Gaubert Huguenots in Dublin

DURING the early years of the spread of the Reformation in France, the French Protestants came to be known as " Huguenots." According to the Encyclopaedia Britarznica the origin of the name is as follows : Henri Estienne' one of the great savants of his time, in the introduction to his Apologie d'He rodote (1566), gives a very clear explanation of the term huguenots. The Protestants at Tours, he says, used to assemble by night near the gate of King Hugo, whom the people regarded as a spirit. A monk, therefore, in a sermon declared that the Lutherans ought to be called Huguenots as kinsmen of King Hugo, inasmuch as they would only go out at night as he did. This nickname became popular from 1560 onwards, and for a long time the French Protestants were always known by it."

Civil wars between the Catholics and the Huguenots, created as much by political as by religious differences, caused France terrible suffering during the second half of the 16th century and the first quarter of the 7th. They were ended by the complete military defeat of the Huguenots in the year 1628. The Catholic victory was followed by a Treaty of Peace which, whilst taking from the Huguenots all power of endangering the safety and the unity of the French realm, guaranteed them considerable political and religious privileges. But when Louis XIV took over the reins of power in France, determining to make himself the despotic ruler of his people, he considered these privileges of the Huguenots as so many chinks in his autocratic armour, and accordingly set himself to remove them. Then began a persecution of the Huguenots that gradually increased in intensity.

From 1661 onwards a series of royal proclamations or edicts withdrew the Huguenot privileges one by one. Then in accordance with the doctrine more or less generally held throughout Europe at the time, that, whatsoever be the religion of the ruler that should be the religion of the subjects, Louis proceeded to coerce the Huguenots into conforming to Catholicism. Many of them yielded under stress of persecution, but great numbers of them, rather than abandon their religious principles, preferred to leave home and country, and seek new homes in neighbouring Protestant states. When Louis XIV died in 1715, he had practically accomplished his objective. French Protestantism was all but extinct in France.

It was chiefly in England, Holland, Switzerland, and Brandenburg that the Huguenot refugees found a shelter and a home. To England they had been coming almost from the beginning of the civil wars, and Elizabeth, James I, and Charles I, alike welcomed and protected them. From England some families of them made their way at different times to Dublin; but the Dublin Guilds were jealous corporations, not at all keen on admitting foreigners to their civic privileges. Indeed, the municipal records of this whole period are full of enactments aimed at preventing foreigners from participating in any phase of the city's varied activities. I have gone carefully through the Admissions to the Franchise granted during these three reigns, as recorded in the Calendar of Ancient Records of Dublin, and can find not more than half-a-dozen French names amongst the new members.

But after the Irish War of 1641 had terminated in Cromwell's ruthless campaign of destruction and his equally ruthless " To Hell or Connacht policy towards the conquered Catholic population, Dublin, like most other Irish cities and towns, was in a sorry plight. Its Catholic inhabitants, merchants, traders, and artisans alike, had been expelled from its bounds. Writing in 1651, the regicide Colonel Hewson, its then Cromwellian Governor, observed that of its former numerous Catholic population " I now know none there but one' who is a surgeon and a peaceable man." And with this forced exodus of so many of its citizens, its trade had declined, its manufactures had almost vanished, and many of its streets were just rows of derelict houses, fast verging into ruins.

To replenish the population of Dublin was an imperative necessity, and the Municipal Council, now entirely Cromwellian in composition, set itself to the task. In June, 1651, the members petitioned the Parliamentary Commissioners " to bring into this City a number of manufacture men that are Englishmen and Protestants, such as are of honest life and conversation," offering to such as would come the freedom of the city on easy terms. They gave as reason for their Petition that, " this city . . . is in a manner depopulated and well near one-half of the houses that were therein pulled down, ruined and otherwise destroyed, and that several• of the houses remaining are in decay and in danger to be ruined for want of artificers and workmen to repair them ; and the number of manufacture men are reduced to a very few, there'being some trades whereof there are scarce any left in this city, whereby, not only the inhabitants of this city, but the rest of the land, are destitute and in want of many necessaries."

