the fifth son, John, was Adjutant-General in the war with America and rose to high rank. This Lieut.-General, John Despard, married Harriet-Anne, daughter of Thomas Hesketh, Esq., and sister of Sir Thomas Dalrymple Hesketh, third Baronet of Rufford Hall, and had an only child, Harriet Dorothea, who was married in 1816, to Vice-Admiral Henry Francis Greville, C.B., (a kinsman of the Earl of Warwick); she died in 1856, leaving five daughters, and a son, Major Henry Lambert Fulke Greville. The Despard family is creditably represented among the clergy.
The ancestor of the family of Dobrée fled to the island of (Guernsey, from the St Bartholomew massacre. From him descended Peter Dobrée^e, merchant, of London, father of Rev. William Dobrée, rector of St Saviour’s, Guernsey, author of a popular treatise on the Lord’s Supper. That admirable clergyman was the father of the most eminent representative of the family, the Rev. Peter Paul Dobrée, who was born at Guernsey in 1782, and died at Cambridge in 1843, a Fellow of Trinity College, and Regius Professor of Greek in that University. Professor Dobrée was unmarried, and his estate of the Grange in Guernsey (towards which his heart often soared), with other property, was inherited by his only sister who had married Mr John Carey, the receiver-general of the island. William Dobrée, a merchant, represented the family in London in 1744. The descending pedigree can be partly traced in that of the family of Norwood in Kent. I observe the name of Bonamy Dobrée, Esq., in a recent list of the lieutenancy of London.
Among the young men of rank residing in Stirling Castle, and educated along with King James VI., under the tutorship of the great George Buchanan, was a French Protestant youth, Jerome Groslot, Sieur de l’Isle. His father, Jerome Groslot, Bailli of Orleans, was killed in that city during the St Bartholomew massacre. He had, during his lifetime, shown hospitality to Buchanan; and young Jerome, who fled to Scotland after the massacre, was requitted by the sage’s affection and generosity. When he returned to France, the Sieur de l’Isle was not forgotten by the king, who employed him in a private negociation with Henry IV. He sat in the Synod of Privas in 1612. Although not an author, he was esteemed as one of the literati of his day. The following is a certificate which George Buchanan addressed to Theodore Beza:— “Jerome Groslot, a young man of Orleans, who is the bearer of this, although born in a distinguished city, of most distinguished parents, is, however, best known in consequence of his calamities. In that universal tumult and universal phrensy which prevailed in France, he lost his father and his patrimony, and was himself exposed to jeopardy. As he could not remain at home in safety, he chose to fix his residence in Scotland till the violence of that storm should a little subside. As the state of national affairs is now somewhat more tranquil, and his domestic concerns require his return, he is determined to travel through England, that, like Ulysses, he may become acquainted with the manners and cities of many men; and, as far as the shortness of his time will permit, may familiarise himself with a branch of civil knowledge which is of no trivial importance. This journey, I trust, he will not perform without receiving some benefit, such as he has derived from his late peregrination. During his residence in Scotland, he has not lived like a stranger in a foreign land, but like a citizen among his fellows. The study of letters he has prosecuted so successfully, as not only to be able to soothe by their suavity the sorrows incident to his disastrous condition, but also to have provided for himself and his family a resource against the future contingencies of life. Here it is not necessary for me to persuade, or even to admonish you to treat this excellent youth with kindness; for that is what the uniform course of your life, and the bond of the same faith, demand of you, nay, even compel you to do, for the sake of maintaining your own character. G. Buchanan.”[1] “Edinburgh, July the fifteenth, 1581.”
From Melchior Adam’s Lives of German Philosophers, it appears that “Groslot visited the English universities in the company of Paulus Melissus Schedius, and sailed with that philosopher to France, in the spring of 1583.” Or Irving (in his Life of Buchanan) informs us that “several philological epistles of Groslot may be found in the collections of Goldastus
- ↑ From Buchanani Epistolae — (the translation is by Dr Irving).
