Page:Protestant Exiles from France Agnew vol 2.djvu/50

 

Royal Bounty for the French Protestant Refugees consisted of moneys raised throughout the United Kingdom for distribution among the necessitous exiles. The Huguenots were always celebrated for their industry and self-reliance, and many of them for inventive genius or skill. And when they took refuge in this and in other lands, both masters and journeymen, in their various useful and beautiful manufactures, hastened to secure remunerative employment. Few of this class looked to us for more than some casual relief in small donations of money on their arrival; but there were refugees in different circumstances who required permanent aid. These were described as “persons of quality, and all such as through age or infirmity are unable to support themselves and their families.” The persons of quality were noblemen and landed proprietors who, having been born to good estates, had never learned any profession, and who by flight and forfeiture had lost their ail; also unsalaried pastors whose education and habits unfitted them for secular business, and genteel persons brought up to law and physic, and equally unable to find remunerative employment.

The “Bounty,” which in the needful substance came from the hearts and pockets of the people, was called “Royal” because the King’s Letter or " Brief" was required in order to sanction the appointment of a Collection in the Churches, and the Lord Chancellor as the keeper of the king’s conscience had to sign the Brief. A Collection was make in 1681, or rather in the opening months of 1682 (new style), as I have already recorded.

In his Sermon at the Funeral of Mr. James Houblon, 28th June 1682, Dr. Gilbert Burnet said, “Our Saviour hath allowed us when we are persecuted in one city to flee to another. One by leaving their country and friends, and all that they have, may hope to get safe, though almost naked, to another kingdom; yet even this small mercy is denied under the influence of that cruel religion [of the Church of Rome]. Here in England in Queen Mary’s time, the strangers were suffered to go away; yet care was taken to secure the ports, and not to suffer natives to fly beyond sea, when they were resolved to burn them at home. And now in France when methods are taken to make those of the Reformed Religion either to die of famine and in misery, or to force them to commit idolatry, it is made capital to fly, and those that endeavour it are to be condemned to the gallies. I cannot leave this matter without encouraging you to go on in your charities, and readiness to relieve those that are forced to come and take sanctuary among you.”

In the two or three following years a large sum must have been raised, as there appears to have been a balance of £17,950 after the distribution of the relief which was required and distributed before 1685.

Private Societies or committees for receiving and distributing money, and public meetings of the subscribers and friends of such Societies, have always been discouraged by despotic governments. The government of the Stewarts being essentially arbitrary, the bounty for the refugees fell to be distributed by a committee under the King in Council. National accounts of receipt and expenditure were never exhibited. Therefore the exact state of this benevolent fund could not then (and cannot now) be known.

It is to the collection, promised in 1685, that the following anecdote applies. The granting of the Brief gave the Dean of Canterbury (Tillotson) an opportunity of shewing his regard for the persecuted French Protestants by promoting the contribution in their favour. And the warmth of his zeal on that occasion was evident from an answer which he returned to Ur Bcveridge, one of the Prebendaries of his Cathedral, who from a coolness towards foreign Protestants, or an unnecessary scruple with respect to forms even in affairs of weight and substance, had objected to the reading of the Brief there, as contrary to the rubric. The Dean’s reply was short and significant, “Doctor, doctor, charity is above rubrics.” (Birch’s Life of Tillotson, p. 130.)

The celebrated collection, for which a Brief was promised in the autumn of1 685, was not actually ordered until the spring of 1686. The promise was made in the eagerness of British hospitality; the French and English kings, along with Chancellor