A few years later, Cromwell himself ordered that " Letters patents of denization be granted under the Great Seal of Ireland to all persons of what nation soever professing the Protestant Religion." As a result of this friendly attitude of both the Government and the Municipal Council, there was a considerable influx of strangers to Dublin during the Cromwellian regime, and amongst the many admissions to the freedom of the city then granted, are those of persons bearing such apparently French or Flemish names as Anthoine, Bosse, Vannuel, Fontaine, Grolier, Huett, Massi, Sisson and Vizard. The total population of Dublin at end of the regime was 8,780 persons.

Charles II continued friendly to the policy of admitting foreign Protestants to settle in Ireland. In 1662, at the instance of his Viceroy the Duke of Ormonde, the Irish Parliament enacted that any alien Protestant, skilled in any craft or trade or manufacture, or in the art of navigation, who within seven years transported his stock and family to Ireland, and took the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy, should be made a free and natural subject of this kingdom, as if he had been born within it and that, if he so desired, he should be admitted to the freedom of any city or town within the realm, and to the membership of all or any Guild within such city or town, upon payment to the chief magistrate or to the Municipal Council of 2os. by way of fine. The Act also made provision for the automatic admission to the freedom of the city, and to membership of the Guilds, of any foreigner, who had been refused such permission by the Magistrates or Municipal Council, or Guild Masters; and it instituted severe penalties against all who had procured such refusal, and against any who interfered later in any way with the alien in the pursuit of his trade or craft.

But whilst the citizens of Dublin may have been willing to admit to the freedom of their city such strangers as they themselves considered suitable, they did not want the power of selection taken out of their hands, as was done by this Act. So they addressed a Petition to Parliament that Dublin should be removed from the scope of the. Act. For the furtherance of this Petition, the Council levied a sum of f ioo on the Guilds, to be repaid to them later. The Petition was turned down • but it is perhaps significant that the only important influx of aliens to Dublin during almost twenty years thereafter was that of some hundreds of linen- weavers introduced in 1667 by the Duke of Ormonde and settled by him at Chapelizod, well outside the city boundary. The settlers consisted mainly of Protestants from Brabant, but included Huguenots from La Rochelle, the Isle of Rhe, Jersey, and the neighbouring French coast.

That the Huguenots had by this time become a recognised and distinct unit of Dublin's population is evidenced by the fact that in 1665 the Duke of Ormonde obtained for them the Chapel of St. Mary in St. Patrick's Cathedral in which to worship. For 150 years this Chapel remained their principal meeting-place for divine worship, the liturgy read being that of the Established Church of England, translated into French. Then, on Christmas Day, 1817, the Huguenot services came to an end; there was no longer a Huguenot congregation to maintain its pastor.

The Act of 1662 became inoperative in 1669, and was not then renewed; but its provisions for admitting Protestant aliens to the freedom of the city and to membership of its guilds, were embodied in The New Rules for the better regulating of the Corporation of the City of Dublin," issued by the Viceroy and Council of State in 1672.

So far, the various acts making it possible for Protestant aliens to settle here had embraced Protestant aliens in general, and even more Flemings than French had availed of them. But from 1680 the exodus of Huguenots from France had assumed gigantic proportions under the pressure of intensified persecution by Louis XIV. The refugees came in crowds to England, in lesser numbers to Ireland, and it became essential to regularise their position. So, in 1681, at the instance of the Viceroy, a houseto-house collection for their relief was made in Dublin and the Municipal Council made the following order:—

" Whereas .. . the severe persecutions of many Protestant families in France, upon account of their religion, have forced many of them to take sanctuary in this city and kingdom . . . [it is ordered] that all such of the said persecuted Protestants as shall within five years from the date hereof make their application for their freedoms °here, shall be admitted to the freedom of this city without fines and fees ; and also for the space of five years to come from the date hereof, shall be freed of all city taxes ; and that the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs, the Mayor of the Staple, and Master of the Trinity Guild for the time being, or any three of them, whereof the Lord Mayor and one of the Sheriffs to be always two, be and are hereby appointed a committee to examine and approve of the persons so to be admitted to the freedom of this city, that none be admitted to the freedom thereof but such as shall come to reside here upon account of such petsecutions as aforesaid, and that they take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, and such usual oath as is taken by every freeman of this city."

