Page:Protestant Exiles from France Agnew vol 2.djvu/516

 

(See the Chassereau Pedigree, by Henry Wagner, F.S.A.)  

This refugee family, which sometimes spelt its name De Comarque or De Comarc, can be traced backwards to France by the help of Quick’s “Synodicon.” French names were not spelt by Quick with literal accuracy, but often with alterations, so as to give Englishmen an idea of the French pronunciation. In a list of ministers of the Reformed Church of France in 1637, he gives “John Comarc,” pasteur of Verteuill, Russet, and Castel-Renaud in the Colloquy of Angoumois. At the National Synod, which met at Alengon on 27th May 1637, one of the clerical deputies from the Provincial Synod of Xaintonge, was “John Commarc, pastor of the church of Verteuil.” Opposite his name Mr. Quick, writing in 1692, gives a marginal note, There be two of his sons ministers and exiles here in England. Here, however, I must leave a blank, and come to grandsons. Nichols informs us that there were two brothers (probably sons of one of the refugee ministers). He thus describes them:—

(1.) Rev. David Comarque, educated at Canterbury, entered Bene’tBenet’s [sic] College, Cambridge, in 1717; B.A., 1720; M.A, 1726; Rector of West Halton, Lincolnshire, married, 23rd January 1723, a daughter of the late Peter Reneu, Esq. (See under in this chapter).

(2.) Reynald Comarque, student of physic at Cambridge, M.B. and M.D., 1728. (He is twice named among the subscribers to Laval’s History in 1737 as “Dr. De Comarc,” and “Mr. Comarques, M.D.,” and is evidently the same person as the Director of the French Protestant Hospital, “René de Comarque, M.D.,” elected on 5th April 1738).  

Jean Debonnaire was a refugee from St. Quentin in or about 1685 in London, as was his grown-up son, Pierre. The father appears in Threadneedle Street on 31st March 1688 as a widower, to be betrothed to Esther L’Epine, also of St. Quentin, whom he marries on April 16. His first wife’s name was Marie de la Cour; she was the mother of the above-named Pierre Debonnaire, a silk-weaver, who married in 1687 in the English Church, Esther Saint-Amand, a native of Paris, daughter of Matthieu St. Amand, silk-weaver, whose Will was proved at London, 18th July 1690. This couple were the parents of Marie, baptized in the beginning of 1688, and Ester in the following December, and of Pierre, baptized 24th May 1691; they had another son, John Debonnaire of Bromley, distiller, who died in 1747; and other two daughters, Esther, wife of Paul Nicholas Savignac, and Elizabeth, wife of Peter Lefebure. Pierre Debonnaire, the refugee, died in 1732. Pierre, born in London, became Peter Debonnaire, merchant in Lawrence Lane, and died 1733,