Introduction

This introduciton presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book focuses on the British Isles, with a necessary incursion into the reformulation of some debated issues in the American colonies. It shows that Huguenot churches and the networks of state or private charitable institutions, of financial, familial and geographical ties, all necessarily contributed to solidarity. The book explores the Huguenots' involvement in the debate on toleration is well charted. It explains Englishmen and Frenchmen conversed freely in Holland, as exemplified for instance by the English Quaker, Benjamin Furly, and the group of men gravitating around his Dutch home. The book discusses the first major wave of immigration into Britain since the wars of religion, but this died down when the Huguenots took the full measure of the shambles of British domestic policies.