The first Huguenots to avail themselves of this order became freemen of the city on 23rd January, 1682, and from then onwards numerous refugees were admitted to the Franchise. Amongst the new citizens were apothecaries, bakers, blacksmiths, braziers, brewers, butchers, buttonmakers cabinet-makers, carpenters, carvers, chandlers, clothiers, cobblers, confectioners, coopers, curriers, distillers, dyers, glaziers, glovers, gold-smiths, gun-smiths, joiners, lock-smiths, masons, notaries public, periwig-makers, pewterers, plasterers, sail-makers, watch-case makers, wool - embers, worsted-combers, linen-weavers, " serge "-weavers, and silk-weavers.

The names of the new citizens were characteristically French, but very few of them are to be found in our city to-day. Here are some of the more simple :—Berry, Boyer, Channeau, Chevalier, Dubois, Franc, Gilbert, Hesse, Lewis, March, Mercier, Morel, Pellison, Periguaud, Robert, Rousseau, Tabary, Turpin and Wilmott.

JAMES II AND THE HUGUENOTS.

Miss Grace Lawless Lee, in her very interesting work, The Huguenot Settlement in Ireland, published in 1936, makes the broad statement that " James . . . expelled, and in some cases attainted, the Protestant freemen " of Dublin, and also annulled the Act which had granted naturalisation and free admission into all corporations to the Huguenot refugees. Let us see, now, how far this statement is justified by the Municipal Records.

In 1686, the second year of the reign of James II, the Municipal Council renewed for a further seven years the Order of 1681, which had opened the freedom of Dublin to the French refugees, and even extended the reach of the order so as to admit the refugees, without fines or fees, to membership of the city's Guilds.

In 1687, the City Charters were recalled, and Dublin received a new Charter, which made it necessary for the existing freemen to be readmitted to the franchise but re-admission was made particularly easy. In March, 1688, a proclamation by the Lord Mayor announced that several persons formerly free of this city dublin and those who have any title to freedom of the city by descent, service, marriage, or otherwise, should be readmitted to the freedom of the city on payment of ten shillings per person as a fine to the city and some unspecified fees to the Clerk of the Tholsel.

Under August of the same year appears an even more illuminating record. The Huguenot freemen of Dublin seem at the time not to have been blessed with overmuch of this worId's goods, and they petitioned the Government to be re-admitted to the freedom of the city without any fine or fee. Richard Talbot, Earl of Tyrconnel and Lord Deputy of James II, intervened on their behalf, and as a result of this intervention, the following order was made by the Municipal Council :—

" It is ordered and agreed ... upon the petition of the French Protestants in the city of Dublin, and pursuant to recommendation from his Excellency the Lord Deputy, that such of the petitioners as were formerly admitted free of this city without fines and fees, and will make oath before the Lord Mayor that they are not worth twenty pounds of any worldly substance, he and are hereby readmitted to their freedom without fines or fees, as formerly, and that all others, upon their application, be admitted on such reasonable terms as other persons formerly."

