English Immigration to France and Geneva in the 16th Century.
The 16th and 17th centuries were a time of tremendous political and religious upheaval in Europe. With the relatively recent separation of the Protestants and Catholics and political leaders making crucial choices in how they were to build, maintain and change their empires without destroying themselves caused the movement of many people through immigration. This was especially the case in Henry the VII's England.
Henry the VII made the crucial decision to separate himself from the Catholic Church after the Church excommunicated him for receiving a divorce from his wife Catherine to marry his lover, Anne Boleyn, was at the time pregnant. Excommunication was a serious matter at the time because it could allow Henry's subjects to oppose him. To prevent this from happening, Henry passed several acts and laws to establish his own denominations, dubbed the Anglican Church, and to make himself the head of that church. He then removed expensive and valuable articles from the former Catholic churches and distributed them among his supporters (Hanley, course lecture).
This was all well and good for Henry the VII's followers, but those who opposed him and remained tied to the Catholic Church lived in fear. Though the royal family was divided between Catholic and Protestant beliefs at the time and power jockeyed between the two groups, many Catholic English citizens were exiled or chose to flee their county. In this essay, I will discuss this exact situation with the view of a young Catholic woman as target.
As previously stated, the world was a tumultuous place at this time, but not only politically and religiously, but in gender equality as well. A young Catholic woman leaving England at this time would be confronted with two major states of Europe to flee to: Geneva and France. Both states had their advantages and disadvantages. Through John Calvin, Geneva had become an incredibly Protestant state which would not be entirely safe for a Catholic at the time.
