Huguenots in England

Lesson at a glance

Suitable for: Key stage 4, Key stage 5

Time period: Early modern 1485-1750

Curriculum topics: Renaissance and Reformation, The British Empire, The Stuarts, Tudors

Suggested inquiry questions: How did the experience of Huguenots in England change over the seventeenth century? What was the contribution made by the Huguenots to British life? How can government records help us investigate the experience of Huguenots in seventeenth century England? What are limitations of government sources?

Potential activities: Create your own timeline for the period of Huguenot migration using the documents in this lesson and your own research. Research and reflect on the history of La Neuve Église, a Huguenot chapel built in London in 1743, and the subsequent religious communities that have built places of worship in the same geographical location. Compare the migration to America of the Pilgrim Fathers and the migration to Britain of the Huguenots. What are the similarities and differences?

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What was the experience of Huguenot migrants in seventeenth century England?

The Huguenots were Protestants who fled France and Wallonia (southern Belgium) from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century due to religious persecution during the European Wars of Religion. After the English Reformation, England was seen as a safe place for refugees.  

What did Huguenots find when they arrived in England? How did they settle and set up their own religious and economic communities? How did they impact upon English society, especially in urban settings?  

This lesson shows that the Huguenots came to England as immigrants and were on occasion in need of economic and governmental support. Importantly, they also brought their skills and expertise as silk-weavers, silversmiths, merchants, vine-growers, wig makers, and hat-makers to England, helping England to expand its global horizons. While Huguenots could be praised for adding value to the English economy, the English could be hostile to what they saw as a threat to their own livelihoods. 

Use this lesson to explore the Huguenot experience of migration in seventeenth century England, with original documents ranging from 1553-1765.  


Tasks

Task 1

Source 1a: Engraving after Dodd, entitled ‘Engraved for the Reverend Dr Southwell’s New Book of Martyrs’, 1765.

  • What is happening in the picture? 
  • Can you infer, from the title of engraving, why this source was produced? 
  • Can you find out more about the St Bartholomew’s Eve Massacre 1572? 
  • What does this event infer about the reasons for migration of Huguenots to England from 1572? 
  • Find out about the following: 
    • Migrations from France in the 1680s during the reign King Louis XIV.
    • The Foreign Protestants Naturalization Act of 1708 passed by King Charles II. 

Source 1b: The second plate from William Hogarth’s set of four Times of Day, published in 1738 and derived from paintings made by Hogarth in 1736-7.

  • How are the Huguenots presented (shown on the right) in this image by William Hogarth?  
  • How are the figures on the left presented?  
  • Who do you think Hogarth is depicting in contrast to the Huguenots? 
  • What is Hogarth suggesting about the difference between French and English culture? 
  • What does the image suggest about the Huguenots who settled in this part of London? 

Task 2

Source 2: This extract comes from the Privy Council Papers, records that provide insights into the policies and issues of government. September 1553, during the reign of Mary I (1553-1558).

  • What is the order given to the Mayors of Dover and Rye by the English Crown? 
  • Why might the Huguenots have sought refuge in Dover and Rye? 
  • Mary I was a Catholic Queen. How did this influence her diplomatic and foreign policy towards the Huguenots? 
  • What does this document from 1553 reveal about Huguenot migration? 

Task 3

Look at these two linked documents from 1621. They concern the emigration of Walloons and French Protestants to Virginia, a North American colony under the control of the Virginia Company, which had been founded in 1607 when English colonists settled in Virginia.

Source 3a: A ‘round robin’ from Walloon emigrants.

  • Why do you think this document was written in French? [See centre.] 
  • Who is the ‘Most Serene King of Great Britain’ responsible for the first colonisation of America in 1607? 
  • To which location do the French Protestants and Walloons hope to emigrate? 
  • The document is in the unusual shape of a ‘round robin’, which means the signatures are arranged in a circle to disguise the order in which they have signed. Why might the people signing the document have done this? 
  • Spot the symbols in the document. These are signature marks. Some of the people signing the document, including many labourers, have used a mark for their proof of signature, with someone else writing their name in full. Why do you think they might have done this? 
  • What does this suggest about the people who wanted to settle in Virginia? 
  • How could these settlers develop the importance of the colony? 