As you are all aware, the hostile propaganda of the time has painted Richard Talbot as a monster of intolerance. Yet, his attitude to the Dublin Huguenots is surely one of the greatest examples of toleration ever recorded. To appreciate this fully we must remember that at that very time, as Richard Talbot knew, and Miss Lee acknowledges, the Huguenots abroad were crowding into Holland to join William of Orange, and were being embodied by him as special regiments of infantry and cavalry in the army which he was mustering for his descent upon England, which descent actually took place a few months later. • If similar circumstances prevailed in any country of Europe to-day, refugees similarly placed as the Dublin Huguenots were than placed, would be given the freedom, not of the city, but of the internment camp behind barbed wire.

For Miss Lee's assertion that " the Act which had granted naturalization and free admission into all corporations was annulled," I can find no justification whatsoever. Smiles' work on the Huguenots, published in 1868, is one of the authorities Miss Lee used ; but all he says on the subject is that William's Irish Parliament revived the Bill of 1674 (which the Parliament of James had suspended) granting naturalization to the refugees. (Note that he uses the word " suspended," not " annulled "). But, leaving aside this slight modification, his entire statement is just one gross absurdity. William's Parliament could not revive an Act that had never existed, and there was no Act of 1674 simply because no Parliament was convened in Ireland between 1666 and 1689.

There were altogether four Irish Acts dealing with the extension of privileges to alien refugees. I have already referred to most of them. The first was the Act of 1662, made valid for seven years. The second was the Act of 1692, passed by William's Irish Parliament, and renewing the Act of 1662 for a further seven years. A third Act was passed in the reign of Queen Anne in 1703, again renewing the provisions of the 1662 Act for a further five years, and the last Act was passed in 1717, in the reign of George I, making the provisions of the previous acts " to be in for ever." Evidently George's Irish ministers were not aware that the law abhors perpetuities.

Smiles probably had in mind, when he wrote of the Bill of 1674, the New Rules for the regulation of Corporations," which were issued in 1672 by the Irish Viceroy and Council of State. One of these rules, as I have already mentioned, embodied the provisions of the 1662 Act, dealing with the refugees, and was put in force by Orders of the Municipal Councils. But we have seen how such an Order was actually issued in the second year of the reign of James II by the Municipal Council of Dublin, and was made operative for seven years. In fact, the only authority that could suspend or annul these " New Rules " was either the Viceroy and Council, or the Parliament.

As for possible Parliamentary action on these lines, the much- abused Irish Parliament of James II sat in Dublin from May 7th till loth July, 1689. Now, all the Acts, journals, rolls, and official books and documents of this Parliament were completely destroyed in 1695, on the orders of William's Irish Parliament, for reasons at which we can make a fair guess ; but which do not concern this paper. The destruction was very thorough, because any person, who endeavoured to preserve the smallest record of the Parliament's proceedings, was, on discovery, fined the enormous sum of £500. However, in our National Library, there are copies of two interesting pamphlets, published in London late in 1689. Both give what purports to be a Catalogue of the Acts passed in the Irish Parliament of James IL The Catalogue contains 35 Acts in all. Later, in 1740, one. Ebenezer Rider, of George's Lane, Dublin, also published an account of the proceedings of James's Irish Parliament, giving the same 35 Acts, some in detail, most only in title. In all three publications, there is no Act either suspending or annulling the Acts already in force, dealing with the refugees. Instead is actually noted an of Strangers and others to inhabit and plant in the Kingdom of Ireland. The only important difference between the title of this Act and that of similar previous Acts, is the omission of the word " Protestant " before " Strangers," and this was necessitated by a previous Act of this Irish Parliament, decreeing complete liberty of conscience, and making Protestants, Non-Conformists, and Catholics equal in Law.

WILLIAMITE HUGUENOT SETTLEMENT.

After the triumph of William, his Irish Parliament of 1692 passed An Act for encouragement of Protestant Strangers to settle in this kingdom of Ireland. Under the powers conferred. by this Act, the Municipal Council of Dublin continued for a further two years the admission of refugees to both the freedom of the city and membership of the city's Guilds. Many Huguenots took advantage of this regulation, but the main influx of refugees during William's reign did not take place until after the Peace of Ryswick in 1697. Five Huguenot regiments in William's service were then disbanded, on the express orders of the English Parliament, as the English were unwilling to provide for them. They were all, both officers and men, placed on the Irish Establishment ; that is to say, Ireland had to pay their pensions. A few years later, it was made obligatory on the pensioners, with just a few exceptions, to reside in Ireland.

