HUGUENOTS HULL. 



819 



Henry IIT., the king of Navarre was obliged to 

 maintain a severe struggle for the vacant throne : 

 and not until he had, by the advice of Sully, embraced 

 the Catholic religion (1593), did he enjoy quiet pos- 

 session of the kingdom. Five years afterwards, he 

 secured to the Huguenots their civil rights, by the 

 edict of Nantes, which confirmed to them the free 

 exercise of their religion, and gave them equal 

 claims with the Catholics to all offices and dignities. 

 They were also left in possession of the fortresses 

 which had been ceded to them for their security. 

 This edict afforded them the means of forming a kind 

 of republic within the kingdom, and such a powerful 

 party, which had for a long time been obliged to be 

 distrustful of the government, would always offer to 

 the restless nobility a rallying point and a prospect 

 of assistance. 



Louis XIII., the weak and bigoted son of the 

 liberal and magnnnimous Henry IV., allowed himself 

 to be influenced by his ambitious favourite, De Luines, 

 and his confessor, against the Huguenots, who were 

 able to offer a powerful resistance, as they had become 

 very numerous in many provinces. But in the first 

 religious war, which broke out in 1621, the Protes- 

 tants lost the greatest part of their strong places, 

 through the faitlilessness or cowardice of the go- 

 vernors. Some of these, however, and among the 

 rest Rochelle, remained to them, when, disunited 

 among themselves and weary of war, they concluded 

 a peace. Rochelle enabled them to keep up a con- 

 nexion with England ; and Richelieu, who aimed to 

 make the royal power, which he exercised under the 

 name of Louis, absolute, used every means to deprive 

 the Protestants of this bulwark of their liberty, and 

 thus destroy every remnant of a league which recalled 

 the times when civil factions had so often weakened 

 the royal power. Rochelle fell into the hands of 

 Louis, after an obstinate defence, in 1629; the 

 Huguenots were obliged to surrender all their strong 

 holds, and were thus left entirely at the mercy of the 

 king. Freedom of conscience was indeed promised 

 them, and Richelieu and his successor Mazarin did 

 not disturb them in the enjoyment of it ; but when 

 Louis XIV. abandoned his voluptuous life for an 

 affected devotion, he was led by his confessors and 

 madame de Maintenon, to persecute the Protestants, 

 for the purpose of bringing them back to the 

 bosom of the true church. In 1681, he deprived 

 them of most of their civil rights, and, on the death 

 of Colbert, who had generally opposed violent 

 measures, he followed altogether the advice of his 

 counsellors, who were in favour of persecution his 

 minister of war, Louvois, the chancellor Le Tellier, 

 and the Jesuit La Chaise, his father confessor. 

 Bodies of dragoons were sent into the southern pro- 

 vinces, where the Protestants were most numerous, 

 to compel the unhappy inhabitants to abjure their 

 faith. To prevent the emigration of the Protestants, 

 the frontiers were guarded with the utmost vigilance; 

 yet more than 500,000 Huguenots fled to Switzer- 

 land, Germany, Holland, and England. Many who 

 could not escape, were obliged to renounce their 

 faith. Lists of Protestants, who, it was pretended, 

 liad been converted . were sent to the king, and it was 

 very easy for his flattering counsellors to persuade 

 him that he had gained honour, by having almost 

 extirpated the Protestants in France. Under this 

 erroneous supposition, he revoked the edict of Nantes, 

 October 22, 1685. But he had still more than half a 

 million of Protestant subjects, and this unjust and 

 unwise revocation robbed France of a great number 

 of useful and rich inhabitants, whose industry, wealth, 

 and skill found a welcome reception in foreign 

 countries. But quiet was by no means restored in 

 France. Ill the provinces between the Rhone and 



Garonne, the Protestants were yet very numerous, 

 and the neighbouring mountains of Cevennes afforded 

 them shelter. There the Camisards (q. v.) main- 

 tained war for a long time, armed for the most part 

 with clubs alone. The contest was not altogether 

 unlike the war of La Vendee in later times. After 

 twenty years (1706), the government was finally 

 obliged to come to terms with them ; yet quiet was 

 not perfectly restored. In the level country, especially 

 at Nismes, a Protestant spirit still survived in secret ; 

 even the compassion of the Catholics was excited, 

 and many persecutors of the Protestants became their 

 defenders ; and there were not wanting clergymen 

 among the Huguenots who were kept concealed. 



In the reign of Louis XV., new but less severe 

 measures were adopted against the Protestants, and, 

 in 1746, they ventured to appear publicly in Langue- 

 doc and Dauphiny. By degrees, many voices were 

 raised in favour of religious toleration. Montesquieu 

 led the way ; but Voltaire, shocked by the unhappy 

 fate of John Galas (q. v.), effected still more by his 

 Essay on Toleration, in 1762. From this tune Pro- 

 testants were no longer disturbed ; yet they did not 

 dare to make pretensions to public offices, (See 

 Browning's History of the Huguenots, London, 1829, 

 2 vols. 8vo.) The revolution restored them all the 

 civil rights, and they frequently laid out their hitherto 

 secreted treasures in the purchase of the national 

 domains. It was not therefore strange, that, at the 

 restoration, they appeared attached to the former 

 government, which had granted them privileges that 

 they were fearful of losing under the new. Although 

 they did not offer any opposition to the new order of 

 tilings, yet troubles took place, which were attended 

 with bloodshed, at Nismes and the vicinity ; but these 

 were suppressed by the judicious measures of the 

 government. (See France.) Consult Aignan, De 

 VEtat des Protestans en France (2d edit., Paris, 

 1818). 



HUISS1ER (French)-, a kind of officers whose 

 attendance is necessary at every judicial tribunal, 

 from that of a justice of the peace to the court of 

 cassation (q. v.). Their name is derived from what 

 was originally their exclusive business, to wait at the 

 doors (huis). This, however, is at present only a 

 small part of their official duties ; those who attend 

 personally at the courts, are called huissiers audien- 

 ciers ; they answer in some respects to the sheriffs, 

 clerks, and criers of our courts. There are other 

 huissiers, who have duties corresponding somewhat 

 to those of English justices of the peace. The Eng- 

 lish word usher (q. v.) is derived from huissier. 



HULL, or KINGSTON UPON HULL ; a large 

 seaport town, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, distant 

 from London 174 miles N. It is situated on the great 

 inlet of the Humber, at the point where this receives 

 the river Hull, and, from the facilities for trade which it 

 thus acquires, has become a place of much commerce. 



It appears that about the middle of the twelfth 

 Century there were two towns or villages near the 

 confluence of the Hull and the Humber, called VVyke 

 and Myton, the former of which was a place of so 

 much importance, that in 1278 the abbot of the 

 neighbouring monastery of Meaux, who was lord of 

 the manor, procured for the town of Wyke, or Hull, 

 as it was then styled, the grant of a market and a 

 fair. In 1293, king Edward I. obtained, by purchase, 

 the lordship of Myton, including the town of Wyke, 

 the name of which he changed to Kingston, or King's 

 Town-upon-Hull, and placed it under the government 

 of a warden and bailiffs, constituting it also a separate 

 and independent manor. In 1299 the town obtained 

 a royal charter, making it a free borough, endowed 

 with various privileges and immunities ; the next 

 year a mint for coinage was established here; and, 

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