Source 3b: A document entitled: ‘The humble answer of so many of his majesties Councell…their opinion concerning certain Articles putt up by some Walloons and French men desirous to goe to Virginia’, 1621. 

  • What is the decision from the King and his council to this request from Walloons and Frenchmen to settle in Virginia? 
  • How many families of Walloons and Frenchmen are permitted to settle in Virginia?  
  • What is the total number of people they will allow to settle there? 
  • The document states that ‘the Company in Virginia….is so utterly exhausted’. What does this suggest about the state of this English colony in in 1621? 
  • How might the settlement of skilled immigrants change the colony’s economy? [Clue: see professions of French Protestants and Walloons in Source 2a.] 
  • What are the conditions set out for the French Protestants and Walloons concerning where they can settle in Virginia?  
  • Can you infer the reasons for these conditions? 
  • This document comes from The National Archives Colonial Office collection. Why might the National Archives hold a collection of documents under this name? 
  • Can you explain the measures taken to preserve condition of this document by The National Archives? 

Task 4

These two extracts come from the Privy Council registers from the reign of James II (1685-1688). They concern the impact of Huguenot tradesmen and craftsmen on English trade in the late seventeenth century. There had been further Huguenot migrations from France during the reign King Louis XIV to Britain in the 1680s. 

Both sources show a differing perspective on the impact of Huguenots on English trade, and how English tradesmen responded to them.  

Source 4a: ‘Privy Council: Registers. James II.’ Vol 1: 18 December 1685.

  • What is this petition from English journeymen felt makers about French felt makers about? 
  • What has been the impact of Huguenot migration on English trade, employment, and welfare for the English felt makers? 
  • What is the response of the Crown to the English felt makers’ petition? 

Source 4b: ‘Privy Council: Registers. James II. Vol 1. 17th July 1686.

  • Why has Gideon Godfrey petitioned to King James II?  
  • Why do you think Gideon Godfrey was ‘necessitated to come to England’? 
  • How does Gideon Godfrey justify his right to practice his trade in England? 
  • What conditions does the Crown set for Gideon Godfrey if he wants to continue to work at his trade? 
  • List the ways in which these two sources 4a and 4b differ.  
  • Whose point of view is being privileged in each source? 
  • How does the Crown attempt to satisfy both the French and English tradesmen in each source? 
  • Explain one way in which opportunities for Huguenot migrants in the seventeenth century were different from opportunities for migrants to Britain in the twentieth century? 

Task 5

Source 5: ‘A printed tract, an audit of money contributed to a charity to relieve distressed French Protestants’. (c.1685-1688).

  • How are (a) Huguenots (b) the Crown characterised in this document?  
  • Who is the intended audience for this document? 
  • The tract specifies that some Huguenots are destined for the ‘West-Indies’. What global geographical location is this referring to?  
  • What allowances have been made for Huguenots who are sick or unable to work? 
  • What elements of this source would be useful for a historian researching the demographic picture for Huguenots in London in the 1680s? [Consider: population number, trade or profession, geographical location, places of worship.] 
  • James II was hostile to Protestant refugees as a Catholic King, which the English public disliked. How does the source, however, characterise the attitude of the Crown and the Protestant refugees?  
  • How might this document work as a piece of royal propaganda? 

Task 6

Source 6: Will of James Olivier Payroulleau, Peruke Maker of Saint Martin in the Fields, Middlesex 22nd June 1698’.

  • What is a peruke maker? 
  • Make a list of the beneficiaries of James Payroulleau’s will. 
  • What does this will reveal about James Payroulleau’s religious beliefs? 
  • What evidence can be found in the source to suggest that James Payroulleau had a successful wig-making business? 
  • How is James Payroulleau’s wife described in this source?  
  • What can we tell about the nature of their relationship? How important is she in the execution of this will? 
  • What unique insights can a will provide as a historical source that other documents may not give us? 
  • What elements of this source tell a historian that James Payroulleau and his family were Huguenot refugees? Consider: geographical patterns, family divisions, and trade.

