Page:Protestant Exiles from France Agnew (1st ed. vol 3).djvu/256

  candidate for the representation of Harwich in the convention Parliament summoned by the Prince of Orange, received the following letter of condolence:—

“7th January 1689. — Sir, — I have been desired by your friends to send you the enclosed paper, by which you may easily be made sensible how we are overrun with pride, heat, and faction, and unjust to ourselves to that prodigious degree as to deprive ourselves of the greatest honour and advantage which we could ever attain to, in the choice of so great and so good a man as you are. Had reason had the least place amongst us, or any love for ourselves, we had certainly carried it for you. Yet if we are not by this late defection altogether become unworthy of you, I dare almost be confident that an earlier application of the appearing of yourself or Sir Anthony Deane will put the thing out of doubt against the next parliament. A conventicle set up here, since this unhappy Liberty of Conscience, has been the cause of all this. In the meantime my poor endeavours shall not be wanting; and though my stedfastness to your interests these ten years has almost ruined me, yet I shall continue as long as I live your most humble and most obedient servant, .”

During his residence in Oxford he published two works, “Reflections on the Council of Trent,” and a “Treatise on Irreligion.” He was made a chaplain to the Duke of Schomberg (whose second title was Marquis of Harwich), and also to the second Duke. On the death of the first Duke, he published two obituary brochures — one styled a Panegyric, and the other an Abridgement of his Life (Abrègé de la vie, &c.). He has chronicled very few facts regarding the illustrious marshal, but he displays his own acknowledged eloquence to considerable advantage. He obtained the degree of B.D., and published in 1696 a volume of “Remarks on several late writings published in English by the Socinians, wherein is shown the insufficiency and weakness of their answers to the texts brought against them by the orthodox, in Four Letters, written at the request of a Socinian gentleman.” There is also “A Sermon, preached at the Assizes for the County of Essex, held at Chelmsford, March the 8th, 1710, before the Honourable Mr Justice Powell. By H. De Luzancy, B.D., Vicar of Southweald, in the said County. London, 1711.” [1710 must be according to the old style.]

(7.) was a French proselyte from the Romish Church who came to London for liberty of conscience. He was appointed French tutor to the three royal princesses, Anne, Amelia Sophia Eleonora, and Elizabeth Carolina. Himself and the other proselytes imported much disputation and irritation among the refugees. Their deliverance from spiritual despotism seems to have surprised them into a boisterous excitability and a petulant impatience as to doctrinal standards. Malard’s language was peculiarly unbrotherly and abusive, especially as to the royal bounty, in which he thought that the Huguenots proper shared too largely, and as to which he clamoured that a larger share must be allotted to the proselytes. The share of the latter was afterwards defined by a royal grant. He did not, however, lapse into any unsoundness in the faith, as we may judge from his book, “The French and Protestant Companion,” published in 1719, and dedicated to the King, in which Protestantism is expounded in the English column of each page, and French is taught by a translation of the exposition in the second column. He, however, twice introduces the miserable royal bounty annuities, and recommends, in French and English, that the proselytes’ proportion should be distributed by a committee, consisting of the Marquis de Montandre, the Marquis du Quesne, Mr Rival, a French minister, Mr Justice Bealing, Sir John Philipps, Dr Wilcocks, and an ecclesiastic proselyte to be chosen every third year by casting lots (p. 236).

(8.) was in his youth a Jesuit, but dismissed for his inquisitive studiousness and want of blind submission. His father, who lived at Morlaix, in Brittany, and who was opposed to the Jesuit order, welcomed him home, but designed him for priest’s orders in the Romish Church. Young Francis, however, pursued his inquiries, and avowed a theoretical Protestantism. His father sent him to a friend’s house, intending that he should