selves Romanists. This, combined with family tradition, gives the probable year of the flight of the Loffroys. If we suppose that Antoine Loffroy and his wife became refugees in 1587, we may safely say that Esaie, who had been born in Cambray, was conveyed to Canterbury as an infant. In that hospitable city other children were born, the baptism of David, in 1590, being the first written evidence of his father’s settlement in England. The modern families of Lefroy spring from Esaie, the refugee babe.
Although we have not materials enabling us to picture an ancestor sentenced by Duke Alva, or to trace the flight of a Loffroy refugee from Cambray, we know the arms and motto of the family, both of which connect it with the patriots of the long years of persecution. The motto is mutare sperno (I scorn to change), and in the arms there is a red cap of no stereotyped heraldic pattern, but a special figure, probably copied from the burlesque costume of a beggar in a masquerade. Thus there is brought before us the historical scene when the patriots of the Netherlands vociferated in the faces of prelates and grandees, The beggars never change. In 1566 the Count of Barlemont, observing that the Regent Margaret was alarmed at the coming of a multitude of Protestants to her Court, said, “Madame, are you afraid of those beggars (ces gueux)?”; some have reported that he pointed at them and said, “What a brave company of gueux!” The Protestants and their political sympathisers accepted the designation. In the English language, those of them who maintained the confederacy at home were called gueuxes; and at a later date their sailors, who manned the privateers of the fleet of the beggars, were called water-gueuxes. Their watchword was Vivent les Gueux! Their medals, having the king’s head on the obverse, had, on the reverse, a beggar’s wallet held between two right hands, with the motto, Fidèles an Roi jusques à la besace. They wore a livery of grey cloth, and perhaps the Loffroy armorial bearing has handed down the pattern of their livery cap. At their public dinners they sang the following couplet:—
“Par ce pain, par ce sel, et par cette besace,
Jamais les Gueux ne changeront pour chose que Ton fasse.”
Philippe de la Motte, minister of the French Church, Southampton, from 1586 to 1617, can be positively connected with Alva’s persecutions and their weary sequel.[1] The following details from “Smiles’ Huguenots” apply to him (though the chronicler calls him Joseph). He was born at Tournay, of Roman Catholic parents, and was apprenticed to a silkman in his native town. His master was a Protestant. De la Motte became a convert to his religion, and on the outbreak of the Duke of Alva’s persecution, the young man removed to Geneva. In that academic retreat he studied theology, and was ordained to the ministry. He returned to Tournay, ostensibly as his old master’s journeyman, but also as minister to the Protestants, who had to worship secretly. A family manuscript, quoted by Mr Smiles, contains the following narrative:— “An information having been given against him to the Inquisition, they sent their officers in the night to apprehend him; they knocked at the door, and told his master (who answered them) that they wanted his man. He, judging who they were, called De la Motte; and he immediately put on his clothes, and made his escape over the garden wall with his Bible, and travelled away directly into France to St Malo. They, believing him to be gone the nearest way to the sea coast, pursued towards Ostend, and missed him. From St Malo he got over to Guernsey, and from thence to Southampton, where, his money being all gone, he applied himself to the members of the French Church there, making his condition known to them. Their minister being just dead, they desired he would preach to them the next Sabbath day, which accordingly he did, and they chose him for their minister.” On 20th November 1586 he married Judith des Maistres, a native of Armentieres. I find twelve children registered in the book of Southampton French Church, where the marriage took place, five daughters and seven sons, who founded families, spelling the name Delamotte. He died 6th May 1617, and the register styles him ministre de la Parole de Dieu de fameuse memoire. He was honoured with a public funeral.
Before the year 1567 fugitives from persecution came to England for shelter, but probably with no expectation or fixed resolution of taking root. In the year 1561 the Primate and the Dean[2] granted to the fugitives in Canterbury the use of the
- ↑ While John Utenhove died in peace in London before 156S, as superintendent of the refugee congregation, his kinsman, Antony Uitenhove, a gentleman of Ghent, was a victim of the Bloody Tribunal. “Smiles’Alva roasted him alive, tying him, for the diversion of the Spaniards, to a long chain, and turning him round the stake, which was encompassed with a circle of fire, till the guards, moved with the painful and tedious sacrifice, despatched him with their halberds in spite of the Duke.” — Brandt.
- ↑ There is no grant by Royal Charter, though there is a tradition of royal charters from Elizabeth and Charles II., and even from Edward VI. If there were any such, they were lost.
