Protestant Exiles from France/Historical Introduction - section IV
Section IV.
FRENCH PROTESTANTS AND ENGLISH POLITICS IN THE TIMES OF CHARLES I. AND CROMWELL, AND AT THE RESTORATION OF CHARLES II.
The Huguenots, both at home and in exile, felt a fraternal interest in the troubles of Great Britain. The very soil of England was dear to them. And even King Charles I., though his education, his tendencies, and his connections might alarm them, succeeded to all the loyalty and devotion which the refugees in England felt for former rulers of their adopted country.
The French Protestants never ceased to love and admire their “sovereign lord, King Henry of Navarre;” and they were personally attached to his son and grandson, Louis XIII. and XIV. They never extended to their kings their rage against priestly persecutors and Popish mobs. In 1625 Charles I., by his marriage with their Princess, or “Madame,” Henriette Marie,[1] became the son-in-law of their lamented King Henri, and thus a brother to Louis XIII. It cannot be denied that, soon after this matrimonial alliance, an English expedition had set out against the Huguenots, which, happily, did nothing. This deed was atoned for by the armament of 1627, which (although it also effected nothing) produced an impression that King Charles was doing his best to succour La Rochelle at the time of its memorable siege, and was thus personally deserving of the gratitude of the Huguenots. He had also propitiated the refugees in the year 1626 (23d Nov.) by an order addressed to all officers of the executive government which, reciting the honourable reception and substantial bounties accorded to British subjects and their children beyond the seas, required that the members of the Foreign Churches and their children should be maintained in the peaceable enjoyment of all the immunities which they held from His Majesty's predecessors.[2]
The French Protestants were quite disposed to take the Royalist view of English affairs, as far as their feelings were concerned. If the King of England had cordially held the essentials of Bible Protestantism, and had promoted tolerant proceedings towards all Protestant churches, the Huguenots would never have complained of his blustering adherence to his prelatical and sacerdotal predilections. His complicity with Archbishop Laud brought him into collision with the French Protestants. English Church history, and especially the recorded experience of Archbishop Whitgift, might have proved to Laud that the line of argument on which the Anglican Church could successfully rely was, that what is right in Church government means whatever is most practicable. The whole question is thus resolved into a matter of convenience or of taste, as to which there may be two sides, without either party having a right to heat its arguments with such epithets as “irreligious” or “profane.” After establishing itself in triumphant possession of the land by means of the argument that Church government is a non-essential matter, the Anglican system could never consistently proclaim itself to be the one thing needful. Yet this inconsistency was the policy of which Laud was the grand mover and martyr.
This change of attitude injuriously affected the relation of English Prelacy to foreign Protestantism. The Scriptural and evangelical fathers of the Church of England acknowledged the non-prelatic churches as professors of the same faith and religion as themselves. The one true religion was not an insular monopoly, but a European common property. It was reserved for William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, to repudiate this communion of saints.
Laud’s brotherly kindness and aspirations for communion took another direction. He endeavoured to introduce into the Protestant Church, of which he was the Primate, the suicidal principles, “that the Church of Rome is a true visible Church, and never erred in fundamentals, no, not in the worst times; that she is the ancient holy Mother Church; that her religion and ours of the Church of England is all one.” Such a view was not meant to be only additional; it was to be corrective, and to be substituted for the old declarations of fraternity with foreign Protestants. In 1634 the King, by advice of the Lord-Keeper Coventry, having caused letters-patent to pass the Great Seal for a collection on behalf of the distressed ministers of the Palatinate, Laud arrested the publication of the document, because it described the religion of the sufferers to be “the true religion, which we, together with them, profess to maintain.” And a revised patent was issued, merely declaring that the foreign pastors “suffered for their religion.”
