Huguenot Contributions to English Pan-Protestantism, 1685-1700

Abstract

Abstract Following the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, hundreds of thousands of French refugees sought shelter in Protestant states like the United Provinces and England. In England, the influx of Huguenots contributed significantly towards the argument for greater pan-Protestant engagement with the European continent. Huguenot-authored pamphlets advertised Catholic barbarity, deepening pre-existing anti-Catholic sentiments and imbibing those sentiments with other anti-French concerns, such as Louis XIV’s supposed immorality and his striving for universal monarchy. Further, key Huguenot authors reinterpreted the Glorious Revolution as one synchronizing the country with its Protestant brethren. In so doing, the Huguenots supported William III’s commitment to the Nine Years’ War and increased the quantitative and qualitative arguments to carry out an expensive religious-ideological foreign policy, often against domestic criticisms in England that the outcomes of the war did not match the expense.