Page:Protestant Exiles from France Agnew vol 2.djvu/353

 dropsy. God took her to Himself, after great suffering, on Friday 14th January 1709. God grant that we may profit by her good example and exhortations. She was buried in the same place as my late father, in the parish of St. James’s, London, on the 17th January. The pall was borne by six ministers.”

The Rev. Daniel Chamier died at the early age of thirty-seven. Quick says that he was a young man of rare parts, and that he adorned his name and family.

&#42;&#8270;* The above biography is abridged from (1) “Memoir of Daniel Chamier,” London, 1852; and from (2) Daniel Chamier, avec de nombreux documents, per Charles Read, Paris, 1858; from which books and from other sources I have to compile an account of the Refugee Family of Chamier in another chapter.

 

The surname of D’Aubus, or Daubuz, was taken from the Seigncurie of Aubus in Poitou. Records of the honours and noble alliances of the ancient Seigneurs are abundant, but we begin with a branch of the family at Auxerre, the head of which was Charles D’Aubus (born 1550, died 1639). He seems to have spent his life at Nerac, in the province of Guienne, probably as a pasteur, and to have been succeeded in the pastoral charge by a son and grandson. Charles (sen.) published, in 1626, a tractate against the Capuchins, especially as begging friars; and his son Charles (jun.), who was born about 1600, also was an author. The grandson was Isaye, born in 1637, pasteur at Nerac, and his wife’s Christian name was Julie. He was happy in having powerful friends at court, and he accordingly obtained the king’s permission to sell his property and to retire to England with his family.

The following is a translation of the royal permit, the original of which is still in the possession of one of his descendants; it is signed by Louis XIV., and by the younger Colbert (Marquis de Seignelay):—

“To-day, the second day of July 1685, the king being at Versailles, and taking into consideration the very humble petition made to him by Isaye D’Aubus, heretofore minister of the Pretended Reformed Religion at Nerac, praying leave to retire into Fngland with his wife and four children, and to sell all their property in France, His Majesty is graciously pleased to grant them his permission to that effect, and in virtue of this his decree releases them from the rigour or penalty of any of his Ordonnances to the contrary. To which it is His Majesty’s pleasure to affix his own signature, and at his command this is countersigned by me his Councillor and Secretary of State and of his Commandments and Finances.”

The emigrants took their departure accordingly; but perhaps from agitation in the prospect of exile, he died at Calais in an inn. He was aged forty-eight only. Dreading any insult from priests or people, the widow begged the innkeeper for leave to bury her husband in his garden privately. The good man helped her to dig his grave, and there the pasteur was buried during the night. She remained at the inn until a brother of her husband arrived, and he, personating her husband, as named in the royal passport, got the whole party safe into England; it is said that this brother-in-law had joined them from York, where he himself had settled; at all events it was to York that Madame D’Aubus came with her fatherless children. These children, according to my information, were three sons and one daughter — this daughter lived to marry Monsieur La Roche, who took the name of Porter, and she was the mother of Sir James Porter, Ambassador at Vienna; the youngest son was named Louis; but we are concerned with Charles, the eldest (or eldest surviving) son.

I began my list of the ancestry of this family with Charles D’Aubus, or “Charles, sen.”; (I cannot for the purposes of this new edition remember my authority), but probably I ought to have begun with Jean, perhaps a brother of the said “Charles, sen.” For Ralph Thoresby was informed by the refugee Charles that his great-grandfather was Jean DAubus, Doctor of the Civil Law. (Thoresby’s “Diary,” vol. i., page 416, note) According to this information, the refugee boy ought to be described as Charles, son of Isaye, son of Charles, son of Jean.

Charles Daubuz was born at Agen in the province of Guienne, in July 1673, and was thus a refugee at the age of twelve. His early education was at a private school in York. From his birth he was destined for the Christian ministry, and Providence placed him in the Church of England. He was admitted as a sizar to Queen’s