On april 13, 1598, King Henry IV of France signed a remarkable document. In a nation where the Roman Catholic Church reigned supreme, the Edict of Nantes gave French Protestants – the Huguenots – a guarantee that they would no longer be persecuted for their dissenting religious beliefs. Although it did not provide the Huguenots with a legal status equal to that of Roman Catholics, this document represented an important step toward greater freedom of conscience in Europe. Unfortunately, it would not last. Less than a century later (in 1685), King Louis XIV would rescind the Edict of Nantes, an act that resulted in a rush of violence directed at the Huguenots and the subsequent emigration of nearly four hundred thousand French Protestants to various parts of Europe and the British American colonies. Yet, while France was backtracking on its movement toward religious liberty, a neighboring country was moving forward.

Across the English Channel in Britain, King William of Orange proclaimed the Act of Toleration (1689), which marked a significant step toward the gradual implementation of religious liberty in Great Britain. The rapid expansion of dissenting Protestant denominations (e.g., Presbyterians, Quakers, and Anabaptists) in England during the 1600s made a policy of continued persecution costly and impractical.