Page:Protestant Exiles from France Agnew vol 1.djvu/82

 and ended 1st December 1572. His coming was really an invasion. It was unconstitutional to bring and to quarter in the Netherlands an army from Spain. Margaret, the Regent of the Netherlands, protested to her half-brother, King Philip, against the mission of the Duke, and entirely resigned the government soon after. On 8th September 1567 Margaret wrote to Philip to the following effect:—

On the day after the date of this letter, the Duke treacherously apprehended Count Hoorn, Count Egmont, and other leading men. This (says the historian) “occasioned such a new terror that above 20,000 more quitted the land.” On 18th September, Lady Margaret issued a “placard,” “laying some severe penalties on those who should fly, and giving good words to such as should stay behind,” but without success. The Duke’s “Council of Tumults,” known as the Bloody Tribunal, acted upon a regulation, that all Netherlanders, except certain zealous Romanists known by name to the government, were heretics or abettors of heresy, having been guilty either by commission or by omission. There was thus no security for life or property. Multitudes now became refugees, not only because of conscientious Protestantism, but because, although Romanists, they had been tolerant in the past, and could, not face the spectacle of the future slaughter of their countrymen. Margaret soon resigned the government and left the country.

Although she was considered lukewarm by her royal brother, and believed concerning herself that she was pacifying the Netherlands by clemency, the persecution of Protestants was nothing new. Confining our attention to surnames afterwards known in refugee registers, we go back to March 1556-57, and we find that Robert Oguier and his wife, and their sons Baldwin and Martin, were burnt at Lisle in that month. The refugees of the name of Ogier were probably of the same clan; Anthoine Ogier had a daughter baptised at Canterbury in 1590. John Lanoy, an elder of the French Church, was burnt at Tournay, 27th November 1561. In the register of the French Church of London in 1603, Francoise, widow of Nicolas De Launoy, is mentioned. The elders of the French Church, who had a principal share in the agreement with the Prince of Orange at Antwerp, 2nd September 1566, had names of familiar sound — Francis Godin, John Carlier, Nicolas Du Vivier, and Nicolas Selin.

What the Regent Margaret called her policy of pacification began at Valenciennes in 1567, and by her judicial murders there she struck so much terror everywhere, that it was said, The governess found the keys of all the other cities at Valenciennes. Among the martyrs who suffered death at that city were Michel Herlin (the Governor) and his son; Guido de Bres and Peregrine de la Grange, ministers; Matthew de la Hay and Peter de la Rue, elders; and Roland le Bouc and Francis Patton, deacons. John Le Thieullier also died a martyr’s death at Valenciennes in this year or the next.

The city of Cambray had been so zealous as to drive away its archbishop, though they could not prevent his return in 1567. At so early a date as 1561, Anthony Karon was burnt at a stake at Cambray. The name of Caron was well known among Protestant refugees in England. Moyse Caron was a witness to a baptism in 1592 at Canterbury. (In 1634, at Canterbury, Jacques, son of Israel Caron, obtained a wife from another family originally of Cambray, namely, Anne, daughter of Esaie Loffroy; and in 1666 their son was married in London. Marie, a daughter of Israel Caron, was married at Canterbury, in 1630, to a native of Valenciennes, Simon Bourgeois, and their son Isaac Bourgeois, was born in 1647.)

The celebrated name of Lefroy is a Gallicised form of the true surname Loffroy. The family came from Cambray to Canterbury. Antoine Loffroy first appears in the register of baptisms in 1590. He died before 1611, the date of the marriage of his son, Esaie, a native of Cambray, and a resident in Canterbury. Sir Henry Lefroy has called attention to the ecclesiastical edict of 1586, promulgated in the diocese of Cambray, and enforced by civil penalties in 1587, requiring all persons in public life, of every description and grade, to sign a test and to declare 