Both the Dutch and French Protestant settlers soon felt the archprelate’s ill-will. It was a grievance to him to see their churches enjoying by law the free exercise of their religion and discipline, exempt from all Archiepiscopal and Episcopal jurisdiction. He began by using the plausible argument that such an exemption could have been meant to endure only during the lifetime of the refugees; and that their children, being Englishmen by birth, were clearly subject to the bishops of their respective dioceses. And further, that though the successors of King Edward had confirmed all the exemptions, yet, at least in 1630, there was the reservation, “so long as His Majesty shall be pleased.”
The following documents are sufficiently interesting to be inserted in the place of any narrative. The first was forwarded by Dr Richard Montague, Bishop of Norwich, to Laud, who received it Feb. 21st, 1635, n.s. (Another petition, the same in substance, was sent to the primate himself on the 26th June.)
“To the Right Reverend Father in God, Richard, Lord Bishop of Norwich.
“The humble remonstrance and Petition of the two Congregations of Strangers in the city of Norwich.
“It hath pleased my Lord’s Grace of Canterbury to send forth lately two Injunctions to the three congregations of strangers, Canterbury, Sandwich, and Maidstone, in his Grace’s diocese, to this effect:— 1st. That their English natives should separate from them, and resort to the English Parish Churches where they dwell. 2dly. That the remainder of them, being strangers born, should receive and use the English Liturgy, translated into their own language, upon the first day of March next — the which is generally conceived to be a leading case for all the strangers' congregations that are in England.
“Now, forasmuch as the said Injunctions seem to be opposite not only to certain orders of his Majesty’s most honourable Privy Council, heretofore upon several occasions granted unto several congregations of the strangers, but chiefly to all the gracious liberties and privileges granted unto them of old, and continued during the reign of three most famous princes, King Edward, Queen Elizabeth, and King James, of glorious memory, and confirmed by his now Majesty’s regal word, our gracious sovereign (whom God long preserve), which he was pleased graciously to give unto the deputies of all the strangers’ congregations in England, prostrate at his Majesty’s feet, the 30th of April, 1625.
“And also, that the observing of the said Injunctions will necessarily draw after it many great and unavoidable inconveniences, both common and personal. As, namely, that the parishes shall be needlessly charged with a great multitude of poor strangers, that are English natives. Many natives shall, ipso facto, lose the benefit of their toleration in exercising their manufactures, having not served their seven years’ apprenticeships, and be in danger of ruin or molestation. Many such also that understand not well the English tongue, shall be little edified by the English prayers and sermons which they shall hear. Their families shall be divided, some going one way, some another, to their appointed assemblies — which may minister an unhappy opportunity of licentiousness to servants and children that are loosely minded. The alien strangers that shall remain, being not the fourth part of the now standing congregations (especially in this city), for want of competent ability to maintain their ministers and poor, must needs be utterly dissolved, and come to nothing. So the ancient and much renowned Asyla, and places of refuge for the poor persecuted and other ignorant Christians beyond the seas shall be wanting; whereat Rome will rejoice, and the Reformed Churches in all places will mourn.
“Many ministers (and those ancient) having no other means but their congregations, which shall then fail them, shall be to seek for themselves and their destituted families. The foreign poor will be added to the native poor, and increase the charge and burden of their several parishes, who will be to them no welcome guests; or else be sent away beyond sea, where they will open many mouths against the authors of their misery. The commonwealth shall lose many skilful workmen in sundry manufactures, whom in times past the land hath so much desired. Many thousand English, of the poorer sort, shall miss their good masters that set them on work and paid them well, which will cause them to grieve at their departure, if not to murmur.
“And say a handful of aliens should remain to make up a poor congregation, where shall they baptize their new-born infants? if in the parish churches, then shall the strangers lose one of their sacraments; and if in the said strangers’ congregations, then it would be known when they shall be sent away to be admitted as natives in their English parishes.