Background

The Huguenots gave the word ‘refugee’ to the English language. They were French Protestants who followed the teaching of John Calvin, the Protestant reformer. The Huguenots fled to England, Germany, the Netherlands, and the New World between sixteenth and eighteenth centuries in order to escape religious persecution from the Catholic monarchy in France who were caught up in the violent Wars of Religion.

There were two significant waves of Huguenot migration to England. The first influx came in the wake of the 1572 St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, which saw 70,000 Huguenots across France brutally murdered, and Elizabeth I’s court enter a period of mourning in honour of the Protestant lives lost to the Catholic terror. Migration slowed in the early seventeenth century due to the Edict of Nantes in 1598, instigated by Henry IV of France, who had granted freedom for French Protestants to practice religion without fear. However, the loss of important Huguenot centres in France (despite English military assistance), including La Rochelle in 1628, further weakened the Protestant cause on the continent. Henry IV’s grandson, the fiercely Catholic Louis XIV, slowly chipped away at the rights of Protestants. First came the dragonnades in 1681, a French government policy of intimidation that involved the forced lodging of the king’s soldiers (a “Dragonnade”) in Huguenot homes. The revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 was the death knell for religious toleration, as Huguenots were officially denounced as heretics. Although Louis XIV banned the Huguenot’s right to leave the country, 200,000 Protestants did manage to escape; 50,000 of those went to England, in the second significant wave of migration. England had long been seen as a Protestant haven for those seeking religious persecution. It is suggested that one in six people living in Britain today has Huguenot heritage. 

Escaping France by boat, their reception in England was complex. England did provide a safe refuge for Protestants, with significant Huguenot communities established in Spitalfields, Wandsworth, Canterbury, Sandwich, Faversham, and Maidstone. Within defined limits and regulations, the English government provided poor relief to refugees who needed it, and could also provide letters of denization, sanctioning Huguenots to become British subjects. 

The government allowed them to practise their trades, and importantly, permitted them to establish their own religious communities, allowing them to worship freely. The Huguenots wasted no time in setting up their own churches. The first French church in Threadneedle Street was founded in 1550; ‘The Strangers Church’ in Soho soon followed. After the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, thirty French churches in London were founded, with ten elsewhere in England.  

Seventeenth century criticisms of the Huguenots find their parallel in modern day discourses around immigrant groups, with cultural markers of difference such food choices, clothes, and language use being singled out as points for derision.  English tradesmen and craftsmen were particularly anxious that the highly skilled Huguenot artisans would take their employment from them. At the same time, the Huguenots made important contributions to the country financially and economically in sectors of industry, including silk, wine, jewellery, paper, and architecture. One such example is James Leman (c.1688-1745). A celebrated silk designer, he was one of the first Huguenots to serve on the Court of Weavers’ Company, and his exquisite silk designs are available to view in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.  

Importantly, Huguenot production in industry reduced the need for the English government to import luxury goods and allowed them to export such goods at a considerable profit. As Owen Stanwood’s book ‘The Global Refuge: Huguenots in an Age of Empire’ (2019) explores, some Huguenots dreamt of building a new Edenic settlement beyond Europe. With the help of their European imperial sponsors, they scattered in North America, the Caribbean, South Africa, and the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, and would be involved in the processes and networks of colonisation and transatlantic slavery. 

By the middle of the eighteenth century, the Huguenots had adjusted and assimilated into English society. Many of them had become fluent in English, risen to positions of authority within society, and married into English families. Broadly, the wealthier Huguenot families were able to assimilate faster, while the poorer communities, which remained largely in Spitalfields, retained a distinct identity for longer. In Spitalfields today, you can visit Dennis Severs’ House, a reconstruction of the home of a family of eighteenth-century Huguenot silk weavers.


