Refugee
Refugee (Fr. refugie), a name given to persons who have fled from religious or political persecution in their own country and taken refuge in another. The term was first applied to those Protestants who found an asylum in Britain and elsewhere at two different periods, first during the Flemish persecutions under the duke of Alva in 1567, and afterwards, in 1685, when Louis XIV of France revoked the Edict of Nantes and drove so many of the Huguenots (q.v.) into involuntary exile. Of the numerous French artisans who settied in England on this last occasion, the most part Anglicized their names, as by substituting Young for "Le Jeune," Taylor for "Tellier," etc., so that their posterity can now hardly be recognised as of foreign origin. According to Lower (Patronymica Britannica), De Preux became Deprose, and "Richard Despair, a pool man," buried at East Grimstead, was, in the orthography of his forefathers, Despard. There were also refugee families of a higher class, some of whose descendants and representatives came to occupy a place in the peerage. The Bouveries, earls of Radnor, are descended from a French refugee family. The refugee family of Blaquiere was raised to the Irish peerage; and Charles Shaw Lefevre (lord Eversley) is the representative of a family of Irish refugees. The military employment offered in Ireland after 1688 maintained a considerable number of foreign Protestants. General Frederick Armand de Schomberg was raised by William III to the peerage, becoming eventually duke of Schomberg. A Huguenot officer of hardly less celebrity was Henry Massue (marquis de Ruvigny), created by William III earl of Galway. Lord Ligonier was also of a noble Huguenot family, and England has had at least one refugee bishop in Dr. Majendie, bishop of Chester, and afterwards of Bangor. Among other refugees of note may be enumerated Sir John Houblon, lord mayor of London in 1695, one branch of whose family was represented by the late lord Palmerston; Elias Bouherau, or Boireau,, D.D., whose descendant was created a baronet as Sir Richard Borough of Baselden Park, Berkshire; as well as Martineaus, Bosanquets, and Papillons, whose descendants have attained more or less eminence in the country of their adoption. The first French Revolution brought numerous political refugees to England, and Great Britain is noted throughout Europe for affording a ready asylum to refugees of all classes, both political and religious. See Weiss, History of the French Protestant Refugees, from the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes to the Present Time, translated by Hardman (Lond. 1854); Burns, History of the French, Walloon, Dutch, and other Foreign Protestant Refugees settled in England (Lond. 1846); Smiles, The Huguenots, their Settlements, Industries, etc. in England, Ireland, and America (N. Y. 1868).