“A greater difficulty will yet arise about the English rites and ceremonies enjoined to such aliens as shall remain. For though they mislike them not in the English churches, unto the which, upon occasion, they do willingly resort, yet when this innovation will come upon them, it will be so uncouth and strange, as it is doubtful whether it or the separation of the natives from the aliens will bring the more trouble, and whether they will not both be followed (though not cequis passibus) with the utter dissolution of the congregations. And the rather, because it is not likely that upon their want of a minister, any will be ready to come, (though sent for) from beyond the seas, to serve them upon these two conditions:— 1st. To be contented with so mean a stipend as they shall then be able to afford, and that uncertain too. 2d. To observe such rites and ceremonies as they were never acquainted withal, yea, are offensive to some beyond the seas, from whence they shall be called.
“Lastly, forasmuch as we have given no occasion of offence that might deserve the taking away of our former liberties, but have still demeaned ourselves peaceably and respectively toward the English discipline, neither do we harbour any factious English persons as members of our congregations — and also, that by two several orders of His Majesty's most honourable Privy Council, your Lordship and your successors have power to order the disordered in both the congregations, if any shall happen.
“Therefore we humbly entreat your good lordship, &c, &c.”
The following is an extract from the second document, being Laud's reply:—
“His Majesty is resolved that his injunctions shall hold, and that obedience shall be yielded to them by all the natives after the first descent, who may continue in their congregations, to the end the aliens may the better look to the education of their children, and that their several congregations may not be too much lessened at once. But that all of the second descent born here in England, and so termed, shall resort to their several Parish Churches, whereas they dwell” . . . .
“And thus I have given you answer fairly in all your particulars, and do expect all obedience and conformity to my injunctions — which, if you shall perform, the State will have occasion to see how ready you are to practise the obedience which you teach. And for my part, I doubt not but yourselves, or your posterity at least, shall have cause to thank both the State and the Church for this care taken of you. But if you refuse, (as you have no cause to do, and I hope you will not), I shall then proceed against the natives according to the Laws and Canons Ecclesiastical. So hoping the best of yourselves and your obedience, I leave you to the grace of God, and rest your loving friend,
August 19th, 1635.W. CANT.”
Prynne, to whom I am indebted for the foregoing documents, adds the following particulars.
—“By these Injunctions these Churches were molested and disquieted some three or four years’ space; some of them were interdicted, suspended and shut up for a time for refusing conformity. Others of them were dissolved, their ministers deserting them rather than submitting to these Injunctions. All of them were much diminished and discontented, the maintenance of their ministers and poor members being much impaired, almost to their utter desolation, notwithstanding all the great friends they could make to intercede on their behalf; and they being brought quite under that Episcopal jurisdiction and tyranny, from which they were formerly exempted.
Hereupon many conscientious aliens and their children deserted the kingdom, who could not in conscience submit to the ceremonies and innovations in our churches; and most of their families were miserably distracted, as appears by a Summary Relation of the Archbishop’s proceedings herein presented to the Parliament, and by a large printed book entitled, A Relation of the troubles of the Three Forraigne Churches in Kent, caused by the injunctions of William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, A.D. 1634, set forth by John Bulteel, minister of God’s word to the Walloon Congregation of Canterbury, printed Anno 1645.” (Prynne’s “Trial of Laud,” page 407.)
In due course the king, loving to govern by priestly directions, by secret tribunals, and by martial law, plunged the country into a civil war. One astounding consequence of this position of affairs was an Act of Parliament abolishing Episcopacy, which was passed 10th Sept. 1642, but not to come into operation till the 5th Nov. 1643. With a view to organizing a Church for Great Britain, the Lords and Commons summoned an Assembly of Divines to deliberate along with learned laymen. This Assembly, which was preceded by a public sermon preached in Westminster Abbey, on July 1st, 1643, and which held its eleven hundred and sixty-three meetings in Henry VII.’s Chapel, is known in history as the Westminster Assembly.
