Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 4.djvu/271

 12 S. IV. OCT., 1918.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

265

" The scattering of treasures accumulated during centuries by a family of distinction " formed the theme of long articles in the press, which described " the tearing down from the walls of lovely Adams enrich- ments and escutcheons," and lamented the dispersion of the numerous valuable portraits.

Among the pictures then sold was one of a lady finely dressed, with puffed and slashed sleeves, wearing a magnificent rope of pearls and a black hat. Her name, Dorothy Crook, and the date 1569, show that she was the first wife of Robert Honywood (d. 1627). There was also sold the portrait of General Sir Philip Honywood, dated 1709, by Coolers, and the picture of Mrs. Mary Honywood dated 1579. According to a writer in The Essex County Standard of Nov. 3, 1917, this picture " now hangs in the Town Hall at Colchester " ; and after stating that " she had the largest number of surviving descendants of any person in the eighteenth century," he adds : " Although she left such a variety of branches, they all withered away in two centuries, and there were no male descendants of her line to inherit Markshall." F. H. S.

Highwood.

SIR JAMES PORTER, KT., F.R.S.

A CURIOUS illustration of the manner in which the biographies of lesser-known public men in past generations have been compiled is provided by that of Sir James Porter, Kt., F.R.S., British Ambassador at Constan- tinople 1745-62.

Sir James Porter wrote a book, which was published in 1768 in two volumes, entitled ' Observations on the Religion, Law, Govern- ment, and Manners of the Turks.' The motto on the title-page was " Fas sit mihi visa referre, Ovid, Ep. 16 "; and in 1854, at the outbreak of the Crimean War, his grandson, Sir George G. de Hochepied- Larpent, Bt., published a work entitled ' Turkey, its History and Progress, from the Journals and Correspondence of Sir Jame Porter, continued to the Present Time,' which was in part a reproduction of the work published in 1768. Sir George Larpent very naturally prefaced his production with a memoir of his maternal grandfather, Sir James Porter, and upon this the article on Sir James in the ' Dictionary of Nationa Biography,' as well as a short sketch of his life prefixed to the description of the MS letter files of Sir James Porter in tb

listorical MSS. Commission's Twelfth Report, App. 9, was founded.

The memoir in question opened with the

bllowing dramatic description of Sir James

Porter's parentage, family, and boyhood :

"Sir James Porter was the architect of his own

ortunes ; his father, whose name was La Roque or La Roche, was captain of a troop of horse under James II., and distinguished himself in an attack upon Mont St. Michel : his parents followed

subject of our memoir was born in 1710. The
 * he fortunes of James II. to Dublin, where the

ailure of their royal master's campaign entailed

was forfeited and themselves proscribed. On the death of the father an uncle of the name of Porter,
 * he ruin of the La Roches ; their grant in Ireland

possessing considerable influence in Dublin with


 * he successful party, protected the family, and at

iis request they assumed the name of Porter. Sir James's mother, a woman represented by him as a person of great energy and strength of mind,

Dore the severe trials to which she was exposed with fortitude and piety. She was daughter of

Mr. Daubuz of Yorkshire, and to her brother Mr.

Daubuz of Brotherton her son was mainly indebted

for his education and for his steady adherence to the reformed faith, which was professed by his mother notwithstanding her husband's connexion with the Stuart family."

Almost the whole of this description is pure romance ; the truth is far more prosaic.

Sir James Porter was the son (and, so far as can be ascertained, the youngest son) of one Jean Fortes de la Roque by his wife Marguerite d'Aubus or Daubuz. His parents were married at the Huguenot Chapel in Hungerford Market by Charing Cross, June 27, 1700 (Register of Marriages, Hungerford Chapel Somerset House), ten years after the only visit paid to Dublin by King James II., which was in 1690 ; and both belonged to the strictest sect of the Huguenots, the sworn enemies of all those who supported King James II. and his French protector.

Marguerite Daubuz was the only daughter of Isaye d'Aubus, Huguenot pastor at Nerac in Guienne, who was granted (July 2, 1685) by King Louis XIV. a permit to leave France for England with his wife and four children three sons, Charles, Jean, and Etienne, and one daughter, this Marguerite, who was then a child of less than five years old. Isaye d'Aubus died at an inn at Calais on his journey to England, and was secretly buried in the inn garden at night, for fear of desecration by the Catholics, his wife and the innkeeper digging his grave. The widow (whose maiden name was Julie Ducasse, daughter of Joseph Ducasse) brought the little family to England with the assistance of her brother-in-law, Charles Daubuz, a Huguenot pastor who, having