Hi Ashely
I do have a fair idea why.
Basically when the Huguenots fled, the main place of choice was the Dutch Netherlands, twice as many went there as here. Part of this was no doubt it was easier to escape on foot by land, then risk the perilous sea journey to England. My ancestor for example lived in Pay de Caux Normandy, so you would have thought escape to England by boat would have been first option. Instead they treked near 100 miles to the Dutch border, and were arrested trying to cross the river there at the last moment. They were then marched back to Normandy and imprisoned for two years before Louis expelled them..to England!
The main reason though was probably the fact when the revocation came into force Oct 1685, William of Orange was on the throne in the Netherlands, the champion of the Protestant people. Our King was James II, a pretty open Catholic, and the first cousin of the tyrant Louis XIV they were fleeing. (In fact he'd spent his formative years at his Catholic cousins court in Paris, after being forced out in the English civil war, and was more French in habit then English). William of course then ousted James, and with his wife Mary, James's daughter, united the British and Dutch throne in 1688. However for that first few years 1685-88 obviously the majority who could headed for Holland rather than Britian.
Families were frequently split, some going to Holland, some England, as they could not escape together. This is same for my family. Therefore after 1688, until Williams death in 1702, when the two countries were briefly united, they tended to cross back and foward Amsterdam to London freely, and many families were established in both places. To a lesser extent it continued after 1702, though a great many in the Netherlands, made the move permanently to England at that time once William their protector had died, including my own ancestors.