The ministers of parishes in the Channel Islands were the Members of Assembly with whom the French Ministers had the closest ties. Their spokesman was the Rev. John de la March of Guernsey. On the 22nd Dec. he introduced a Deputation from the French church of London, bearers of a Petition which was read to the Assembly. Lightfoot gives the following summary of its contents:— First, “A congratulation for our meeting;” secondly, “laying open their charter made by Edward VI. for their church in this city;” thirdly, “a grievous complaint of two that have made a fearful rent and schism in their church, the one a doctor, and the other once a monk, who have separated from their congregation and begin to gather churches;” fourthly, “they desired us to present their complaint to the Houses [of Parliament.” This petition was referred to a committee.
On the preceding 22nd November it was ordered by the House of Commons, “That the Assembly of Divines be moved to write letters unto some Divines or Churches of Zealand and Holland, and to the Protestant Churches in France, Switzerland, and other Reformed Churches, to inform them, against the great artifices and disguises of His Majesty’s agents in those parts, of the true state of our affairs, and of the constant employment of Irish Popish Rebels and other Papists to be Governors, Commanders, and Soldiers, the many evidences of their intentions to introduce Popery, their endeavour to hinder the reformation here intended, and condemning other Protestant Churches as unsound because not prelatical. And that the Scots Commissioners be desired to join therein. And likewise that the Committees of the Lords and Commons and of the Divines may advise with the Scots Commissioners.”
The Solicitor-General brought this order before the Assembly. A Latin letter was accordingly drawn up and signed on 19-29 January following, both by the officials and by six Commissioners from the Church of Scotland. The copy sent to France was addressed to the Church of Paris, Reverendis et doctissimis viris, Pastoribus et Senioribus Ecclesice qua; est Lutetiae Parisiorum, dominus et fratribus honorandis.
Dr Grosart, in his memoir of Herbert Palmer, B.D., calls attention to the fact that that loveable and able divine drafted the Westminster Assembly’s Letter. [As to Palmer, Samuel Clark says that he was born at Wingham, about six miles from Canterbury, in 1601: “he learned the French tongue almost as soon as he could speak English; even so soon, as that he hath often affirmed that he did not remember his learning of it. And he did afterwards attain so great exactness of speaking and preaching in that language, together with a perfect knowledge of the state of affairs of that kingdom (especially of the Protestant Churches amongst them) that he was often by strangers thought to be a native Frenchman, and did not doubt but to entertain discourse with any person of that nation for some hours together, who should not be able by his discourse to distinguish him from a native Frenchman, but judge him to be born and bred in France: so well was he furnished with an exact knowledge, both of the propriety and due pronunciation of that language, and of the persons, places, and affairs of that kingdom and the churches therein; a thing not often seen in one who had never been out of England.” Before his death in 1647 he testified the affections of his heart by praying aloud for himself and others; one of the petitions was, “Lord, do good to Scotland and the churches of France; bless New England and foreign plantations.”]
Principal Baillie in one of his famous “Letters” (vol. ii. p. 111) had written, “The Parliament became the other day sensible of their too long neglect of writing to the churches abroad of their condition; so it was the matter of our great committee to draw up letters in the name of the Assembly for the Protestant Churches. The drawing of them was committed to Mr Palmer, who yet is upon them” (7th December 1643). The inscriptions were many, but it was one and the same letter that was transcribed and sent to the various churches. There was no continuous exchange of correspondence; so Baillie had occasion to say, when a correspondent desired that a favourable letter sent in return from the “Zeland” church should be answered by the [Westminster] Assembly; “As for returning an answer, they have no power to write one line to any soul but as the Parliament directs; neither may they importune the Parliament for warrants to keep foreign correspondence. With what art and diligence that general one to all the churches was gotten, I know. You know this is no proper Assembly, but a meeting called by the Parliament to advise them in what things they are asked.”
