How Three of Europe’s Major Religious Wars Affected Colonial America

Written by Bill Kuttner

Moravian Church in Winston-Salem, NC

Records of conflict, war, and statecraft date back to hieroglyphics on the walls of pyramids. Indeed, even broad historical accounts that chronicle the advance of human culture still need to keep track of who’s fighting whom where, when, and why. An unfortunate result is that many people view history, with some justification, as a dreary cavalcade of violence. While some people may find it interesting that the Roman legion offered tactical advantages over the Greek phalanx, far more people are inclined to just ignore history altogether.

However, wars did happen and their outcomes influenced to varying degrees the course of history. The beginning of the Protestant Reformation in Europe sets the stage for a series of bloody conflicts which ultimately had surprising influence on American colonial history.

These wars were not just fought over religion, but also over the extent and constraints on royal and imperial power. However, the groupings of armed belligerents fell largely along sectarian lines. Here, in a nutshell, or three nutshells to be precise, is how three of Europe’s major religious wars affected colonial America:

France’s Religious Wars, 1562-1598

Apollos Rivoire tankard. Father of Paul Revere.

This 36-year struggle was actually a series of eight civil wars between French Protestants and Catholics, supplemented by a few extra battles and assassinations. The Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre in 1572 launched war number four, and one of the wars was also called the “War of the Three Henrys.”

The French Protestants, called Huguenots, were Calvinists and included many noble and aristocratic families. The upper-class Huguenot cavalry could not defeat the Catholic peasant foot soldiers fielded by the crown.

The dreary struggle finally ended in 1598 with the Edict of Nantes, which offered limited and grudging freedom of worship: nobles could choose Protestant worship, but this was prohibited to lower classes within 20 miles of Paris or in any city with a bishop.

As soon as the ink dried on the Edict of Nantes, however, the crown tried to back out of it. Warfare resumed, and Protestant England tried, without success, to help the Huguenots.

In 1685 Louis XIV simply revoked the Edict of Nantes. This is considered one of the world’s greatest cultural and political miscalculations. Huge swaths of the French middle class simply took their skills and left France, many coming to the British colonies in America. And who should be among them? Silversmith Apollos Rivoire, the father of Paul Revere, came to Boston as part of the Huguenot diaspora.

The English Civil War, 1642-1646

This conflict is usually grouped with the Wars of Religion because the sectarian nature of the opposing forces and the fact that it took place at the same time as the thirty Years War. However, the intractable issues that led to warfare were more political than religious.

To name one of many points of contention, King Charles I wanted more tax revenue, but the power of taxation had for centuries been reserved to Parliament. Charles asserted that Parliament’s powers were over internal revenue, and that the Crown could tax at the water’s edge (meaning levy taxes on imports). To Parliament, this was absurd, and Charles, overplaying his hand, would not seek middle ground.

In 1630 the Puritan minority’s “city on a hill” was going to have to be in the New World. But by 1642 the Puritans held a majority of the seats in Parliament. Parliament had the power to call up the militias and levy taxes to pay them. The King summoned his forces based on feudal obligations. The King’s “cavaliers” easily outmatched the Parliamentary forces.

Meanwhile, Massachusetts Governor, Sir Henry Vane, had been elected in Massachusetts under our first colonial charter. Vane returned to England to fight alongside Puritan Cromwell as the improving Parliamentary army gradually turned the tide against the Royalists.

The religious aspect of this conflict was between the Anglican, “high church” practices insisted upon by the King Charles, and the simpler worship practices of the Puritans. The war was over political issues, but the outcome would shape the nature of English religious life. A century later, appointed Royal Governor William Shirley strongly supported Anglican worship in America—he was instrumental in funding the construction of King’s Chapel in Boston--, but he was cordial and tolerant of the Puritan (then called Congregational) churches, as well as the Presbyterian and Baptist societies popping up in Boston.

This episode offers another telling comparison with the colonial experience. After repealing the Stamp Act, Parliament seemingly concurred that the colonies should be responsible for taxing themselves. However, Parliament asserted that it retained the power to tax at the water’s edge. Facing a colonial boycott, Parliament gave up taxing imports to the colonies, except for the “symbolic” tea tax. The rest is history. But this time it was Parliament making the exact same mistake that Charles made over a hundred years earlier.

The Thirty Years War, 1618-1648

Voltaire quipped that the Holy Roman Empire was “Neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire.” The Hapsburg Emperor in Vienna ruled over a number of lands directly, and sort of presided over the others that were actually ruled by local princes. These local princes had been free to allow Protestant worship since the time of Martin Luther.

By 1604, however, the Emperor had been persuaded by the Papacy to push the Counter reformation within the Hapsburg dominions and throughout the Empire to the greatest extent possible. This included firing Protestants from the Imperial civil service. The response was the Defenestration of Prague in 1618, when some Imperial officials were tossed out of a castle window. (They landed in a snowbank so the injury was to stature only.)

Among those displaced by the persecution of Protestants were the Czech-speaking Moravians. After the war many Moravians left their homes and migrated to Saxony at the invitation of the Duke of Saxony. After a generation or two they were German speakers.

Later the Duke of Saxony sponsored Moravian settlements in the American colonies. Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and Winston-Salem, North Carolina were two of the areas settled by Moravians (“Salem” is short for “Jerusalem.”)

Later still, many Hessian soldiers were captured at the American victory at Saratoga. The Continental Army was in no position to run prison camps, so it just let the poor, homeless Germans go. Many made their way to Pennsylvania, found a Moravian community, settled in and became Americans.