Bishop Latimer gave utterance to the true English sentiment in a sermon preached before King Edward at this very time. His words were — “Johannes Alasco was here, a great learned man, and, as they say, a nobleman in his country, and is gone his way again; if it be for lack of entertainment, the more pity. I would wish such men as he to be in the realm, for the realm should prosper in receiving of them. Qui vos recipit me recipit, who receiveth you receiveth me, saith Christ; and it should be for the King’s honour to receive them and keep them.”[1]
It was also in 1549 that a part of the holiday illumination, which gratified the eyes of the French king as he drove in procession through Paris, was the burning of Protestant martyrs at stakes in several of the streets. The persecution in France waxed fiercer; and many Huguenots fled into England. On the 13th August of that year, writing from Lambeth, the well-known foreign exiles Bucer, Martyr, Alexander, and Fagius, for the information of the Protector, pled with Cecil in behalf of some poor French Protestant refugees, certifying as to them that, having been compelled to forsake their own country for no other cause but that of religion, they had come to this kingdom as to Christ’s place of shelter; [eos, nullâ aliâ, quààm religionis causâ, patriam suam descrere coactos, in hoc regnum venisse tanquam ad Christi asylum.][2]
On John a Lasco’s return to England, he received a royal charter, dated 24th July 1550, granting a place of worship to the foreign Protestants in London, and appointing him to be the superintendent of all the Protestants of Holland, France, Switzerland, and Germany who had taken refuge in England. He is eulogized in this Patent[3] as a man very eminent for integrity, of unblemished life, and of singular erudition. In the preamble the King, as Defender of the Faith, and Supreme Head under Christ of the English and Irish Church, declared it to be his duty to provide for religion, and for unfortunate persons afflicted and banished on account of religion. His Majesty represented himself as “pitying the condition of those refugees, who for a considerable time have dwelt in our kingdom, and of those who daily enter it.”
The first Refugees’ Church (since known as the Dutch Church in Austin Friars) was the place of worship for the refugees of all nations, two of the four ministers being French, namely, Messrs François de la Rivière and Richard François. This reminds us of a stanza composed in honour of the place of worship within Canterbury Cathedral, granted to a similar foreign congregation in the days of Elizabeth:—
When Calvin’s sons from Artois’ fruitful fields
Blind persecution’s iron hand expels,
This fostering church maternal shelter yields.
Beneath her roof where Gospel freedom dwells,
Beneath her spacious roof, in rites divine,
Lo, various sects and various tongues unite;
In blissful league French, Germans, Britons join,
While hovering angels listen with delight.[4]
As the above-named French ministers disappeared from England after the death of Edward VI., we note here that La Rivière’s surname was Peruçel. He became chaplain to the Prince of Conde, and was with him at the battle of Dreux, and after the lost battle he escaped under the wing of Throgmorton, the English ambassador. Beza honours him as a fortifier of the spirit of the prince. He also praises the other minister, Richard Vauville or François, who had been minister at Bourges, and died in charge of the French Church at Frankfort.
The French worshippers of London removed to the Chapel of St Anthony in Threadneedle Street; not that there was any schism between them and the German-Dutch (Belgico-Germani). It was simply a more convenient arrangement for the regular and sufficient administration of ordinances to the French-speaking refugees.
French churches gradually multiplied in London and the provinces. As these churches accommodated the numerous and influential refugees from French Flanders, they were often called Walloon churches, such being the designation given to the population of French Flanders and to their dialect of the French tongue. As to these churches, the original researches of Mr Burn, and the popularized details given by Mr Smiles,[5] render it unnecessary that I should load this biographical volume with statistical facts. Omitting London edifices, I give alphabetically the names of places where French churches were established before and after the central date, 1685.
- ↑ Latimer’s Third Sermon before Edward VI. (Parker Society, p. 141).
- ↑ Strype’s Cranmer, Appendix, No. 105.
- ↑ The Charter is printed by Burnet, Hist. Ref., vol. ii., Book 1st, Appendix No. 51.
- ↑ Baynes’ “ Witnesses in Sackcloth,” p. 103, quoting Duncombe’s Canterbury.
- ↑ Samuel Smiles, LL.D., whose compilation “The Huguenots” was published in 1867.
