 1685, by 1700 England had emerged as the most significant refugee centre. In particular, London came to house by far the largest Huguenot community in exile, and the reasons for the capitals huge appeal are examined. Historians have debated the reception that awaited the Huguenots in Britain. Were they warmly welcomed, sullenly accepted, or consciously opposed? The answer varied over time and place, but this book argues that overall they met an exceptionally sympathetic welcome. Part of the evidence lies in the extraordinary efforts made to give them economic support, involving the creation of a special administrative bureaucracy with a high-powered French Committee to administer relief funds under the supervision of an even higher-powered English Committee which audited its work. A chapter is devoted to the relief process. Appendices list all known lay officers of the French congregations and reproduce some little-known key documents. Volume I: Crisis, Renewal, and the Ministers Dilemma 978-1-84519-618-9 (2015); Volume III: The Huguenots and the Defeat of Louis XIVs France 978-1-84519-620-2 (2020)

The Huguenots in Later Stuart Britain is planned as one work to be published in three interlinking volumes (titles/publication dates detailed below). It examines the history of the French communities in Britain from the Civil War, which plunged them into turmoil, to the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, after which there was no realistic possibility that the Huguenots would be readmitted to France. There is a particular focus on the decades of the 1680s and 1690s, at once the most complex, the most crucial, and the most challenging alike for the refugees themselves and for subsequent historians. The work opens with the Calvinist French-speaking communities in England caught up in the Civil War. They could not avoid it, with many of their members largely assimilated into English society by the 1640s. Generally, they favoured the Parliamentarian side, but any victory was pyrrhic because the Interregnum supported the rights of Independent congregations which undermined their whole Calvinist structure. Weakened by in-fighting, in the 1660s the old-established French churches then had to reassert their right to exist in the face of a sometimes hostile restored monarchy and episcopacy, a newly licenced French church emphasizing its Anglicanism and its loyalty to the crown, and the challenges of the Plague and the Fire of London which burnt the largest French church in England to the ground. They were still staggering to find their feet when the first trickle and then the full flood of new Huguenot immigration overwhelmed them. As for the newly arriving Huguenot ministers, not prepared for the England to which they came, they found they had to resolve what was often an intense personal dilemma: should they stand fast for the worship they had led in France, or accept Anglican ways? -- and if they did accept Anglicanism, to what extent? It is demonstrated that many ministers took the Anglican route, although Volume II will show that the French communities as a whole, old and new alike, voted with their feet not to do so. A substantial appendix provides a biographical account of over 600 ministers in the orbit of the French churches across this period. Volume II: Settlement, Churches, and the Role of London 978-1-84519-619-6 (2017); Volume III: The Huguenots and the Defeat of Louis XIV's France 978-1-84519-620-2 (2020).

The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 was enacted within France, but shook all Europe. This was especially true in Britain, by 1700 the home of the largest concentration of Huguenot refugees. Recent historians have dismissed religious persecution as irrelevant to French economic and political decline from the 1680s. This volume, though, shows the refugees played a central role in France’s economic woes and Louis XIV’s eventual defeat as they helped pave the way for William III’s initial success in England in 1688, then assisted in the consolidation of his power. Using markedly different sets of primary sources, the book establishes three key conclusions. First, the importance of the refugees in relation to the Glorious Revolution in England. Second, the vital contribution of Huguenot soldiers in Ireland, especially at the bloodiest battle of the Irish wars at Aughrim in 1691, which was definitive in a way the better-known battle of the Boyne was not. Third, the significance of the close connections between the French Church of London at Threadneedle Street and the foundation of the Bank of England in 1694 and its survival through its troubled early years. Without the persecutions in France, William would not have succeeded in his near-bloodless invasion of England, which for the first time enabled a coalition that the French king could not simply browbeat and dominate. Nor could William have thereafter secured his position militarily and financially in time to check Louis and establish the foundations for later English successes. Louis XIV’s treatment of the Huguenots was fundamental both to his eventual defeat, and to Britain’s rising power in the early eighteenth century.