recommended that he should be created M.A., which was done on 26th January 1676 (n.s.). William Rogers of Lincoln’s Inn, a Romish proselyte, having circulated a pamphlet defaming De Luzancy, was, in the August following, arraigned before His Majesty in Council and severely reprimanded.
During his residence in Oxford, De Luzancy published two books, viz., “Reflections on the Council of Trent” (1677), and “A Treatise against Irreligion” (1678). His academic leisure ceased in the end of 1679, when he was presented by Bishop Compton to the vicarage of Dover-Court, in Essex; the town and chapel of Harwich were in the parish, and hereafter he is often styled minister of Harwich. On 16th November 1679 he was naturalized at Westminster as Hippolitus Luzancy. Anthony Wood sneeringly endorses the accusations against him, but the steady support which he received from his bishop seems to be his complete vindication. In Harwich he married, and lived unmolested. He interested himself in politics. From him Samuel Pepys, as an unsuccessful candidate for the representation of Harwich in the convention of Parliament summoned by the Prince of Orange, received the following letter of condolence:—
“7th January 1689. — Sir, — I have been desired by your friends to send you the enclosed paper, by which you may easily be made sensible how we are overrun with pride, heat, and faction, and unjust to ourselves to that prodigious degree as to deprive ourselves of the greatest honour and advantage which we could ever attain to, in the choice of so great and so good a man as you are. Had reason had the least place amongst us, or any love for ourselves, we had certainly carried it for you. Yet if we are not by this late defection altogether become unworthy of you, I dare almost be confident that an earlier application of the appearing of yourself or Sir Anthony Deane will put the thing out of doubt against the next parliament. A conventicle set up here, since this unhappy Liberty of Conscience, has been the cause of all this. In the meantime my poor endeavours shall not be wanting; and though my stedfastness to your interests these ten years has almost ruined me, yet I shall continue as long as I live your most humble and most obedient servant,De Luzancy.”
He was made a chaplain to the Duke of Schomberg (whose second title was Marquis of Harwich), and also to the second duke. In 1690, on the death of the first duke, he published two obituary brochures — one styled a Panegyric, and the other an Abridgment of his Life (Abrégé de la vie, &c). He has chronicled very few facts regarding the illustrious marshal, but he displays his own acknowledged eloquence to considerable advantage. He obtained the degree of B.D., and published in 1696 a volume of “Remarks on several late writings published in English by the Socinians, wherein is shown the insufficiency and weakness of their answers to the texts brought against them by the orthodox, in Four Letters, written at the request of a Socinian gentleman.” In 1701 he published “A treatise of the two sacraments of the gospel Baptism and the Lord’s Supper according to the Scriptures and the doctrine of the Fathers.” On its title-page he is styled “Vicar of Dover-Court and Harwich.” Bishop Compton continued his friend, and through his patronage he was translated to the vicarage of South-Weald on 15th December 1702. Here he spent the last years of his life. He published “A Sermon preached at the Assizes for the County of Essex, held at Chelmsford, March the 8th, 1710, before the Honourable Mr. Justice Powell. By H. de Luzancy, B.D., Vicar of Southweald, in the said County. London, 1711.” [1710 must be according to the old style.]
Mr. De Luzancy appears to have been in London in the month of April 1713, when he died. He was buried at South Weald, the 20th day of April 1713.
IV. De La Motte.[1]
Francis de la Motte and Hippolite Luzancy are the only two names in the Grant of Naturalization, dated at Westminster, 16th November 1679. De la Motte, like Luzancy, preached an Abjuration Sermon in the French Church in the Savoy in 1675. The former does not mention a month and a day; but as he is named first in the Grant, and as his sermon is advertised as already published, upon Luzancy’s printed sermon, we may conclude that he abjured first. The title-page of De la Motte’s sermon is:—
“The Abominations of the Church of Rome discovered in a Recantation Sermon lately preached in the French Church of the Savoy, whereunto are added many curious particulars of the practices of the Papists beyond the seas. By Franc. de la Motte, late Preacher of the Order of the Carmelites newly converted to the Church of England. English’d. London: Printed by W. G., and are to be sold by Moses
- ↑ At a much later dale a military officer, proprietor of the estate of La Motte, near Courtray, who had settled at Utrecht, was converted to Protestant faith. See the pamphlet, “The Conversion of Francis de Chalus, Sieur de la Motte, and all his family to the Reformed Religion;” done out of French, by Mr. Rawlins. London, 1714.
