Page:Protestant Exiles from France Agnew vol 1.djvu/202

 Drumcar, M.P. for County Louth, who, on 21st December 1868, was created Baron Rathdonnell (he died 17th May 1879). The present head of the English Lefroys is the eldest son of Charles Edward, namely, Charles James Maxwell Lefroy, Esq., of Itchell Manor, late Captain in the 14th Hussars; he was born on 12th September 1848, and married, on 14th August 1872, a kinswoman of Lord Rathdonnell, Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Alfred Henry M‘Clintock, Esq., M.D., LL.D.  

The family of Delmé springs from Michiel de Le me of Nomayn, aliàs Normain, probably the town of Nomeny in Flanders. His son, Adrian, was a refugee in Norwich. His signature as a diacre of the French Church in that city — “Adrien de Le me” — appears in the Norwich Book of Discipline, now in the British Museum. His will is copied in my Historical Introduction. At its date, 28th September 1603, the testator declares himself to be “of fifty-four years of age;” it was proved in the consistory of Norwich on the following December 9. His children were Pierre, Jaques, Marie, Annis (probably a name of endearment for Anne, the S being mute), Philippe, and Nathaniel. The eldest, Pierre, seems to have adopted the signature “Pierre de me.” Like his father, he was a deacon; he was married and had children, but no surviving descendants have been affiliated to him. Marie de Le me was the wife of Jaques Le Grin (aliàs Le Greyn, properly Le Grain), who signed as a frère-en-charge on 12th August 1596. Annis or Anne was the wife of Jean Castel who signed on 4th July 1615; she died at Canterbury, as his widow, in 1652. Philippe, who adopted the name of Delmé, was the pasteur successively of Norwich and of Canterbury, whose memoir is in my Chapter II. These slight notices are all that I can collect of the family viewed as a Norwich family.

There seems always to have been a close correspondence between the refugee families of Norwich and Canterbury, and frequent intermarriages. It was while he was minister at Norwich that the pasteur, Philippe Delmé, on 29th December 1616, was married at Canterbury to Elizabeth Maurois. (This lady in her will mentioned a nephew, David Desquire of Norwich, who signed as a deacon there on 29th May 1634.) Mr. Delmé was translated to the French Church of Canterbury in or about 1619; and as he is the ancestor of the old English family, that family in its second stage was a Canterbury family.

The third stage presents us with a London family. Mrs. Delmé née Maurois, having been left a widow in 1653, joined in London her son Elie, pasteur of Threadneedle Street. At the date of her husband’s death, her son, Peter Delmé, was aged twenty-three, and John Delmé was aged twenty. Before many years these were her only surviving sons, and both became prosperous merchants and men of rare excellence. Mr. Peter Delmé citizen and dyer, in or about 1664, married Sibilla Nightingale; they lived in the parish of St. Thomas the Apostle, where their eldest son, an infant, was buried on 26th January 1665 (new style); she survived him for many years. His holograph will has been presented to my readers beside the will of his refugee grandfather in my Historical Introduction. From it it may be inferred that he died about Christmas 1686, or New Year’s day 1687. In my gleanings from registers the reader will find the baptisms of his children, and in his will the names of the six survivors at its date. Thus briefly, for want of materials, I dismiss them