Page:Protestant Exiles from France Agnew vol 1.djvu/291

 Phlippo” on 15th April 1625. There seem to have been two Elies, senior and junior. The latter married Marie Desquire in 1633, and a Jcnne Philippo was married to Jan Lempreur in 1684 (see Burn).

In 1646 Onias Phillippo was reprimanded by the consistory of the French Church for having been married without annonces (or banns); but he regained the confidence of the congregation and was elected an ancien; as such he signed the Discipline on 2d December 1658 as “Onias Phlipo”;. he is registered as a father on 6th January 1650. He signalized himself by his kindness to the Huguenot refugees from the dragonnades of Louis XIV. A colony of these industrious exiles had been formed in Ipswich in 168 1; in the following year some of them came to Norwich. The Rev. Francis Blomefield, in his History of Norfolk, writes, “On the 19th of May 1682, a company of French Protestants came from Ipswich to Onias Philippo who had hired a great house at Pockthorp Gates, Norwich, and employed them there. This occasioned a mutiny which came to that height that the mob broke open one of their houses and misused a woman so that she died in the second or third day after. The French that dwelt there were forced to quit the street that night.” Again he says, “The poor, being still discontented with the French which were left in the city, took occasion to assemble at the execution of a malefactor; and coming in a large body into the market-place, they declared that the French came to underwork them, and that they would quit the city of them. Accordingly, going to Mr. Barnham’s in St. Andrew’s parish, they pulled them and their goods out of their houses, abused their persons, &c, till the trained bands [militia] were raised to appease them, when the principals were taken and made to pay dear for their folly.”

The most famous man of the Philippo family was not Elias but Elisha. He signed the Discipline as an ancien on 2d December 1658; his signature was “Elisha Phillippo.” Elizabeth, wife of Elizé (i.e., Elisée, the French word for Elisha) Philippo, appeared as a sponsor at a baptism on 10th July 1653. Blomefield (History, vol. ii., p. 291) writes, “In 1672 Mr. Elisha Philippo, soap-boiler, a Frenchman, was chosen High Sheriff of Norfolk, and carried out his office with much reputation.” An English county gentleman is chosen by the crown to fill the office of High Sheriff and serves for one year only. Part of the existing property of the French Church of Norwich is “An Annuity of £5 under the Will of Elisha Phillippo”; his Will was dated 25th August, and proved 6th December 1678 in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury.  

Refugees bearing this illustrious surname came to this country at an early date. Romieu de Villeneuve was the famous prime-minister of Raymond de Berenger, Comte de Provence in ancient times. The historical facts concerning him are preserved in a comparatively modern printed book entitled, “Histoire de l’incomparable administration de Romieu, grand ministre d’estat en Provence lorsqu’elle etoit en souveraineté, ou se voyent les effects d’une grande sagesse et d’une rare fidelité ensemble, le vray modele d’un ministre d’estat et d’un surintendant de finances. Par le Sr. Michel Baudier, du Languedoc, gentilhomme de la maison du Roy, Con$er.$ et Historiographe de Sa Majesté. A Paris, chez Jean Camusat, Rue Saint-Jacques à la Toyson d’Or, 1635. Avec Privilege du Roy.” The family was noble and survived as such, although the prime-minister’s descendants died out in the third or fourth generation after him. Yet I hardly think that our refugees belonged to it. During the lapse of so long a time the surname of Romieu, like the Scotch surnames of Bruce, Stewart, Douglas, and Hamilton, must have become undistinguishably blended with the general population. A family of the name settled in London in the first half of the seventeenth century, and are met with in the parish of St. Dionis Backchurch. The registrar sometimes spelt the name Romaea, but it is sometimes spelt correctly. The head of the family, who is called “Isaac Romieu, Frenchman,” died in 1646, and was buried in the churchyard of St. Dionis Backchurch, on August 16. His widow was laid in the grave beside him on 16th July 1649. The baptisms of two children of Isacke Romieu were registered in the parish church, namely, Jacob, on 16th February 1637 (n.s.), and Ester, on 2d October 1645. These seem to have survived their parents, and to have removed from the parish. 