Between around 1540 and 1590, several thousand people fleeing religious persecution in what is today the Netherlands arrived in England. Political philosopher Hannah Arendt argued in her 1951 book, The Origins of Totalitarianism, that such migrants were the “happier predecessors” of modern refugees, who are faced with the “severest restrictions”.
The idea that those fleeing religious persecution in early modernity were in some way happier than modern refugees is often linked to the idea that there were no border controls.