Teachers' notes

This lesson uses sources from The National Archives to explore Huguenot migration to England in the seventeenth century. Before starting, it would be helpful to ensure that students are familiar with these key terms and ideas: Reformation, Protestantism, Calvinism, Catholicism, Huguenot, migration, and refugees.  

To start, students explore two visual sources. Firstly, an illustrated engraving for the ‘Reverend Dr Southwell’s New Book of Martyrs’, 1765. It is worth referring to the earlier famous work of history of the Protestant martyrs by John Foxe published in 1563 called ‘The Actes and Monuments’, or ‘ Foxe’s Book of Martyrs’ and its similar intent. Our source shows a view of the St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre of protestants in Paris in 1572, a significant event in the history of the Huguenots and a major cause for their migration to Britain. The second visual source is William Hogarth’s engraving entitled ‘Noon’. Here, students can explore how the Huguenot’s settled and assimilated in the country. 

The second source that students examine comes from the Privy Council Papers held at The National Archives. It was written the year that Mary I ascended the throne (1553) and was in the process of returning England to a Catholic state. The source prompts students to consider England’s diplomatic history with both Catholic France and the French Huguenots before the seventeenth century. Mary I’s actions marked a departure from the foreign policies of Henry VIII (1509-1547) and his son Edward VI (1547-1553), who had protected dissident Protestant communities arriving from France and Wallonia.   

Next, students look at two sources from the summer of 1621, which concern the emigration of Walloons and French Protestants to Virginia. The Virginia Company failed in 1623 due to disease, mismanagement, and poor relations with the indigenous people of North America. From this point the king assumed direct control of Virginia. Permitting skilled tradesmen, silk weavers, and vine-growers to emigrate to Virginia in 1621 may have been part of the Virginia’ Company’s strategy to rejuvenate the colony. These two sources also allow students to consider how the Huguenot’s failure to keep their Protestant strongholds in France during the 1620s may have furthered their desire to emigrate to England and other global outposts. It is also important to discuss with students what is missing from the document in describing early contact between indigenous people who were already living in Virginia and European colonists. 

The fourth task comprises two extracts from the Privy Council Registers during the reign of James II (1685-1688). They provide the opportunity to explore the impact of Huguenot migration on English trade patterns and structures, and the attitudes of the English towards foreign immigration. They also provide an insight into the challenges that Huguenots faced in attempting to assimilate into English society in the seventeenth century.  

The fifth source is a printed tract detailing the charity that Huguenots have received. When examining this source, it is useful to remind students that James II was a Catholic king of England when this tract was published (c.1685-1688). As a Catholic, James II was covertly hostile to Protestant refugees, seeking to limit the power of their Churches and trying to restrict the number of refugees reaching English shores. The English Protestants were incensed, and the collection for the refugees that the printed tract discusses was part of an attempt to pacify public opinion in England. The source helps students discuss the role of royal propaganda, as well as understand the poverty that some Huguenots faced as refugees. The source also provides an opportunity for students to discuss how we understand modern ideas of religious and national difference, and how they differ from understandings prevalent in the seventeenth century.  

The sixth and final source is the personal will of James Payroulleau, a Huguenot refugee from west-central France. Students can consider the unique nature of the source as a document revealing personal lives and family relationships, providing a micro-view of history. This source also enables students to think about the companionate nature of marriage in the seventeenth century, as well as providing space for reflection upon the split nature of Huguenot experience, often remaining emotionally and economically invested in France while attempting to make a new home for themselves in England. Teachers could further explore the reasons for the emigration of the Huguenots and the Palatines, their reception, their impact, and the extent of their assimilation. 

You may want to split the lesson for students working individually or use the sources in paired/group work. Students should be encouraged to think about the limitations of looking at different kinds of evidence to evaluate their understanding of the experience of Huguenots in seventeenth century England, and the response of English residents to the migration of the Huguenots in the period. Teachers could also extend the lesson to discuss how the experiences of migrants in Britain changed significantly in the period c.1700–present. How far do students agree?  

