The path our descendants took had a significant impact on who was present in certain societies in the midst of particular events. Who would have thought that a 2nd generation French Huguenot immigrant (grandson of French Huguenot Gabriel Marion born in 1732), a Continental officer who happened to break an ankle exiting a rowdy officer party in Charles Town, which meant he was to be recuperating at home near the Santee River when the British captured Charles Town, would then morph into a guerilla leader to lead the region in freedom from the British Empire?
I guess I am curious as to the kind of people whose character is shaped by their existing situations as well as the history their family had experienced. Basically, what is the difference between Francis’ ancestors who left France after religious persecution left them few options but to emigrate the the New World, specifically the Carolinas .. and my own ancestors who left the Netherlands in 1846 for the New World, to Michigan?
What triggered this thought was reading Bionic Mosquito’s post called War. Bionic was reviewing a work called ” Rebel in the Ranks: Martin Luther, the Reformation, and the Conflicts That Continue to Shape Our World“, by Brad S. Gregory. This work gives a lot of background material to what is commonly called an era of religious wars was actually political strife at its root.
“What started as a reform of one Church produces an open-ended array of competing churches, which virtually no one at the time considers a good thing.”
So we are talking about a time in this world when the Holy Roman Empire and the wedding of politics and religion was providing the masses (no pun intended), were challenged on a variety of fronts. How this played out depended on the countries and cultures that were present:
The Reformation played out differently in Germany, France, England, and the Low Countries.
I was drawn to the parts that pertained to Francis Marion, and myself.
Regarding Francis’ grandfather’s experience, there was an attempt in Germany to mend the rift between the Catholic church and the reformers:
Catholic leaders reject the most fundamental Protestant premise: The Church offers false doctrines. On a second and also important premise, there are plenty of Catholic leaders that recognize that there are and have been sinful abuses and a lack of holiness among both clergy and laity.
Further attempts are made at some sort of reconciliation between the Reformers and the Church. The final meaningful attempt was made at Regensburg in 1541, the Colloquy (or Diet) of Regensburg.
So when dialog and reason fail ..
… then come the wars. Catholic against Protestant; Catholic and Magisterial Protestants against other Protestant sects. Next comes the Peace of Augsburg, “a Holy Roman Empire with two religions, Lutheran and Catholic.”
So in France, where Gabriel Marion lives:
There is no Lutheranism in France. Calvinism arrives in the form of the Huguenots. Pamphlets, trials, executions. As late as 1554, there are still no established Calvinist churches in France – although the number of underground believers is growing. By 1562, perhaps 800 such churches exist. Most are far from Paris, in the south. The growth emboldens the Huguenots: they destroy church art, deface alters and harass clergy.
They make up perhaps ten percent of the population, but a much larger proportion of the nobility – a problem because still in the sixteenth century no ruler could rule without noble support.
There is blow-back from this violent revolt:
Beginning in 1562, a series of eight civil wars ensue; from start to finish, these last longer than the Thirty Years’ War with perhaps 3 million deaths .. wars for political power: a dynastic power struggle between powerful noble families in the line for succession to the French throne – one Catholic and the other Reformed – with the reigning royal family trying to stride the middle in the form of Catholic conciliation.
Massacres, conversions, refugees, assassinations, acts of revenge. After thirty-six years, in 1598, King Henry IV signed the Edict of Nantes, granting the Huguenots substantial rights but leaving them with no army. Fearing an erosion of these rights – as would soon enough prove a rational fear – hundreds of thousands of Huguenots flee France for Calvinist territories in England, the Dutch Republic, the Holy Roman Empire, and the Carolina Coast of the New World.
So the “type” of person that Francis’ grandfather was, was someone who opted for the relative unknown of the colony of Carolina over that of England and the Dutch Republic. A true pioneer, this man saw a vision of religious freedom AND hard work of the land to provide his family, in the long term, better opportunities for life and freedom in a ‘new world’.
I can only think that Francis’ character was part DNA and part stories of his grandfather adventures in Europe.
