The number of Huguenot immigrants in England in the late seventeenth century

The task of assessing the number of Huguenots seeking refuge in later Stuart England is exceptionally difficult. They left France by stealth, so no emigration lists exist. French names could be anglicized almost immediately on arrival across the Channel or otherwise changed beyond recognition, and marriage and burial records concerning Huguenots are often entered in the registers of English churches rather than those of the French congregations themselves. As refugees the mobility of the Huguenots was great. Guesses as to the numbers reaching England, exaggerated in the eighteenth century and since reduced, have varied from 20,000 to 150,000. A study of surviving baptismal records, in conjunction with other evidence including informed contemporary estimates, suggests that some 40,000–50,000 Huguenots settled in England betwen the late 1670s and the reign of Queen Anne. Refugee communities were located south of a line drawn from the Severn to the Wash. Almost all were near the sea, normally in towns rather than in the countryside. By far the largest concentration was in London; living for the most part in the eastern and western suburbs, Huguenots comprised about 5% of the total population of the capital at the end of the seventeenth century. Their contribution to the commercial and political transformation of England which took place at that time was significant and deserves re-evaluation.     

An Iroquois frontier: the north shore of Lake Ontario during the late seventeenth century

Historical accounts and assessments of Lake Ontario's north shore during the late seventeenth century generally describe the area as an abandoned battleground and devasted “no-man's land”. The impression is built of English and particularly French views that this was an area no longer useful as a major source of furs. To the Iroquois the land was anything but devastated. Whereas they bypassed the territory in their constant search for furs to the north and west, the north shore, strategic and fertile, became a trading, agricultural, and even settlement frontier. A reassessment of the written documents and largely neglected maps of the period suggest that the Iroquois occupation of the north shore was highly ordered and based on traditional trade routes and tribal territorial claims. It was an extension of the homeland. But innovations in subsistence, settlement, and lifestyle did occur. The study of expansion to the north shore provides valuable insights into the delicate balance between the forces of change and continuity in post-contact Iroquois society.     

The age of the Cambro-Britons: hyphenated British identities in the seventeenth century

ABSTRACT

In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, Welsh writers including the antiquary Humphrey Llwyd, the bard Gruffudd Hiraethog, and the epigrammatist John Owen began referring to themselves as Cambro-Britons. The term was quickly adopted and popularised by English writers, often in ways that show an imperfect grasp of the intentions behind the hyphenated phrase. Whereas the Welsh had hoped that the English and Scots would adopt similar hyphenated identities, English writers tended to interpret “Cambro-Briton” as an intensified and potentially comical expression of Welshness. Though Welsh writers largely ceased to employ the term after the 1620s, the use and misuse of “Cambro-Briton” in English texts continued unabated throughout the century.     

Thomas Hobbes,Christian Thomasius and the seventeenth century debate on the church and state

Along the entire course of that seventeenth century, the great principles of representative government and the rights of conscience were passing through the anguish of conflict and fiery trial (De Quincey).