All sources are transcribed, and difficult language is explained in square brackets or other glossary terms provided at the top of the transcript. To retain the spirit of the language, we have not further simplified the transcripts.  

Finally, although this lesson is aimed at Key Stage 4, teachers could use these documents and provide their own questions and/or create simplified transcripts to use with younger students.

Sources

Banner image: An English trade card for Huguenot Philip Fruchard, coal merchant, London. On the north bank of the Thames near All Hallows Lane, a coal barge unloads its cargo in sacks for a waiting cart. In the background is its source, a collier, probably from Newcastle, discharging into a lighter. (The church in left background is St Saviour’s, Southwark Cathedral.) Merchant Philip Fruchard gave evidence to the House of Commons on 25 March 1730 about abuses in the coal trade. A few lighter (barge men) owners had engrossed the business. An act for ‘the better regulation of the coal trade’ was passed in 1730 ‘to the preventing the inhancing the price of coals in the river of Thames by the keeping of turn in delivering of coals there’.  © The Trustees of British Museum

Source 1a: Daniel Dodd, The St Bartholomew’s Eve Massacre: men, women and children are thrown out of windows or slaughtered with swords and pikes on the streets of Paris in 1572. 1765. Image © The Wellcome Collection.  

Source 1b: William Hogarth, Times of Day: Noon in Hogarth’s prints. Vol. I. 1738.  Wikimedia Commons 

Source 2: ‘[Meeting] At the Star Chamber, the xvj of September, 1553’. Catalogue ref: PC 2/7 f.21.   

Source 3a: ‘Round Robin from Walloon Emigrants. Promise in the form of a round robin, by certain Walloons and French to go and inhabit Virginia, a land under obedience of the Kings of Great Britain’. Catalogue ref: CO 1/1 f.181 [Moved to MFQ1/ 565].  

Source 3b: ‘The humble answer of so many of his majesties Council…their opinion concerning certain Articles putt up by some Walloons and French men desirous to go to Virginia’. Catalogue ref: CO 1/1 f.182-3. 

Source 4a: Privy Council: Registers. James II.’ Vol 1. 18th December 1685. Catalogue ref: PC 2/71. f.91v. 

Source 4b: Privy Council: Registers. James II. Vol 1. 17th July 1686. Catalogue ref: PC 2/71. f.155. 

Source 5: A printed tract, an audit of money contributed to a charity to relieve distressed French Protestants’. c.1685-1688. Catalogue ref: SP 32/11/203 f.347-8. 

Source 6: Will of James Olivier Payroulleau, Peruke Maker of Saint Martin in the Fields, Middlesex 22nd June 1698. Catalogue ref: PROB 11/446/158.   


External links

Connections to curriculum

These documents can be used to support any of the exam board specifications covering migration in early modern England. 

Key stage 4

AQA History GCSE 
Option AC Britain: Migration, empires and the people: c790-present.  

Edexcel History GCSE 
Option 13: Migrants in Britain, c800-present. 

OCR GCSE History 
Migrants to Britain c1250 to present.  

Key stage 5

AQA History GCE: Louis XIV and the Church: Gallicanism; relations with Huguenots; Jansenists and Quietists 

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Lesson at a glance

Suitable for: Key stage 4, Key stage 5

Time period: Early modern 1485-1750

Curriculum topics: Renaissance and Reformation, The British Empire, The Stuarts, Tudors

Suggested inquiry questions: How did the experience of Huguenots in England change over the seventeenth century? What was the contribution made by the Huguenots to British life? How can government records help us investigate the experience of Huguenots in seventeenth century England? What are limitations of government sources?

Potential activities: Create your own timeline for the period of Huguenot migration using the documents in this lesson and your own research. Research and reflect on the history of La Neuve Église, a Huguenot chapel built in London in 1743, and the subsequent religious communities that have built places of worship in the same geographical location. Compare the migration to America of the Pilgrim Fathers and the migration to Britain of the Huguenots. What are the similarities and differences?

Download: Lesson pack

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