in very good order, with the loss of about 150 men.” Langallerie says, “they performed wonders.” A journal printed at the Hague observes, “The Earl of Galway behaved himself with his usual prudence and bravery, but had the same fate as at Almanza, that is, to be abandoned by the Portuguese, which I hope will deter him or any other general in future to venture upon any battle in so wretched a company.” On Thursday, 29th September 1709, Montandre arrived in London to give the Queen a report of affairs in Portugal, and did not return to the camp, the Portuguese government having apparently resolved to limit military operations to the mere defence of the frontier. He was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant-General, 1st January 1710.
This auspicious year was the year of his marriage. His bride was Mary Ann Spanheim, only daughter of Ezekiel, Baron de Spanheim, Ambassador Extraordinary from the King of Prussia, and grand-daughter to the elder Frederick Spanheim, Divinity Professor, latterly at Leyden, but, at the date of Ezekiel’s birth, at Geneva. There the said Ezekiel (born in 1629) was brought up under the best French Protestant influences, his mother being Charlotte Du Port, daughter of a gentleman of Poitou. His diplomatic life began under the Elector Palatine. In 1679 he entered the service of Prussia, and was Ambassador at Paris from 1680 to 1689. “After the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes he did several good offices to many French Protestants, who, being afraid of appearing in public, retired into his house till they could get out of France; he did not do it without running some hazaid, but, being very zealous for his religion, he rather chose to run some hazard than to refuse his assistance to many honest people who knew not where to hide themselves.” A postscript to a letter to the learned Le Clerc from the venerable Baron, dated London, May 16, 1710, announced his daughter’s marriage thus:—
“I believed you would suffer me rather to dictate this letter than to write it with my own hand, that it might be more legible; and to add, that the Almighty has been so gracious to me as to dispose of my daughter in a very honourable marriage (the only child He left me) this day fortnight. Her husband is the Marquis de Montandre, a chief of a branch of the House of Rochefoucauld in France, and who is a Lieutenant-General in the Queen’s service, and a man of confessed merit in other respects.”
Le Clerc completed his account of the life of Baron de Spanheim, from which I have quoted,[1] by saying:—
“He was so happy as to see, before he died, his only daughter married to the Marquis de Montandre, a lord of great merit, and the worthy spouse of a lady who has been highly esteemed everywhere, and particularly at the Court of England.”
The marriage was solemnised on the 21st April (old style), and the Baron’s lamented death took place on the 14th of the following November. The Marquise de Montandre received from the Queen the present of 1000 guineas usually given to a foreign ambassador on his bidding farewell to the British Court. The Baron De Spanheim, as a most distinguished scholar and statesman was buried in Westminster Abbey; he had been a widower since 5th January 1707, when Lady Spanheim died at Chelsea. Notwithstanding the many displacements which followed a change of ministry, the Marquis de Montandre retained his regiment, which (according to the enumeration at that date) was the 52d foot; it was placed on the Irish Establishment.[2]
In the reign of George I., the Marchioness’s German birth and mother tongue, combined with her accomplishments and excellences, secured for her the gracious notice of the king. This appears from Lady Cowper’s diary, which has the following entries: — December 6, 1714 — In the evening went out to sup at Madame Montandre’s to wait upon the king. April 27, 1720 — At St. James’s with Madame de Montandre.
George II. was Montandre’s chief royal benefactor. On the 16th January 1728, and in the first year of his reign, His Majesty appointed him Master (or Master-General) of the Ordnance in Ireland. This office he seems to have discharged principally by deputy. His residence continued to be in London, and he held the Irish office for life. His seal is still preserved; I saw it in the possession of the late Sir Erasmus Borrowes, who had obtained it from the Des Voeux family. His arms
- ↑ “Memoirs of Literature,” vol. ii., art. 80; 2d Edit., 1722. [For Spanheim’s Letter sec an “Account of the Life and Writings of Mr. John Le Clerc,” London, 1712.]
- ↑ June 1717. — A proclamation was published in Ireland, promising a reward of £20 each for the apprehending of Forbes Latimer, a sergeant, and five privates, in the regiment of Montandre and the troop of Colonel La Bouchalier, who were the ringleaders of a mutiny in which many others were concerned, who refused to be disbanded according to the King’s orders. — Historical Register.
