Provides an analysis of the political, religious, and social rationale, which underlay Huguenot support for William of Orange in 1688. In the context of the Huguenot exodus from France and the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, the role of the Huguenot soldiers within an international Protestant political context is also explained.
Provides an analysis of the political, religious, and social rationale, which underlay Huguenot support for William of Orange in 1688. In the context of the Huguenot exodus from France and the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, the role of the Huguenot soldiers within an international Protestant political context is also explained.
In 1700, King William III assigned Charles de Sailly to accompany Huguenot refugees to Manakin Town on the Virginia frontier. The existing explanation for why this migration was necessary is overly simplistic and seriously conflated. Based largely on English-language sources with an English Atlantic focus, it contends that King William III, grateful to the French Protestant refugees who helped him invade England during the Glorious Revolution (1688) and win victory in Ireland (1691), rewarded these refugees by granting them 10,000 acres in Virginia on which to settle. Using French-language sources and a wider, more European focus than existing interpretations, this book offers an alternative explanation. It delineates a Huguenot refugee resettlement network within a «Protestant International», highlighting the patronage of both King William himself and his valued Huguenot associate, Henri de Ruvigny (Lord Galway). By 1700, King William was politically battered by the interwoven pressures of an English reaction against his high-profile foreign favorites (Galway among them) and the Irish land grants he had awarded to close colleagues (to Galway and others). This book asserts that King William and Lord Galway sponsored the Manakin Town migration to provide an alternate location for Huguenot military refugees in the worst-case scenario that they might lose their Irish refuge.
During the Glorious Revolution of 1688 Huguenot soldiers were at the forefront of William of Orange's army. Their role was an important one and they are, with justification, best remembered for this act among British historians and the public alike. Yet Huguenot soldiering existed long before this event, and French Protestants and their descendants featured prominently in European armies long afterwards. This volume is the first attempt to bring together in a scholarly study essays treating the Huguenots as soldiers in Europe and globally. Their story is often fascinating and sometimes poignant as they aided international Protestantism against Catholic foes across Europe and in the New World, while remaining 'under the cross' in their homeland of France. The book is divided into three sections, the first analysing the period prior to the 1685 Revocation of the Edict of Nantes which sealed their fate in France. Their role as mercenaries and freedom fighters receives attention, as does the complex political motivation that underscored their involvements abroad in the pre-Revocation era. Chapters examine the Huguenot rationale for foreign service and the dynamics of the Protestant international of which they were such a prominent part. Their role in European armies after that date is covered in the second section of the volume with a number of expert studies of Huguenot refugees in the armies of Britain, the Netherlands and Russia. A third section treats the Huguenot legacy, focusing on the aging generation of refugees and their descendants' contributions to the countries of their adoption. This book contains studies of the Huguenots serving in armies in various countries, and examines the lives and actions of a number of individual French refugee commanders who led armies consisting of their compatriots. By combining biographical studies of eminent figures with broader considerations of group experience, the volume presents a wide-ranging and thought provoking collection of material, making this the first study of its kind to consistently treat the military contribution made by the Huguenots to Europe at the high point of their importance as a historical group.
The Journal of Muslims in Europe welcomes articles dealing with contemporary issues of Islam and Muslims in Europe from all disciplines and across the whole region, as well as historical studies of relevance to the present. The focus is on articles offering cross-country comparisons or with significant theoretical or methodological relevance to the field. Case studies with innovative approaches or under-explored issues and studies of policy and policy development in the various European institutions, including the European courts, and transnational movements and social and cultural processes are also welcome. The journal also welcomes book reviews.
This study of Scottish soldiers in France in the age of the Sun King provides fascinating information about the visicitudes suffered by the brave personnel of the regiment of George Douglas, Earl of Dumbarton. Hardly the heirs of an 'auld' alliance amity, they became the playthings of a king intent on transforming the nature of war in his era.
This book sets the Glorious Revolution in its full British, European and American context, and to show how fundamentally our picture of the English Revolution, as well as of the Revolutionary process of 1688-91, is now being transformed.
Frederick Herman von Schomberg was born into a prominent noble family in the Palatinate in 1615. He was a truly international figure: his father negotiated the marriage of Britain's Princess Royal (James I's daughter, Elizabeth) to the Elector Palatine of the Rhine. Having an English mother and a German father, he would go on to marry a French Huguenot lady, and fight in the armies of more than six nations. His career spans the mercenary system of the Thirty Years' War (1618-48) through to the formation of Europe's first true standing national armies during William III's wars in the 1690s. He was involved in the international politics and diplomacy of Louis XIV's reign, and that king's relations with Britain and the Netherlands in particular. He was also deeply concerned in the plight and exile of the Huguenots in France, and their later international presence in the armies of William of Orange. As a committed Protestant, he suffered the same prejudices in France as they, and his feeling for them is a vital comment on the strength of religious feeling among many high-ranking military leaders at the time.
This book explores how collective memory of Huguenot history vitally affected political and religious controversies and the formation of identity, both among ethnic Huguenots and in their host communities, in Britain, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland and North America.
Hans Willem Bentinck, 1st Earl of Portland (1649-1709) was the closest confidant of William III and arguably the most important politician in Williamite Britain. Beginning his career in 1664 as page to William of Orange, his fortunes gained momentum with the Prince's rise to power in The Netherlands and Britain, emerging as William's favourite at court from the 1670s onwards. Taking a broadly chronological approach, the central concern of this book is not simply to provide a biographical account of Portland's life, but to explore wider political themes within a European context. By analysing Portland's role within William's government it shows how royal favourites could still wield considerable influence on European events and help shape royal policy, particularly with regard to foreign policy. By engaging with the question of why such a figure emerged, this study helps illuminate the workings of William's government and the central role of his foreign entourage. Drawing from archival material in England, Scotland, France and The Netherlands, it ties the history of post-Revolution Britain with political events in the Netherlands. It also analyses Anglo-Dutch political relations during the crucial period of the Nine Years War, Britain's first major commitment to a continental war since the sixteenth century. In so doing it connects Dutch and British historiography and significantly contributes to our understanding of British politics during the 1690s, both domestically and within an international context.
