constancy which he always found in his wife in all his persecutions for the gospel. He gives thanks to the “Right Worshipful and Most Dear Fathers,” the Archbishops of Canterbury and York for all the gentleness and favour which he had received at their hands. He appeals for their kind offices to his widow and children, on the acknowledged ground that “he had taken pains according to his small talent in sundry churches and schools, and had always been content with his food and raiment.” He names his only son, Samuel, his daughters, Jael and Mary, and his nephews beyond sea, Robert, Anthony and Oliver. He reijuests that Mr Emanuel (Tremellius), Professor at Heidelberg might be informed of his decease — he “who gave me my wife.” He had no debts; but the Church of Caen owed him two hundred and fifty livres for travelling expenses. He trusted that our Queen will continue without deduction the grant made to himself, and that she would deal with his family as King Edward VI. had done in the case of the widow of Martin Bucer, whom his Majesty of blessed memory had invited to remain in England, promising to see to the marrying of her daughters. He addressed his requests to the two Archbishops, “for God’s sake, and for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ, and for the love of the Holy Ghost,” and his concluding sentence was, “Lord Jesus, come for the defence of the poor churches.” He died at the age of sixty-five. The son, Rev. Samuel le Chevalier, was French Pasteur in the City of London in 1591, and at Canterbury in 1595.
Pierre de Marsilliers was Master in the Greek School of Montrose, founded by John Erskine of Dun, and had Andrew Melville as his scholar in 1557 and 1558. He was a French Protestant, and was probably an exile, but I have found no memoir of him.
The Pasteur Pierre Alexandre[1] of the City of London French Church, admitted in 1561, was at that date the sole refugee representative of the distinguished scholars whom Archbishop Cranmer brought into England. His former associates were Paul Buchlein, alias Fagius (born 1504, died 1550), Martin Bucer (born 1491, died 1551), and Peter Martyr Vermiglio, (born 1500, died 1562). Alexandre’s colleague in the pastorate was Nicholas des Gallars, called De Saules, perhaps he was the person whose name in Latin was Galasius.
The Pastors in the reign of Edward VI., having fled from the fires of Queen Mary’s reign, did not return to Threadneedle-street. Our old historians give their latin names; Mr Burn gives us their French names and the following memoranda. They were two in number. The first was François Perucel, called La Rivière; before the Reformation he had been a cordelier or Franciscan friar, and he appears in 1542 as one of the celebrated preachers of that order; he was pasteur in London in 1550, and during the Marian dispersion, he returned to France; he was one of the twelve ministers on the Protestant side at the disputation held at Poissy, in 1561; he fled to the protection of our ambassador, Throgmorton, after the battle of Dreux, in 1562. La Rivière’s colleague was Richard Vauville alias François; he had become an Augustin monk in 1533, and afterwards as a Huguenot pasteur, he had done eminent service at Bourges; he accompanied the English exiles to Frankfort, and after the dispersion of their congregation he became the French minister of Frankfort, and died in harness after a lengthened pastorate.
In the year 1562 Jean Cousin became pasteur. He was an able and influential man. In 1568 he appears to have presided at consistories held about the case of Corranus (see my Vol. I., page 92), who honoured him with his disapprobation and denunciations. Cousin would not adopt the idea that instead of making provision for the instruction of the people in definite truths, the church should provide perches, provender and dormitories for “enquirers;” for to give to a blundering enquirer the salary intended for a teacher would be an abandonment of the souls of the people to perish for lack of knowledge. In the same year the trade of the refugees received a shock through a proceeding of the Duke of Alva. The Spanish government had attempted to get possession of some cargoes in English ports, but the Queen having
- ↑ This surname was imported into England before the Reformation. Under the year 1503, Anthony Wood notes in his Fasti of Oxford University, “This year Andrew Alexander, Dr. of Physic of Montpellier, was incorporated.”