It is now impossible to determine with any exactitude how many of the officers and men of these disbanded regiments took up residence in Dublin ; but the Register of the French Conformed Churches in the city contains the names of 165 Huguenot officers, who had made Dublin their permanent home, many of them bringing here their families, relatives, and friends, and the Register is by no means exhaustive. The officers belonged for the most part to the lesser nobility of France and were generally men of liberal education. They provided the Huguenot settlement in Dublin with its aristocratic element. Families, that were later to distinguish themselves in both civic and state affairs, were founded by several of these ex-officers of William's disbanded Huguenot regiments, and many of the French names, thdt were first introduced to Dublin in William's time, long continued to survive amongst our people, some even to the present day. A few such names are :—Barre, Boileau, Collier, Corbett, Crosse, Ducros, Duval, Duput (anglice Depew), Espinasse, La Touche, Leroy, Paige, Petri, Saurin and D'Olier.

The end of the ffrst quarter of the r8th century saw the Huguenot settlement in Dublin firmly established and well organised. It had its upper stratum, consisting mainly of the ex-officers and their families ; a merchant middle-class of considerable importance and influence, and a numerically strong artisan class. The settlers were divided by religious differences into two groups. One group consisted of those who had conformed to the tenets of the Established Church ; the other embraced all those who remained faithful to the Calvinist liturgy of the French Huguenots. Only the Conformists enjoyed liberty of public worship until the year 1692, when the same privilege was extended to their Non-Conformist brethren.

FRENCH CONFORMIST CHURCHES IN DUBLIN.
As I have already shown, the Conformist Huguenots in Dublin had been granted in 1665 the Chapel of St. Mary in St. Patrick's Cathedral for their place of worship, and as the Chapel was in bad repair at the time, it was restored and fitted out for them, mainly at the expense of the members of the Irish House of Commons. Close by the Chapel, at the end of Cathedral Lane, was the burial-ground attached to the Chapel. In 1668, the Congregation appears to have been in some trouble with the authorities. The London Gazette of 1st July of that year informed its readers that Mr. Rossell, pastor of the French Church of Dublin, and several other French Protestants, had been arrested and handed over to the Comte d'Avaux, minister of Louis XIV at the court of King James, for deportation to France. As at that very time, three regiments of Huguenot infantry and a regiment of Huguenot cavalry formed part of the army of William of Orange advancing upon the Boyne, there was probably some sound reason for the arrests, if they really took place. The charge was probably one to which the peoples of Europe have lately become so accustomed—that of " Collaboration with the Enemy." One thing is certain : Mr. Rossell was not deported, for he was, after a brief spell, back once again looking after his flock.

The increased influx of Hugueriots to Dublin, that followed the triumph of the Williamites, soon rendered the Chapel too small for the numbers wishing to attend its services, and, in 1701, a Chapel of Ease was established in St. Mary's Abbey, on the north side of the river. In 1704, the St. Mary's congregation organised itself as an independent unit, with its own consistory and ministers; but in 1716 it reunited with the mother congregation. Both had thenceforward the one consistory and the one treasury, with five attached ministers ; three for St. Patrick's and two for St. Mary's.

FRENCH PROTESTANT NON-CONFORMIST CHURCHES IN DUBLIN.
For a long time the French Protestant Non-Conformists were without a church in Dublin, for the Government denied them all liberty of public worship. About 1681, according to a pamphlet published in Dublin and entitled An apology for the French Refugees established in Ireland, the Non-Conformists petitioned Government to have this restriction removed, but their petition was refused. They then endeavoured to side-track the prohibition by meeting for Divine Service in the home of one of the nobility, who sympathised with them. But the Government came to hear of the meeting, and arrested and deported their pastor.

