My Huguenot Heritage

A story of persecution and survival brought to life in this biography of the author's Huguenot ancestors, the Le Plastriers. Taken from family documents, books and letters, the first part of the book tells of the lives of these ancestors and the years of discrimination, they, and Huguenots in general, endured during the French Wars of Religion. Central to the story are the massacres and torture suffered by them at the hands of the Catholic kings, François 1, Charles 1V, and Henri 111, under the influence of their powerful and domineering mother, Catherine de Médicis, and later under Louis X111 and Louis X1V, who revoked of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 when many Huguenots fled.

Drawing upon the rich fund of documentary material of the Renaissance period, My Huguenot Heritage shows readers a licentious French court, where grandiose lifestyles alongside poisoning, ambition, treason, and violence were an everyday occurrence.

The second part of the book tells of the experiences of the family after their harrowing escape to England in 1685, and how they survived in a new land having left family, friends and all their worldly goods behind in the country of their birth.