earned a precarious livelihood by teaching, but devoted his chief energies to a series of bitter attacks upon the French committee for the distribution of the 15,000l., which since the commencement of William III's reign had been annually charged upon the civil list for the benefit of the French protestants. His first pamphlet, ‘The Case and humble Petition of Michael Malard to the Honourable Committee newly established for the Relief of the Proselytes,’ London, 1717, is rare and curious for its ingenious invective and its blending of French and English idioms. His abuse of the French committee (which had been reorganised in 1715) he defends on the ground that ‘Christ also called the Pharisees of his time Serpents and Hypocrites, and ravenous and faithless Robbers’ (p. 30). In 1718 he published ‘The French Plot found out against the English Church, or a Manifesto upon the unequalness of the Distribution … of the Royal Benificence.’ This professes to be a protest from the body of ‘Ecclesiastick Proselytes’ against the tyranny of the French committee, but doubtless emanated from a very small and inveterate clique of malcontents, of whom Malard was the mouthpiece. It was exhaustively answered by ‘An Appeal to the English Nation’ from J. Armand Dubordieu, one of the ministers in the French Church of the Savoy. Dubordieu convicts Malard of ‘habitual and consummate adultery,’ and attributes the withdrawal of his allowance to his scandalous life. Malard nevertheless continued his attacks in ‘The Proselytish Hercules against the Mystery of Iniquity; or True Light into the Plot of the French Committee and its League against the Church of England,’ 1720, 4to, and an ‘Address and Representation of Grievances to King George and the Parliament,’ 1720, 8vo, containing an answer to Dubordieu and a ‘Short Reply to the Libels of S. Lions, J. R. Holland, and the French Commissioners.’ The controversy throws valuable light upon the views and personnel of the French congregations in London at this time. Besides these pamphlets Malard wrote several manuals of French accidence. He seems to have fallen into obscurity upon the removal of the bone of contention by the abolition of the fund shortly after 1720, and the date of his death is unknown. A portrait, engraved by D. Lockley, was prefixed to Malard's ‘French and Protestant Companion; or a Journey into Europe, Asia, and Africa,’ 1718, 8vo; in this work, a curious combination of a grammar, a guide-book, and a satire upon the church of Rome, dedicated to George I, the author is described as French tutor to the daughters of the Prince of Wales, afterwards George II (Noble, Contin. of Granger, iii. 164).
[Malard's Pamphlets in Brit. Museum Library; Kershaw's Protestant Exiles; Watt's Bibl. Brit. p. 636.]
MALBY, Sir NICHOLAS (1530?–1584), president of Connaught, descended from an old Yorkshire family of that name, was born probably about 1530. In 1556 his name appears in a list of persons willing to take part in the plantation of Leix in Ireland (State Papers, Ireland, Mary, i. 21). On 6 Aug. 1562 he was found guilty of coining, and, with three of his associates, was condemned to death (Machyn, Diary, p. 290). He was, however, reprieved on consenting to serve under Ambrose Dudley, earl of Warwick, in France (State Papers, Dom. Eliz. xxiv. 41). His letters show him to have been a man of education and intelligence, and in April 1563 he is described as Warwick's secretary (Cal. State Papers, For. viii. 294). He served with credit during the war, and in 1565 was sent to Spain, where he was commended for his judicious conduct by Phayre, the English minister at Madrid (ib. ix. 520). On his return to England he was sent to Ireland, and was shortly afterwards appointed sergeant-major of the army by Sir Henry Sidney (Cal. Fiants, Eliz. No. 1191). After the death of Shane O'Neill in 1567 he was stationed at Carrickfergus in order to assist Captain Piers in keeping the Scots of the Glynns in check (ib. No. 1196). He was reproved by the lords justices for distraining Sir Brian MacPhelim O'Neill's and other Irishmen's cattle for cess, but his conduct was justified by Sir Henry Sidney (State Papers, Ireland, Eliz. xxii. 28, 37). His position was a difficult one, and he complained that he had to feed his men at the cost of his carcass (ib. xxiii. 37, 39), but he displayed considerable tact in his management of Sorley Boy MacDonnell [q. v.] , and Sidney, on visiting the north in October 1568, found the charge committed to him in very good state (ib. xxvi. 12). In July 1569 he was sent to the assistance of Sir Peter Carew [q. v.] against the Butlers (Hooker, Life of Sir P. Carew, ed. Maclean, p. 92), and in a skirmish near Carlow he was severely hurt by a fall from his horse. He was warmly commended for his bravery and military skill by Sir W. Fitzwilliam and Sir Edward Fitton, and on 22 March 1571 he obtained a grant of the office of collector of the customs of Strangford, Ardglass, and Dundrum (Cal. Fiants, Eliz. No. 1772).
In the spring of 1571 he visited England.
