Page:Protestant Exiles from France Agnew vol 1.djvu/246

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french protestant exiles.

lished letters addressed by Grotius to Casaubon. This important work he did not live to execute.

I began this memoir with a reference to his printed allusion to his forefathers. It is in his last Lecture on Romanism:— “Shades of my forefathers ! shall the two dread days of St. Bartholomew in their shrieks, or in their prolonged patient suffering, awaken within me the feeling of revenge? Cursed — nay, Anathema Maranatha — be the persecutor, be his garb Protestant or Roman. Our retaliation is that of Christ, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. Our retaliation is that of the protomartyr, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.

“Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughter’d saints . . .
. . . Their martyr’d blood and ashes sow
O’er all th’ Italian fields,
that from these may grow
A hundredfold, who, having learn’d Thy way,
Early may fly the Babylonian woe.”




Chapter XIII.

DESCENDANTS OF THE EARLIER REFUGEES KNOWN IN CONNECTION WITH LITERATURE AND THE ARTS, PHYSIC AND LAW.

As we have to range over nearly three centuries, we cannot classify the individuals memorialized, but must adopt a chronological arrangement.

I. Gideon Delaune, and others.

In my Fifth Chapter I have memorialized the Pasteur Guillaume De Laune, who was also a Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians. His eldest son was Gedeon de Laune, anglice Gideon Delaune, who was brought over to England by his refugee parents. Although he did not aspire to be a medical practitioner, yet he is the only son who still has some fame, being remembered as apothecary to King James I. He is entered as such in 1618 in the Government List of Strangers. His bust now stands in the Apothecaries’ Hall, London. He acquired the property of Sharsted, in Kent, which (as it is not referred to in his will) he must have made over in his own lifetime to his eldest son Abraham. In Richard Smyth’s Obituary there is this entry:— “March 3, 1658-9. Mr. Gideon de Lawne, apothecary in Black Fryers, aged ninety-two, buried.”

He had married, first, Judith Chamberlan, and secondly, Jane, who survived him. Although he had nine children, yet his line became extinct in the third generation. I have information only as to the eldest son Abraham, of Sharsted; he married Anne, daughter of Sir Richard Sondes, of Throwley, Kent. The eldest son of this couple became Sir William Delaune; he was a merchant of London, knighted at Whitehall on 10th January 1664 (n.s.), who had married, first, Anne, daughter and heir of Captain Thomas Heywood, of Gillingham, and secondly (in 1662), Dorcas, daughter of Sir Robert Barkham, of Weynflete, Lincolnshire.[1] Sir William had by his second wife a son William (who perhaps was William Delaune, Esq., of Doddington, M.P. for Kent from 1714 to 1722, and married to Miss Swift on 8th December 1721). The second and third sons of Abraham Delaune, named George and Michael, both came to untimely deaths. George had married in December 1660 Dorothea, daughter of Sir Thomas Allen. His death is mentioned by Richard Smyth: “27th Dec. 1662. Mr. De Laun, merchant in Lothbury, with his wife and whole family and some lodgers, was burnt with his house — not one person saved.” Samuel Pepys’ Diary suggests the remarks that the people of London made on this dismal calamity: “1662, Dec. 29. To Westminster Hall, where I staid reading at Mrs. Mitchell’s shop. She told me what I heard not of before, the strange burning of Mr. De Laun, a merchant’s house in Lothbury, and his lady (Sir Thomas Allen’s daughter) and her whole family; not one thing, dog nor cat, escaping; nor any of the neighbours almost hearing of it till the house was quite down and burnt. How this should come to passe, God knows, but a most strange thing it is.” The news spread into Wales, and the Rev. Philip Henry noted the event in his diary thus: — “1663, January 7. I heard of ye burning of Mr. Delawn’s house near lothbury in london, in

  1. Lady Delaune was left a widow, and remarried with Sir Edward Dering, of Gray’s Inn.