Page:Protestant Exiles from France Agnew vol 1.djvu/276

 it were published in various books — for example, by the Religious Tract Society, on the title-page of tract 458, The Testimony of History against the Church of Rome. The fact of course became known in Rome, and I am informed that in consequence the sale of single medals has been stopped, and nothing sold less than a complete series, costing upwards of £100.” — Smeaton’s Memoir of Alex. Thomson, Edin., 1869, p. 95.





These names were held in honour in their respective days, persons bearing them having been chosen to be anciens. For these and other names not traced in my pages, I must refer my readers to the Somerset House registers. In my Historical Introduction it will be observed that Jean Mancke died at Canterbury in 1650, Mr. Daniel Hersent at Southampton in 1673, and Jean Agace at Canterbury in 1676. The descendants of the latter preserved the memory of their Huguenot descent for more than two centuries later, four of them having sat on the Board of Directors of the French Hospital, namely, Zachary Agace (elected in 1759), Abdias Agace (1763), Jacob Agace (1764), and Daniel Agace (1788). The name was sometimes spelt Agache. Through the obliging courtesy of the late Registrar-General and his successor, I made as copious notes from the French registers in Somerset House as my occasional holiday time would permit. Besides these registers, I have had the advantages of imprints of others, namely, the Westminster Abbey Registers, edited and annotated by the late Colonel Chester; the Registers of the Dutch Church of London, edited by William John Charles Moens, Esq.; the Register of Canterbury Cathedral, edited by Robert Hovenden, Esq.; and several London Parochial Registers, edited for the Harleian Society by Colonel Chester and other genealogists. The Scotch registers in the Register Office have also been ransacked, by the kind permission of the Registrar-General for Scotland. Extracts from other registers I owe to various obliging correspondents.  

 

Hudibrastic caricatures of names and events have played shameful havoc with history. A Puritan Nonconformist of the days of Charles I. has had the name invented for him of “Praise-God Barebones,” and a more profane and impossible name has been coined for an imaginary brother. The register of Wandsworth lets in some light upon the family, thus:— “Sarai, daughter of Praise Barbone, was buried 13th April 1635.” Barbone was a leather-seller, whose shop in Fetter Lane had the sign of the Lock and Key; his only crime was that he was a lay-preacher, and he was apprehended as such on Sunday, 19th December 1641. The name Barbone was probably French, and originally Barbon. Among the deaths in London,