Baillie hoped that some of the Huguenot Divines would help them by private Letters. He said in 1644 (“Letters,” vol. ii. p. 180): “There is a golden occasion in hand, if improved, to get England conform in worship and government to the rest of the reformed. If nothing dare be written in public by any of the French, see if they will write their mind for our encouragement, to any private friend here or in Holland.” He became rather out of humour with the Parisian Divines, and declared “the French Divines dare not keep public correspondence, and I heard that the chief of them are so much courtiers that they will not [say] the half they dare and might; policy and prudence so far keeps down their charity and zeal, &c, &c.” (“Letters,” vol. ii. p. 170). However, in the end of 1644 he was better pleased (see his vol. ii. page 253) and wrote, “It were good that our friends at Paris were made to understand our hearty and very kind resentment of their demonstration of zeal and affection towards the common cause of all the reformed churches now in our poor weak hands.”
Mr De la March, who apparently had been entrusted with the duty of forwarding the Westminster Assembly’s letter, reported on the 13th March that the senior pasteur of Charenton having received it, did, by advice of the pasteurs and elders, hand it unopened to the Deputy-General of the Reformed Churches of France; and that the Secretary of State, having been informed of it, took it ill that these churches should hold any correspondence with England in its divided condition. The consequence was that the letter was still unopened, and those churches uninformed of its contents. The Assembly therefore sent a Deputation to the House of Commons requesting that the letter might be printed.[3] This request was immediately granted, and it was ordered, “That the Letter from the Assembly of Divines to the Reformed Churches beyond Seas shall be printed in Latin and English, with the several inscriptions to the particular several churches, and that Mr Selden and Mr Rous do acquaint the Assembly with this Order.”
The Letter described the bigotted and persecuting policy of the Cavaliers and of their ghostly advisers, their leanings to Popery, and their coolness and aversion to Foreign Protestants. The illustrative facts were the sufferings inflicted on the Church of Scotland, the massacre of Irish Protestants and the King’s truce with their armed murderers, and the opposition of the Court to the Westminster Assembly. The conclusion contained three requests, (1) That foreign Protestants would be persuaded of the innocence and integrity of the leaders of the popular party in Britain; (2) That they would sympathise with them as sufferers “in the same cause wherein you yourselves have been oppressed;” (3) That they would make common cause with them, “the quarrel of the enemy being not so much against the persons of men, as against the power of godliness and purity of God’s word wherever it is professed. The way and manner of your owning us we leave wholly to yourselves.” It is plain that, with regard to the British broils, two counteracting influences must have been at work in the minds of the Protestants of France. Their veneration for kings, and their attachment to a royal family that was so intimately connected with their own, disposed them to sympathise with Charles. Yet they were repelled by insults both in word and deed, hurled by the favourite royal advisers against their religious doctrines, worship and church government. Being Presbyterians both in polity and in worship, their sympathy on theoretical grounds might have been confidently claimed by a Parliament which had abolished the Laudean Prelacy, and had created the Westminster Assembly.
But we have to pass on to the execution of Charles I. This was the crime and blunder by which the Parliament lost all durable sympathy. The Presbyterians could prove that this judicial murder was not their doing. And the Congregationalists are free from all blame, as far as their church principles are concerned; though the individual offenders, being members of the bar and of the army, professed a theory of Church Discipline which bore the name of Independency. But the great mass of mankind were led to believe that all Protestants who were not Episcopalians were Presbyterians. The name of Presbyterian was given to every form of Protestant Dissent from Anglican Prelacy. And thus public report inculpated the Presbyterians. As to the French Protestants, though they did not fall into that mistake, yet their feelings of pity for the royal sufferer and for his illustrious family, and for individuals among his clergy, amounted practically to the withholding of sympathy from the Presbyterians of England.
The most celebrated writers against the execution of Charles I. were French Protestants. They were well practised in the most courtly style of language, because being accused of disloyalty by the Papists, they had continually to assert their devotion to their own king. Having nothing to protect them but a monarch’s good pleasure or good humour, they favoured theories as to kingly claims which sound rather slavish in modern ears. They saw the English court and country from a distance; and being inexperienced in the grievances of their English brethren, they could bring forward their ultra-royalist arguments, without feeling encumbered by any sense of provocation associated with the name of the Royal Charles Stuart.