On to my own side note, it seems that my ancestors were able to stay in Europe another 150 years as they happened to be a part of the Dutch Republic:
Belgium and the Netherlands; the northern provinces take their independence from Spain and support Reformed Protestantism; the southern provinces remain Catholic.
The development of the Reformation in many ways parallels developments in other regions of central Europe: Lutheran and Anabaptist heresies followed by executions – more than 1,300 executions by 1566, and more than in any other region. Charles V is working hard to contain the heretics.
Nevertheless, in the Netherlands Reformed Protestantism continues to increase; Charles cedes control of the Low Countries to his son, Philip II, king of Spain. Nobles petition for a softening of anti-heresy laws; the Spanish king sharply rebuffs them, saying he would rather lose all his lands than rule over heretics.
So whenever a king feels their authority threatened, the normal reaction is to reject all appeals to opening that door for freedom. Sometimes, depending on the tenacity of the culture, or of certain underground leaders in society, revolt surges:
Be careful what you wish for, I guess: In April 1566, three-hundred armed nobles ride into Brussels and present Margaret, the king’s regent, with the Compromise of the Nobility – with a demand, backed by arms, of reducing the anti-heresy laws. Margaret has no choice but to relent; in the wake, Calvinism explodes and denunciation of Catholic idolatry and Spanish tyranny boil over.
So when you or your tribe gets the power that others abused, what is the tendency? Revenge …
Monasteries attacked and destroyed, the start of what we now know as the Eighty Years’ War. Philip sends an army of more than 10,000 men, headed by the Duke of Alva: trials of more than 12,000 people take place; 9,000 are deprived of property; more than 1,000 are executed. New taxes are imposed, provoking Calvinists and Catholics alike.
Every action produces an equal and opposite reaction …
Dutch Calvinist pirates begin seizing coastal towns, eventually taking all major cities in the province except Amsterdam. They drive out the priests and kill over 130 of them. Philip can little afford the cost of wars against the Calvinists in the north while at the same time battling the Ottoman Turks. Troops in the Low Countries go unpaid, so they mutiny – sacking Antwerp, killing 8,000 and destroying more than 1,000 homes. What a mess.
Independence is finally achieved:
The Dutch Republic is formalized in 1581; the southern provinces (essentially Belgium) go their own way.
.. but all is not yet well. There is still Catholics now under Calvinist leaders and there is always a chasm it seems with collectivism tendencies:
Yet the conflicts continue:
“In the judgement of some, Catholicism under Spanish control is better than the violent aggression wrought by militant Calvinists.”
The fighting continues on and off until 1648 with more bloodshed and more refugees. This is resolved along with resolution of the Thirty Years’ War in the Peace of Westphalia.
In the end, the Dutch Republic and the Spanish Netherlands are the same thing only different. The Dutch choose a different path politically:
In the Dutch Republic there is no state church, as there are in France, Spain, England, German Lutheran territories, Scandinavian countries, or the Reformed Protestant territories of the Holy Roman Empire.
People in the Republic do not have to belong to a particular religion; while there is a state-supported church, only a small minority of the population belong to it. The Republic becomes a haven for religious groups of all sorts, and especially in Amsterdam political authorities are relatively tolerant…
“…allowing almost anyone to believe and worship together however they wish, provided they worship behind the closed doors of “hidden churches” and remain politically obedient.”
As with all politics, there is NEVER a live and let live mentality. Whenever power is achieved in a culture or society, there will never be a willingness to give away that power. This is a very broken world, and government/politics is part of that brokenness (from this article):
Even the worst features of the statist reality, Hayek showed, “are not accidental byproducts” but phenomena that are part and parcel of statism itself. He argued with great insightfulness that “the unscrupulous and uninhibited are likely to be more successful” in any society in which government is seen as the answer to most problems. They are precisely the kind of people who elevate power over persuasion, force over cooperation. Government, possessing by definition a legal and political monopoly of the use of force, attracts them just as surely as dung draws flies. Ultimately, it is the apparatus of government that allows them to wreak their havoc on the rest of us.
We will forever experience havoc in this world from the very entity that so many put their faith and trust in, not God, but government.
So very sick and so very sad that the masses will never awake to this truth.
-SF1
