ABSTRACT
In May 1556, Dorothy Stafford, an English noblewoman and immigrant to Geneva, requested that the Genevan Council permit her to take her children and leave the city. Her husband had recently passed away, and her brother-in-law, Robert Stafford, was offering the family assistance in Paris. The late William Stafford had been the first and one of the most prominent Marian exiles to immigrate to Geneva, arriving with his family in March 1555. He was admitted to the bourgeoisie soon afterwards, and, in January 1556, he asked Jean Calvin to serve as godparent to his youngest child, John. Stafford died four months later, prompting his wife to present her request to the magistrates. In response, Calvin appeared before the Council, insisting that if Dorothy Stafford took John away from Geneva, to an ‘unreformed’ town or city, he would not be able to carry out his godfatherly responsibility of ensuring the true and proper Christian upbringing of the child.1 Lady Stafford and her brother-in-law argued, in response, that she, as a parent, had the right to relocate her family as she saw fit. Furthermore, they asserted, her plan posed no religious danger to the children. And finally, Robert Stafford threatened to advise the king of France, Henri II, to impose measures against ‘the rich Genevan merchants’ if the city wanted to continue ‘doing violence to’ his sister-in-law.2 Ultimately, the Council permitted Lady Stafford to leave Geneva with her children, but only after she had agreed to move to the unquestionably Reformed city of Basel.3
