Refugees in England and Holland, 1570-1685
Flight, refuge, emigration forced or “voluntary,” permanent or temporary, were critical experiences for many Amiens Protestants. The ex Catholic churchman Jean Morand was in a sense the first notable refugee, moving from France to the Swiss cantons presumably after serving his year long confinement in the monastery to which the Parlement of Paris had condemned him. Morand became the spiritual leader of Swiss Protestant churches in Cully and Nyon before being summoned to Geneva starting 1538 during two years that Jean Calvin and his colleague William Farel were on the outs with the Genevan political leadership.
A number of Amiens Protestants found refuge in Geneva, some of them persecuted by the court system in France. We have evidence of several dozen starting in the 1550s when the extant register of residents (habitants) commences. I found others during a brief research trip to the Swiss city in 1974.
However, it is not until the early 1570s that a significant number of Protestant refugees from Amiens turn up and it is across the channel in England during the reign of the Queen Elizabeth I. (link to translations article?) Some of this was the result of Protestants fleeing from northern France in the wake of the spread of the St. Bartholomew’s Day violence to the provinces. In Amiens, the organized church was prohibited and Protestants were pressured to return to the Catholic fold, to attend mass and to “reconcile” children who had been baptized Protestant. Anthoine de Moncheaulx (#47) and his wife Jehenne Billet were contrite when they arrived in London and appeared before the Consistory of the Reformed emigré Church of Threadneedle Street. They confessed to having reconciled two of their children in the Catholic parish church of Amiens and to having attended Mass on 3 or 4 occasions. Relatives of Marguerite Germel (#56) were in a similar predicament. Louis Harembourg and his family were sick with the plague contracted during the journey across the channel. Some of these exiles returned to Amiens in 1576 and were part of the ad hoc leadership that sought to reestablish Protestant worship.
An even larger contingent of refugees left Amiens for England in the 1580s and this includes a significant number of individuals whose signatures or marks are found in this exhibit. Here is a list drawn up by the Catholic authorities after the Edict of Nemours in 1585 again prohibited Protestant worship. This first page of a multipage document identifies several Protestant noblemen who it claims are still “currently bearing arms.” It then mentions a number of tradesmen and their wives “living in Amiens” who are “outside the kingdom of France, in Sedan” i.e. exiles. Among these are Fremin Courchel and his wife; Jehan de Gannes and his wife; Jean le Mort and his wife; Pierre Geet and his wife; Jehan Pingrel and his wife; Noel Corbellet and the widow Perringne le Vielle.
You can learn more about the fate of these Protestant exiles from the Signatures page (link). There is documentation regarding the presence of Noel Corbellet and Perringne le Vielle in Sedan; and Pierre Geet and Jean le Mort in Canterbury, England. The individuals on this list are by no means the only Protestant refugees who left Amiens for England -- mainly Canterbury and London -- in the 1580s. The Dutch cities, especially Leiden, attracted them as well. Textile manufacturing centers like these had a clear appeal – in addition to having French-speaking immigrant Reformed churches -- for artisans from Amiens many of whom were weavers or woolcombers.
Will of the Amiens merchant dyer Andrieu de Haudricourt in Canterbury (18 August 1589) witnessed by Amiens refugees Hélie(Élie) Collee(#60), Pierre Geet (#14 and #62), and Jean le Mort (#49 and #61)."
Jan de Campaigne (probably #73), immigrant from Amiens, is inscribed on the Porterbooek (Book of Burghers) in Leiden, 15 January 1593.