The name of Claudius Salmasius was, in French, Claude Saumaise. It was his attack on the executioners of King Charles that drew forth John Milton’s first defence of the Commonwealth of England. More notably connected with the Protestants of France is the name of Du Moulin, Latinized Molinaeus. Two sons of the great French pastor of that name adopted England as their country, and both abjured Presbyterianism, Louis becoming an Independent (he was M.D. of Leyden), and Pierre becoming an Episcopal clergyman. The former, while clearing all religious parties of the guilt of the king’s murder, was a polemical author against the English Presbyterians. The latter, a D.D. of Leyden, wrote the curious little book, for whose title-page the printer contributed his blood-red ink to impress upon the reader that the king’s blood was crying from the ground for vengeance — “Regii Sanguinis Clamor ad Caelum adversus parricidas Anglicanos.”
The correspondence between the English and foreign Universities circulated news and sentiments regarding England. The Theological colleges of the French Protestants were of unsurpassed efficiency. Their University-seats were Saumur, Sedan, Montauban, Nismes, Montpellier, and Die. Oxford and Cambridge recognised their degrees, and were always willing to admit their graduates ad eundem. Persecution gradually suppressed all the French Protestant Colleges and Academies first, by a perverse interpretation of the Edict of Nantes, to the effect that theology was not one of the liberal sciences intended by the Edict — and next, by a tyrannical decree, that schools teaching only reading, writing, and arithmetic, were quite enough for Huguenots. But during their brief existence, their universities were most worthy of the name. The most intimate connections between them and those of England were formed by natives of the Channel Islands, who studied in a French University because their mother tongue was French, and yet were eligible for an English Church living because England was their native kingdom.
The opinions of French Protestants concerning the divisions in England varied in each individual case according to the views of their English correspondents. Being foreigners, they had few means of sifting any statements which an esteemed English friend might make or send to them. It would be a mistake, therefore, to ascribe to the Huguenots one uniform sentiment regarding English politics. While Du Bosc’s biographer declared that all their theologians were on the Royalist side, James, Duke of York, formed a totally different opinion. The Duke said to Burnet, “that among other prejudices he had at the Protestant Religion this was one, that both his brother and himself, being in many companies in Paris incognito, where they met many Protestants, he found they were all alienated from them, and were great admirers of Cromwell; so he believed they were all rebels in their heart.” Burnet replied, “Foreigners are no other way concerned in the quarrels of their neighbours than to see who can or will assist them. The coldness which they had formerly seen in the Court of England with relation to them, and the zeal which was now expressed, naturally made them depend on one who seemed resolved to protect them.”
The distaste with which, at first, French Protestants viewed Cromwell’s government gave way before his zeal for Protestantism and his intercessions to the European powers in behalf of the persecuted. As a Protestant King had damaged his influence by leaning on a Romanizing Archbishop, so the Republican protector rose in estimation through his beneficence to poor Protestant people.
Cardinal Mazarin, the Prime Minister of Louis XIV., who had been lukewarm in Charles’s cause, vehemently courted an alliance with Cromwell. France and Spain were at irreconcilable enmity, and England could not avoid taking a side in the contest. The advocate of Spain was a Frenchman, the Prince of Conde, who had withdrawn from allegiance to his native monarchy, and was living as a denizen in the Spanish Netherlands, having some French Protestants among his followers. He represented to Cromwell that the Huguenots might be willing to rise in France against the Crown; and that to incite them to this, he would revive the old hereditary influence of the name of Conde by becoming a Protestant himself, on condition that Cromwell would join him in a Spanish alliance. He also offered to conquer Calais for the English. Mazarin made further advances, and made the more feasible proposal to assist Cromwell to take Dunkirk.
