STRAINS of WORSHIP: the HUGUENOTS and NON CONFORMITY Robin Gwynn E Huguenots Who Came to Britain in the 1680S and 1690S Were Re

CHAPTER FIVE

STRAINS OF WORSHIP: THE HUGUENOTS AND NON CONFORMITY

Robin Gwynn

e Huguenots who came to Britain in the 1680s and 1690s were religious refugees. To remain undisturbed in their homeland, they had simply to sign a statement abjuring the errors of John Calvin. Many refused to do so, or felt so guilty at what they had done that they chose to run the loss and dangers inherent in illegal ight in order to renounce abjurations they had signed under duress. eir actions speak eloquently of their religious determination, yet some who found themselves stranded across the Channel on British shores found they were expected to conform to an unfamiliar kind of Protestant worship based on more Anglican ways than was their cus- tom. is paper opens by analysing three early cases where conforming congregations ran into diculties. It goes on to show that while there were many practical advantages for the refugees in conforming, their memory of their French roots was oen too vivid to allow it, so that there is an unmistakable movement back towards non-conformity when opportunity permitted. e essay then examines the variety of opinion and practice cloaked by the word ‘conformity’, noting how the problematic relationship of conformity and non-conformity was not conned to England and extended well into the eighteenth century. *** As they ed, the refugees needed to decide where to make their new home. Britain looked promising. Potentially, England was the most powerful Protestant country. London was the largest Protestant city in Europe, oering excellent employment opportunities. French Protestant churches were already based in the city and in Westminster. Other French-speaking churches around the country, at Canterbury and Norwich and Southampton, shared with the readneedle Street church in London an existence and a Calvinist type of church discipline and organization that dated back to the sixteenth century. Following the onset of the dragonnades in 1681, Charles II was 122 robin gwynn remarkably prompt and generous in the invitations he issued and the concessions he offered. Many of the refugees of 1681 therefore headed across the Channel. Once in England, however, they came to understand unsettling cur- rents in their new homeland which they had not appreciated before their arrival. Potential causes for alarm included the persecution of English Nonconformists, political uncertainty in the aftermath of the Exclusion crisis, an avowedly Roman Catholic heir to the throne, and Crown financial dependence on subsidies from Louis XIV. Among royal policies which refugees could not have anticipated while in France was Charles II’s determination that any new French congregations in England should conform to the Anglican liturgy translated into French. Charles’s decision had a long historical back- ground. Archbishop Laud had been a bitter enemy of the French congregations in the country in the 1630s, and in the Civil War they were mostly Parliamentarian – sometimes outspokenly so. Moreover there was obvious discordance between the persecution of English Nonconformists after the Restoration and the welcome offered to French refugees who shared very similar beliefs. If the new refugees would conform, that dilemma would be resolved. The gentry and clerical leaders of the refugees, and those managing existing French congregations in England, appreciated the need not to antagonize the Court at a time when Huguenots were under such threat in their homeland. Many refugee clergy could see personal advantages, greater opportunities and a strengthened social position, if they conformed. In any event, the prime need in the immediate aftermath of the dragonnades was urgent action to relieve need and settle the refugees. So the issue of conformity was not confronted head on. Instead, the situation took months to clarify. What exactly did ‘conformity’ mean? How were terms like ‘Consistoire’ and ‘Ancien’ to be interpreted when translated into English as ‘Vestry’ and ‘Churchwarden’? How strictly was conformity to Anglican ways to be enforced? Just how attached were the Huguenots to their structures and their memory of how they had worshipped in France? These questions surfaced and evoked debate and stress in the refugee community in the years after 1681. *** Between 1681 and 1687, numerous new conformist congregations were successfully established in England outside the London/ Westminster conurbation. Earliest were those at Ipswich (Suffolk) and