Another eminent refugee from Ypres was Francis La Motte, son of Baldwin La Motte. Francis La Motte and Mary his wife fled from “the great persecution in the Low Countries under the bloody and cruel Duke of Alva.” They had hesitated whether their place of refuge should be Frankendale in the Palatinate or England, and providentially choosing the latter country they, in the fourth year of our Queen Elizabeth, settled at Colchester, having made “piety their chiefest and greatest interest, and the free exercise of religion their best purchase.” This phraseology I copy from the life of their son, John, included in Clarke’s Lives of sundry eminent persons in this later age (London, 1683), a life abridged from a separate memoir. To old Samuel Clarke I am indebted also for all the facts, except several dates and the contents of the will, which an obliging correspondent has furnished. John Lamot, or Lamott, or Lamotte, or La Motte, was born at Colchester on 1st May 1577, but when a young man he removed with his father to London. His father, who had been “very forward and industrious in setting up and promoting the great and useful manufacture of making Sayes and Bayes,” died in London. John Lamotte had, before his father’s death, begun business on his own account as a merchant. He is entered in the List of 1618, as an inhabitant of Broad Street, “John Lamot, born in Colchester, useing merchandizeing, free of the company of Weavers in London.” His parish was the parish of St. Bartholomew the Little, near the Royal Exchange. He served the public in various offices, and rose to be an alderman. His first wife was Ann Tivelin, widow of David King, and a daughter of refugee parents settled at Canterbury; he had two sons and eight daughters, but Hester and Elizabeth were the only children who grew up. His wife died in January 1626 (new style); she was buried in St. Bartholomew by the Exchange on the 30th. John Lamotte, Esq., married again in 1627, Elizabeth, widow of Levinus Munck, Esq.,[1] “one of the six clerks;” by her he had no children, and he was again a widower in 1644, Mrs Lamotte being buried on 22d October. He was for nearly thirty years an elder in the Dutch Church in London. “Every year, upon the 17th of November, which was the day when Queen Elizabeth came to the crown, that put an end to the Maryan Persecution, he made a feast;” and would stand up before his guests and make a good speech on the light of the Gospel and the national enjoyment of liberty “for so many years, the number whereof he would alwayes tell them what it was.” He devoted much of his income to benevolent donations, giving a share (as he himself put on record) to “the commonwealth, the service of God, the ministers, and the poor members of Christ.” “In that cruel and barbarous massacre in Piemont, not long before his death, when a general collection was made for those poor creatures who survived that storm, the minister and some other of the parish wherein he lived (St. Bartholomew’s Exchange) going to his house to see what he would contribute, and sending up word to him what was the occasion of their coming, he came to them and told them that they had had a collection in the Dutch Church for them where he had contributed twenty pound; and (saith he) the Devil hath tempted me to put you off with this answer, but he shall not prevail, and therefore here is ten pound for you more on this occasion.”
His daughter Hester was married, first, on January 28th, 1623 (new style), to John Mannyng, Esq., merchant, and second, to Sir Thomas Honeywood, knight, “of Marks-hal” in Essex. Her three children by her first husband died young, and of the seven children by her second husband there survived Elizabeth, Thomas, and John-Lamotte Honeywood. The other daughter Elizabeth was married on 19th July 1632 to Maurice Abbott, daughter of Sir Maurice, and niece of Archbishop Abbott; her married life was brief; she left a son, Maurice. John Lamotte, Esq., died on 13th July 1655, aged 78, and his will, dated May 23d, was proved on 8th August by Mr James Houblon of London, merchant, and by the testator’s grandson, Maurice Abbott. It is unnecessary to mention the domestic portion of the will, except that it contains a legacy to his stepson, Rev. Hezekias King. His charitable bequests were £5 to the poor of the parish of St. Bartholomew, and £20 for a weekly lecture on Sunday afternoon; £100 to the Dutch Church in London, and another £100 for maintaining their minister, also to the French Church in London, to churches in Colchester and other places, to the poor in hospitals, prisons, &c, many bequests. He also left a letter to his daughter, and to his four grandchildren, containing benedictions and exhortations, and concluding, “I would have every one of you to be zealous for the service of God — heartily affectionate to the poor members
- ↑ Mr Munck was a refugee from Brabant, and is entered in the list of 1618 as an inhabitant of Lime Street Ward, where he is styled a gentleman, and stated to have been naturalized by Act of Parliament in the first year of King James; it is added, “hee is clark of his Matys signet.”