Oliver resolved to be guided by the sentiments of the Protestant population of France, and took counsel accordingly with one of the pastors of the French Church of the city of London. He was a native of the Grisons, and at heart more a layman than a pastor, as he ultimately proved by becoming a brigadier in the French Army. This pastor, Jean Baptiste Stouppe, was sent by the Protector into France on a private mission. I quote Burnet’s account:—
“Cromwell sent Stouppe round all France to talk with their most eminent men, to see into their strength, into their present condition, the oppressions they lay under, and their inclinations to trust the Prince of Conde. He went from Paris down the Loire, then to Bourdeaux, from thence to Montauban, and across the south of France to Lyons. He was instructed to talk to them only as a traveller, and to assure them of Cromwell’s zeal and care for them, which he magnified everywhere. The Protestants were then very much at their ease. Mazarin, who thought of nothing but to enrich his family, took care to maintain the edicts better than they had been in any time formerly. So Stouppe returned, and gave Cromwell an account of the ease they were in, and of their resolution to be quiet. They had a very bad opinion of the Prince of Conde, as a man who sought nothing but his own greatness, to which they believed he was ready to sacrifice all his friends, and every cause that he espoused.”
Having upon this refused the Prince of Conde’s offer, Cromwell had to consider whether he would accede to the overtures of Cardinal Mazarin. The great reason for his deciding in favour of the French alliance is thus reported by Burnet:— “He found the parties grew so strong against him at home, that he saw if the King or his brother were assisted by France with an army of Huguenots to make a descent on England (which was threatened if he should join with Spain) this might prove very dangerous to him who had so many enemies at home and so few friends.” The Huguenots had no reason to regret Cromwell’s decision. The two memorable occasions of his using the French Alliance as a means of relieving persecuted Protestants may be here given — the first in Burnet’s words:—
“The Duke of Savoy raised a new persecution of the Vaudois. So Cromwell sent to Mazarin, desiring him to put a stop to that; adding, that he knew well they had that Duke in their power, and could restrain him as they pleased; and if they did not, he must presently break with them. Mazarin objected to this as unreasonable; he promised to do good offices; but he could not be obliged to answer for the effects they might have. This did not satisfy Cromwell, so they obliged the Duke of Savoy to put a stop to that unjust fury. And Cromwell raised a great sum for the Vaudois, and sent over Morland to settle all their concerns, and to supply all their losses.”
The other grand intervention is thus recorded by Oldmixon:—
Oliver relieves the French Protestants.
“All Europe was so sensible of his power, that the distressed in all parts of it flew to him for refuge, and found it, even when their case was most desperate, as that of the Protestant inhabitants of the city of Nismes in France. There arose a difference between the burghers, who were mostly Huguenots, the magistrates, and the bishop; which growing tumultuary, the Intendant of the Province repaired thither to prevent an insurrection. When he came there the inhabitants opposed him, and preparations were made to reduce them by force. The Protestants in France fearing to be involved in the guilt of the mutiny at Nismes, and these burghers expecting severe chastisement, applied to Cromwell to intercede for them. This was done very secretly. The Protector with equal secrecy assured them of his protection, and immediately despatched a trusty agent with this letter to Cardinal Mazarin:—
“Eminentissimo Cardinali Mazarino,
“Eminentissime Domine Cardinalis, — Cum nobilem hunc virum cum Uteris, quarum exemplar hie inclusum est, ad Regem mittere necessarie statuissem, turn ei ut Eminentiam vestram meo nomine salutaret simul in mandatis dedi, certasque res vobiscum communicandas ejus fidei commisi. Quibus in rebus Eminentissimam rogo vestram, uti summam ei fidem habere velit, utpote in quo ego summam fiduciam reposuerim. Eminentise vestrse studiossimus,
OLIVERIUS,
Protector Reip. Angliae.
“Ex Alba. Aula, 26th Dec. 1656.
