Page:Protestant Exiles from France Agnew vol 2.djvu/530

 





French Protestant refugees in Edinburgh were formed into a congregation in the year 1682. The ministry was collegiate, and one of the colleagues had always the name of Du Pont, and on the death of the last of that name the church was shut up. That was in 1786, and the Scots Magazine (repeating what the octogenarian divine was probably in the habit of saying) recorded that he and his father had held the charge for “four years more than a century.” During the Presbyterian ascendency, a noble lady had founded Lady Yester’s Church, which was opened, and a parish was annexed to it. But when Charles II. established prelacy, the church was shut up, and the parish re-annexed to the Tron Church. It appears, therefore (although few things in those days were minuted in the Town Council books) that the French Protestants had applied for a place of worship, and that the Lord Provost, Magistrates, and Town-Councillors allowed them the use of Lady Yester’s Church in the year 1682. The two ministers were Rev. Francois Loumeau Du Pont and his father; I put the son’s name first, because the father’s baptismal name has not been handed down. However, as the son was naturalized at Westminster in 1685 (see List x.), we may conjecture that the father made a journey south for the same purpose two years afterwards, and that he is the “Philip Du Pont, clerk” naturalized in 1687 (see List xiii.), especially as the Edinburgh ministers signed themselves Du Pont [not Dupont]. Some of the baptisms and marriages in the French Church are to be found in the register of the City of Edinburgh; but such entries are so few that the church must have had a register of its own, which, however, disappeared, perhaps at the sale of Mr. Du Pont’s library in 1786.

The clear evidence of the French Protestants having had the use of Lady Yester’s Church, is the circumstance of their being turned out of it. King James VII. desired the chapel belonging to the Palace of Holyrood House both as his private Roman Catholic chapel and also as the Chapel of the Order of the Thistle, and expressed his desire in a Royal Warrant, dated 29th May 1687. His Majesty wrote several times to the Town Council in order that a temporary church might be provided for the parishioners of the Canongate parish, who had hitherto worshipped at Holyrood, and were to have a new church built for them. The result was announced at a meeting of the Scottish Privy Council on 12th July 1687. Lord Fountainhall, who was present, has noted as to the Abbey Church or Chapel of Holyrood House — “It was adjusted that the keys should be immediately delivered to the Chancellor; and the inhabitants of the Canongate were ordained to go to the Lady Yester’s Church; and the French minister and congregation were put out of it to the High School or Commonhall.” The Town Council indited a minute on the following day, which, after stating the circumstances, concludes thus:—

“Therfor they recomend to the Dean of Gild to cause deliver the keyes of the said Ladie Zester’s kirk befor ffryday next, and because the ffrench minister has this long tyme bygane preached in the said Ladie Zester’s kirk, therfor they appoint him to preach in the comon hall of the Colledge, quhich they think most fitt for accomodating the french congregation, during the councell’s pleasure.” 