Voices for Tolerance
In an Age of Persecution

The granting of limited religious toleration for Protestants in England was preceded by one of the most infamous acts of religious intolerance of the early modern age. The absolutist regime of Louis XIV had become increasingly discriminatory towards the Huguenots or French Protestants and in October 1685 took the final step of revoking the Edict of Nantes by which Henry IV had guaranteed limited toleration since 1598. The Revocation in effect outlawed Protestant worship in France and resulted in horrible suffering for the substantial Huguenot minority. In response, nearly 200,000 Huguenots emigrated, forming communities in Britain, Ireland, Switzerland, the territories of the Holy Roman Empire, especially Brandenburg, and the Americas. Nonetheless, this act was contemporaneous with two of the greatest voices for tolerance, those of Benedict [Baruch] Spinoza and John Locke. While Spinoza's ideas on toleration were in a way far more original, John Locke's influence on the Enlightenment ensured a growing acceptance of the inappropriateness of religious persecution.