The restrictions were first removed from them by the Irish Parliament of James II, and the succeeding Williamite Parliament would have subjected itself to very damaging propaganda, had it reimposed them. So the French Non-Conformists were formally granted liberty of public worship in 1692. The history of the churches then founded by them is a trifle obscure; so I am following the account of them given by that expert in every‑thing that pertains to his Huguenot ancestors—Mr. T. P. Le Fanu.

Their first church was a house rented for the purpose in Bride Street, and ground near Newmarket was obtained to be a cemetery attached to the Church. For some reason or other the ministers of this Church removed in 1695 to Lucy Lane, now known as Chancery Place, and founded a new Church in an ancient chapel of the Jesuits that stood there. Some at least of the original congregation remained in St. Bride's parish, and continued to use the Newmarket cemetery. The Lucy Lane congregation had its cemetery in what we now call Merrion Row, which may still be visited. In 1701, part of the Lucy Lane congregation founded another church in Wood Street. Independent at first, the Wood Street congregation reunited with that of Lucy Lane under the one consistory in 1711. The last development of the Non-Conformist churches in Dublin took place in 1716, when, the lease of the Wood Street building being up, and the landlord demanding excessive fines for its renewal, the congregation built for themselves a new church, with cemetery attached, in Peter Street. The last entry of a burial in Peter St. cemetery is 1897, and in Merrion Row Igor.

Thus, before the close of the first quarter of the 18th century, the French Protestants in Dublin had four churches ministering to their spiritual needs. These were: the French Conformist churches of St. Patrick's and St. Mary's and the French Non- Conformist churches of Lucy- Lane and Peter Street. In all four the services were carried out in the French language, and all four worked in the closest harmony, permitting no religious differences to impede their charitable and other labours. They even lent each other their ministers whenever required.

Though after 1692 both Conformists and Non-Conformists had like liberty of public worship, they were not treated alike by either the Government or the Municipal Council. Whilst the Non-Conformists had to rely upon themselves for the support of their churches and ministers, the Conformists were sure at all' times of both state and municipal aid. I have taken the following from Dublin Municipal Records of the period :--

June 1707. A grant of for the use of the French Protestant Conformists,

June, 1709. A similar grant.

June, 1710. A similar grant. October, 1711. " Ordered, on the petition of the ministers and church wardens of the two French Conformist Churches in Dublin, that the treasurer do . . . pay twenty pounds, sterling, towards their support in performing divine service daily, morning and evening, in the said churches."

January, 1722. " On the petition of the ministers and church-wardens of the French Church of St. Patrick's, Dublin, setting forth that their said roof thereof and repair the same ; that the charge is much greater than the estimate given in, and therefore [they] pray the city's assistance and charity in repairing the said church ; whereupon it is ordered that the [city] treasurer . . . . do pay the petitioners for the uses therein mentioned the sum of fifty pounds, sterling."

When we consider how much greater the value of the pound sterling was then, than what it is today, these grants were generous. Yet, strange to relate, the Conformist congregations were the first to decline.

At least one member of the Huguenot Community found that, in coming to Dublin, he had merely left the frying pan for the fire during this period. In the Municipal Records we find the following order made by the Dublin Corporation, at its meeting on October 18, 1695

Whereas one James Dennis, barber, was admitted a freeman of this city as a Fmnch refugee, and by the same pretence obtained his freedom of the corporation of barber chirurgeons, at which time he took the usual oaths and subscribed the declaration, according to the custom of the city ; but forasmuch as the said James Dennis is a profest Papist, having lately declared himself as such before the right Honourable the Lord Mayor and several of the Aldermen: it is therefore ordered and agreed upon, by the authority of the said assembly, that the said James Dennis be and is hereby disfranchized from the freedom and liberty of this City."