“P.S. (of his own handwriting). — ‘Je viens d’apprendre la revolte des habitans de Nismes. Je recommande a votre Eminence les interets des Reformes,’ i.e., I have just been informed of the tumult at Nismes, I recommend to your Eminence the interests of the Reformed.
“He also sent instruction to Lockhart [Ambassador at Paris] to second the solicitations of the agent, and if he prevailed not, to come away immediately. Mazarin complained of this way of proceeding as too imperious, but he feared Cromwell too much to quarrel with him. The Cardinal sent orders to the Intendant to make up matters as well as he could.”
I have, said of Pasteur Stouppe that “he was at heart more a layman than a pastor, as he ultimately proved, by becoming a Brigadier in the French army.” But I must acquit him of the suspicion of having abjured Protestantism in order to be qualified for the army. At the restoration of Charles II. he could not stay in London, the royalists being furious against him for having acted as a diplomatist under Cromwell. He hoped to preach in Canterbury unmolested, but was followed to that retreat. Among the records of the French Church of Canterbury Mr Burn found a document thus described:— ”28th August 1661. The king’s letter requiring the church not to admit or use Mr Stoupe as minister, but give him to understand he is not to return to this kingdom, he being a known agent and a common intelligencer of the late usurpers.” During the early campaigns of the Williamite war in Flanders, he was colonel of a regiment of Swiss Auxiliaries in the French service. Soon after his death a number of his men went over to our king. “Brigadier Stouppe,” says D Auvergne, “died of the wounds he received at the battle of Steenkirk. That Stouppe was a Protestant and had been a minister. But I was told that Colonel Monim, who had the regiment after him, was a Roman Catholic, and had turned out the minister that belonged to the regiment, and put a priest in his place, which so disgusted his soldiers that it occasioned a general desertion in his regiment.” . (DAuvergne’s “History of the Campagne in the Spanish Netherlands,” A.D. 1694, page 24.) In the year 1662 Baxter notices the case of Pastor Stouppe; he says (“Reliquiae,” p. 380), “Mr Stoope, the pastor of the French church, was banished or forbidden this land, as fame said, for carrying over our debates into France.”
Bishop Burnet erroneously calls Stouppe “a minister of the French Church in the Savoy” [in the Strand, London]. At that time no such church had been founded, although a West-End congregation was waiting for the sanction of Charles II. at his Restoration. I have already given details of the troubles of the regular French congregations in the days of Laud. It should here be added that the greater troubles, which that prelate brought upon himself and upon his country, drew off attention from the French congregations, and practically occasioned the cessation of their vexations. Even the black Act of Uniformity in 1662 did not molest them. It contained this proviso:— “Provided that the penalties in this Act shall not extend to the Foreigners or Aliens of the Foreign Reformed Churches, allowed or to be allowed by the King’s Majesty, his heirs and successors in England.” A revival of the Laudean spirit betrayed itself temporarily in the year 1676 in Canterbury, when the Anglican Consistorial Court suspended the Pasteur Delon from the ministry for having solemnized, as usual, a marriage between descendants of refugees, and excommunicated the virtuous couple as persons married clandestinely. The persecuting proceedings were speedily cancelled by Royal order.
- ↑ Although historians call this queen “Henrietta-Maria,” yet during her life the English called her “Queen Mary;” and in the reign of Charles II., those French churches that used Durel’s translation of the Anglican Prayer-Book prayed for her as “La Reine Marie, Mere du Roi.” Philip Henry enters her death in his diary thus:— “September 1669, Mary the Qu. Mother dy’d in this month in France.” In 1625 the registrar of Canterbury Cathedral noted:— “Kinge Charles cae’ to Can’ the last of Maye to meete quene Marye.”
- ↑ Weiss (as above).
- ↑ See both Lightfoot’s and Gillespie’s diurnal notes of the proceedings of the Westminster Assembly, which are printed in the collected works of each author.